Some Clarifying

This post is an attempt to answer some questions that have arisen from my post yesterday. This is a first, and I will attempt to answer questions in some sort of order they have been asked.
1. Does Scripture give us principles for doing missions?
In a word, no. This answer isn't reflective of missions, it is reflective of Scripture and "principles." I am not sure if there has been a more dangerous reading of the Bible than the one searching for principles for anything. Not only is this not the way Scripture has been read, or should be read, nothing should be read this way (which does sound a bit like a principle). Principles tend toward universal, nuggets hidden away in remarkably crucial passages in the middle of 1 Kings. That they are hidden is a problem I will leave to a different post in the future, that they are "universal" is our more pressing concern, particular in the discussion of mission. The point is that under the guise of all truth is God's truth, at best, or it just makes sense at worse, Scripture is put to the service of prinicples in all fields. If we have determined that the best way to run a company is to be honest, no doubt Scripture teaches that honest buisiness practices makes good bosses. In this case that may be true (but for really ass backwards reasons), but when applied to something ridiculous like choosing a company computer we are left to decide if Eve eating an "Apple" and sinning is a more helpful priniciple than bearing "fruit." That's absurd. The point, now longer than I meant, is that when we read in principles, Scripture as God's word transforming its hearers comes second. Scripture is not the given. Scripture must hold up to the knowledge we already have, not transform that knowledge. Put another way, our reading of Scripture this way assumes us, but not God, which is the exact opposite problem of the Incarnation.

2. Jesus is not a cross cultural missionary because....
This reading of the Incarnation assumes Jesus to be out side of culture in the first place. Likewise, this reading almost always focuses on Jesus' "Public Ministry" thus privileging the end of his life and ignoring the beginnings (which Scripture does tend to do). What develops though is not an argument from silence, but an argument of silence. We do not have an account of what he said, so he must have said nothing- which is bunk. It assumes that Jesus' oral teaching is the only way in which he could have embodied a culture, or spoken against another. There's more here, but its sort of tied to a third question.

3. Am I saying what this guy (http://www.theopraxis.net)is saying?
Yes and no. The conclusion of his article is spot on, but I think he may be couching the discussion in odd terms. As I read his blog, it does seem like those terms were set by Frost, so it probably is not his fault. The Incarnation screws everything up, and by everything I mean categories adn principles. It also thoroughly has to play with our concept of the "word of God." That the word of God was made flesh is a particularly nasty critique of the disembodied, universalized, culture-less (allegedly), way we have been taught to approach Scripture. If Scripture is not Jesus, then its not really the Word of God. (More on this later in a post on Barth and Scripture). God hasn't sent us these sort of decontextualized, true forever everywhere, universal, foundational, absolute, truth principles he has sent us himself clothed in flesh, to live and walk among us, to die for and with us, that we might live.


That's all for now. More to come.