We all approach words in specific ways based on what we know about them:
We don’t read a menu at a restaurant in the same way that we read a newspaper article;
We don’t read song lyrics in the same way that we read a caption on social media;
We don’t read a program at the theatre in the same way that we read movie subtitles…
It’s hard to imagine because it happens so quickly and subconsciously, but we put on different sets of lenses before we read… well, anything, really.
As a child, we used to make telescopes to play with by taping colored cellophane paper over cardboard tubes. This allowed us to see the world in whatever color we desired. The lenses that we wear become the way that we interpret or make sense of what we see. Whether we are aware of it or not, we all approach everything that is placed in front of us with at least a few preconceived ideas.
Since the Enlightenment, human beings have been called meaning-making-machines for a reason. We crave understanding and want to make sense of what we see, but we need to be wearing the right lenses in order to do so.
In the same way that there are different ways to approach different texts, there are different ways to approach reading the Bible. In the first chapter of The Great Story and The Great Commission, author Christopher Wright describes the term ‘missional hermeneutic’. This means putting on missional lenses when reading and interpreting the Bible. Now, we read the Bible from the perspective of the mission of God and His people.
Mission is a term that means ‘to send’ and is understood as the vocation or calling of followers of Christ.
What you might not expect is that a missional hermeneutic goes beyond the well-known “mission texts” like Jesus sending out the seventy-two or the Great Commission. The mission of God, the missio Dei, is spread out over the whole Bible, not just certain parts of it. We need to read the entire Bible through a missional lens.
This is like saying: From now on we are wearing sunglasses everywhere, not only where we think the sun is shining directly on us. We are wearing sunglasses indoors too because the light of the sun reaches there!
Learning to read the Bible missionally is the starting point of all authentic mission. Such a theology of mission must be the foundation upon which all of our missional efforts are built. Theologian Andrew Kirk wrote: “Mission as a discipline is not the roof of a building that completes the whole structure, already constructed by blocks that stand on their own, but both the foundation and the mortar in the joints, which cements together everything else.”
The most dangerous words I ever heard a missionary say was this: “I haven’t read my Bible in a very long time.” If we are not busy learning about God’s mission, we are busy with our own senseless works which might be what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 7: ‘Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.’’.
In the words of Theologian D.J. Bosch: “Scripture without experience is empty, and experience without Scripture blind”. All of our good works for the Kingdom, however big or small, must slot into and submit to God’s big mission. We are to ‘declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous deeds among all peoples’ (1 Chronicles 16:24).
Let’s put on our missional hermeneutic lenses when reading the Word so that we might become people who can work alongside God and see His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
Eljoh Hartzer is combining theology and art to nurture faith journeys across generations. She is a masters-level practical theologian with the University of Stellenbosch. She is also a writer and editor in the niche of Christianity and children’s content and she illustrates children’s books. Eljoh resides in the Swartland area in the Western Cape province of South Africa. She is a staff writer at Missional University focusing on missional theology and practice.
