Mission in the Old Testament Introduction
Blog By N.k Dimand
M.Div final year student
Why would anyone be “interested in missions?” Often it goes back to a moving in the spirit or to an emotional response to a missionary speaker who described the need of thousands or millions who are suffering now and will be for eternity. Such emotional responses are easily experienced and just as easily disappear, especially in the midst of the mundane, problematic and sometimes miserable circumstances of living cross-culturally. Home never looked so good.
However noble, the willingness to undertake the difficult tasks of mission, emotional motivations will be so tested and overwhelmed with everything from conflicts to grief that one begins to wonder, “Why am I here?” When in the midst of the jungle, the desert or a mega-city, by far the deepest motivation that never fades or varies is the deep conviction gleaned from in-depth Bible study that it is God who wants this people group to know about Himself. You cannot quit until you can say “mission accomplished.” It does not matter how much you may be hurting, how disillusioned, frustrated or frightened. You must be convinced that world evangelization is what is most on His heart … it is and it always has been. The confidence that you know “lo, I am with you to the ends of the earth” has special meaning to you. Then it is possible to say, “I’ll go through anything if He goes with me. If reaching this people is the eternal value on His heart, then I’ll make it the same in my heart … no matter how I feel.”
Mission is rooted in the nature of God, who sends and saves. When Adam and Eve acquiesced to Satan's temptations in the Garden of Eden, God came searching for them, calling, "Where are you?" (Gen 3:9). This question testifies to the nature of God throughout all generations. He continually seeks to initiate reconciliation between Himself and His fallen creation. “God demonstrated His nature by sending His one and only Son into the world. The emphasis of John 3:16 is on God, who loved the world so much that He "gave." “This is the very nature of God. He is always giving, relating, reconciling, redeeming! He is the spring that gives forth living water -- the source of mission! From the very foundation of the world God has been the great initiator of mission, as vividly portrayed by the acts of God in both the Old and New Testament
To develop this conviction one must see the Bible as a whole, not as 39 books in the OT and 27 books in the NT with different messages, but one book with a global focus. If the Bible is God telling man what He is like, then you would expect to see mission through-out this revelation. This chapter will walk us through the development of this revelation. It is written with the objective that reader will allow God to inculcate His heart’s desires , touching the reader’s heart with His love for the nations. Walter Kaiser, professor of Old Testament and President of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, put it this way: the theme of mission is a "driving passion throughout the entire Old Testament" (Kaiser, 2000, p. 7).