John Stott on Missions and Authentic Christianity

Some challenging and helpful words, from the late John Stott (1921-2011)...

"...missions lies at the very heart of our generous God. The church without mission is a church no longer. Since an essential part of its identity is missing.

So, now listen, some of us need to repent. If we have allowed the missionary dimension of the church to drop out of our thinking, we need to repent. A church without mission is a church no longer. And if we have resisted or neglected the missionary dimension of the church, we must repent.

Now, tell me. Do you claim to believe in God? He is a missionary God! You tell me you are committed to Christ? He is a missionary Christ! You claim to be filled with the Spirit? He is a missionary Spirit! You tell me you belong to the church? It’s a missionary society! And you hope to go to heaven when you die? It’s a heaven into which the fruits of world mission have been gathered! So, we must get involved. We cannot stand aloof from the mission of God. The authentic Christianity of the Bible is not a safe, smug, selfish, comfortable, escapist, little religion. No, it is an explosive, centrifugal force. It pulls us out from our self absorption and it flings us into God’s world to witness and to serve."

[Source: https://us.langham.org/…/au…/our_god_is_a_missionary_god.mp3]

Sinclair Ferguson on Righteousness and Meritoriousness

I was listening to this old talk by Sinclair Ferguson, speaking about the attributes of God. By bouncing off of Deuteronomy 24:13, he makes some thoughtful and helpful comments on how we should think about the idea of "righteousness" as used in the Scriptures...

So we need to dissolve from our understanding of righteousness any notion of meritoriousness that may have crept into our thinking. Righteousness means integrity of relationship to the covenant requirements. And consequently righteous acts in Scripture are thus nuanced. Again, in terms of human righteousness, when the saints in the Old Testament appeal to their own righteousness, they are appealing not to some Old Testament principle of meritoriousness, but to the integrity of relationship in which they stand to God, in terms of the covenant with them he has made. And consequently, righteousness set within this covenant context, manifests itself, in a multifaceted way, and with a series of nuances. Thus for example, Geerhardus Vos, suggests there are at least five different categories employable to expound the nuances of righteousness. Barton Payne in his Theology of the Older Testament suggests that there are nine. But we who like to be simple believers will suggest that we can focus our attention on two of those aspects which point up the vital characteristic of divine righteousness, namely the principle that in Scripture the righteousness of God is manifested both in terrible condemnation and in merciful deliverance. And this is so because of the absolute integrity of God to the revelation he has given of himself in his covenant. And if we lack that perspective, we are bound to minimize in one direction or another, what the concept of divine righteousness means, either limiting it to retributive justice or to love and grace.