The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley. Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast.
SPEAKER_00Or for the first time, if you've never heard us before.
SPEAKER_02Yes. With a new intro.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's your brother, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02That's my brother Matt.
SPEAKER_00Hey. Hello, Matt.
SPEAKER_02Work doing media in a church in Tamworth.
SPEAKER_00He and he does like DJing stuff, doesn't he? He kind of he's got his own radio programme.
SPEAKER_02Uh he used to do that. I think he's he stopped doing that now. But uh yeah, he was on the radio, local radio for a for a time. Community station there. He's got a lot of ours. Okay.
SPEAKER_00He's got a good voice for it. Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say he has a good face for it, but that's a that's a cruel joke, isn't it? How dare I? But yes, no, he does have a that good spacey stereo kind of voice. That's good.
SPEAKER_02Good. Okay, well, this is part three of our series on social action.
SPEAKER_00That's right. And what is the mission of the church and how does social action fit into it, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So uh we've had two episodes before this. The first one was uh particular discussion about the Cinema Network's Faith Action Audit. Yes. And sort of like a survey basically of uh faith groups and their social work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it was like three billion pounds worth of volunteer hours basically given to the community, uh on top of a whole bunch of other stuff that churches do for the world. And you know, if you're asking, is faith a force for good in the world? Well, take a look at the Faith Action Audit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And then episode two, we looked at the um sort of the history side of social action and you know the different changes that happened in history.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so you know, you can think about Whitfield and the Wesleys kind of preaching the gospel, and all sorts of social action flowed from that. But I guess in the last forty years people have wanted to think of it less in terms of and this is the phrase that you helped us with last time, less in terms of a flow, uh, but more in terms of a balance. And we must balance uh kind of social action against evangelism. And that's kind of been been a very a dominating paradigm for the last forty years, and uh But it's not quite correct, is it? I don't think so. I don't think so. And and you know, I'm disagreeing with some great saints at that point, but I don't think it's been the most helpful way of thinking about the mission of the church to balance social action on the one hand against evangelism on the other hand. I think the flow thing, I'm I'm I'm with Andy Brinkley on this one. I I'm a brinkleyite, so I the brinklonian position, I think, is the superior one. That it it flows out of gospel proclamation, and yes, it will involve social action, um, but there is very much a front edge, there is very much an initiative that happens with the evangelism. Uh and we need to we need to maintain that sense of initiative and and priority to evangelism.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So hence this episode we're going to be looking at the theology sort of side of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um before we get into that, let me just do a plug for our Speak Life Daily. Um we have a a new booklet. Well, it's a it's a new improved version of our daily prayer bulletin.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02It's called the Speak Life Daily, and it's a pocket-sized booklet that tells stories of what God is doing around the world, plus it keeps you in touch with the ministry here. Um so if you'd like a copy, uh go to speaklife.org.uk slash sld. You can sign up via email or post.
SPEAKER_00Great. And how much would you expect to pay for such a document, Andy? Oh uh three thousand pounds? No, you'd be wrong. Not even two. Not even two. It's it's uh absolutely for free, and uh yeah. Hopefully it'll it'll help you. Uh there are some sort of devotional thoughts that are based on evangelism, trying to get you to uh think in terms of the goodness of the gospel and how you can share it that day. There are also points about our ministry and points about the gospel going out all over the world. So we hope you enjoy that. Do sign up for it.
SPEAKER_02So tell us about what you've been doing, Lynn, before we get into the the content. You went to Poland recently?
SPEAKER_00I did, I think. Yeah. Did I really? Yes, I was there for about Yeah, so last week I was I was there for four forty-eight hours, so Monday to Wednesday, part of the European Leadership Forum.
SPEAKER_02Why w that's why we missed the podcast episode, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's what I'll blame it on. Yeah. So there I was in Poland, and um yeah, there was about seven hundred other evangelical leaders seeking to reach Europe. And um yeah, lots of great stuff going on, lots of great people to meet, lots of great ministry that's happening uh in Europe, and um yeah, I got to speak a little bit about 321, a little bit about evangelism, a little bit about uh video ministry and social media ministry and web outreach in terms of evangelism, got to record some videos. It was a it was a yeah, a lot of stuff going on in 48 hours. So um yeah, that was that was really worth doing. That happens every year uh in in Poland and uh yeah, worth doing.
SPEAKER_02Good. And then you were at uh Worthing Tabernacle.
SPEAKER_00I was Worthing Tabernacle. What is that?
SPEAKER_02It's uh it's not like a tent in the field somewhere.
SPEAKER_00It's you would expect it to be. I was yeah, like, where's the sevenfold lampstand, man? Although I was um preaching on Exodus in the morning, and um they are going to actually erect a tabernacle, and they get it like a full size, they're gonna get all the bits of the city. So you can sort of see what it's like. Yeah, see what's going on in in uh you know chapters twenty-five and following in in Exodus, because so much of it is taken up with the tabernacle. So um but I was I was giving an introduction to Exodus in the morning and then I was preaching on uh Luke chapter six in the evening. But um yeah, no, it's a great church and and reaching out into into worthing there.
SPEAKER_02Good. Okay then. Well let's let's uh dive in then. Uh we've got to define some things. Uh what exactly is the mission of the church?
SPEAKER_00That's the big question, isn't it? When you when you start talking about, oh, the mission of the church is evangelism and uh people want to know what do you mean by mission, and and I think lack of clarity on that issue will multiply your problems down the line. Uh you could, couldn't you, go through the Bible and just pick up every single command that that God ever gives to his people in terms of what they should be about? And I don't know how many um commands you would get at the end of all that, um, but it would run into the hundreds, if not thousands, of things that God's God's people are meant to be doing at various points. Is it our job to kind of distill all those things into a helpful motto that we can put outside our churches and we'll end up just saying love Jesus and make Jesus known or something anyway, because that's what always happens with church mottos. Is that what the mission of the church is? I I don't think it's about collecting together every different commandment and trying to boil it down into its essence. I think I think maybe the clarifying question is for what purpose is the church sent into the world? That is the mission of the church. Um missio is the Latin word for sent. So, mission is about why the church has been sent into the world. And I think at that stage that starts to clarify things. There's there's all sorts of ways in which we're meant to love our neighbours ourselves, and there's all sorts of ways in which we're meant to take care of the poor, and etc. etc. etc. But for what purpose specifically are we sent into the world? And and I think, you know, you go to places like Matthew 28 or John 20, uh, Christ's great commissions, whether it's the the the Matthew version or the John Version, what you're talking about there is proclamation ministry. There is Jesus saying, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore you go. There's the mission, go, making disciples of all people, baptizing them in the in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you. So Jesus sends his church into the world on a disciple-making mission of word and sacrament, um, proclaiming Christ to the end that you might make disciples of the nations. So I think once we define mission in that sense, um, we've narrowed it down quite a bit there. We've got quite a narrow vision for mission. Mission is proclaiming Christ to the end that the nations might be discipled. Um that's quite narrow vision of mission, because you you're essentially saying mission is evangelism, right? Um but hopefully when you say mission is evangelism, you've got a very broad view of evangelism. Evangelism is taking the whole gospel to the whole person and and and all that kind of stuff. But uh I want to make a stand and want to make a plea for a focused definition of mission. It's not everything that God might have required of God's people at all times and places. It is the purpose for which we are sent into the world, and I think that's an evangelistic purpose.
SPEAKER_02Uh you you've mentioned already about f uh a flow and a balance uh in the last brinkleyism, yes.
SPEAKER_00Is it a flow or is it a balance?
SPEAKER_02It's a flow, yeah. It was you that said it.
SPEAKER_00Was it? I thought okay. I just summarized it. You coined it, okay. Alright. It's kept the brinkleism. You said flow and balance, and I just know that I'd said it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I well I think you did.
SPEAKER_00Go back and listen. Was it Glenn or was it Charles Adam Spurgeon who said, you know?
SPEAKER_02Anyway, um we were we were talking about social action flowing out from evangelism. Yes. Not being sort of uh, you know, b a balance between we're doing fifty percent evangelism, fifty percent um social action.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But where does that understanding come from?
SPEAKER_00I think the uh the original flow is the life of God, isn't it? The original flow is the father who, you know, has always been kind of thought of in terms of like a fountain head. That's been quite common in church history. Um, the father is the fountain of life, and you think back to Jeremiah 2, the Lord is the the fountain of living waters and that kind of thing. Yeah, he's a fountain head who is always pouring forth his spirit into his son and then sending his son into the world. So God himself is a flow. But when we get God wrong, I think that's where we get the sort of the mission and social action question wrong as well, because I I think so much of this balance talk comes from a doctrine of God that I don't think is trinitarian enough. Because you could think of God, you know, the the thing about God is on the one hand he's the God of creation, on the other hand, he's the God of salvation. On the one hand, he's into the physical, on the other hand, he's into the spiritual. On the one hand, he, you know, is about earth, on the other hand, he's about heaven. On the one hand, he's about creation, on the other hand, he's about redemption. I I don't think God balances things up like that at all. And if we're thinking in Trinitarian terms, we're thinking, no, actually, the Father has created the world through the Word, Jesus, and redeems the world through that same word. That the flow is not so much that God's got creation on one hand and redemption on the other hand, the flow really is in order to have a redeemed church, in order to have a redeemed people, he creates and redeems in a flow. Um and and that it's not it's not about balancing one thing against another, it's about the father sending the son who is Lord of creation and salvation into the world. But the father is all what the father is always doing is lifting up his son, proclaiming his son. Um what the spirit is always doing is lifting up the son, proclaiming the son. And so if that is the flow of God into the world, then mission can't be anything other than that. Because John chapter twenty, Jesus says, As the Father has sent me, so am I sending you. And just as the Father has lifted up the Son by the Spirit, so the Church goes into the world, lifting up the Son by the Spirit. Just as the Father has a word for the world, so the church carries that word for the world out into the world. So I I think I think the way in which we resist the balance paradigm and think of the flow paradigm is is primarily to think about who is God, and if God is this flow Christ offered to the world, then I think that's precisely the footing on which the church um stands with the world, offering Christ first and foremost. And maybe in the slipstream, well not maybe, definitely, in the slipstream, we take care of people's needs and we love the world and all that kind of stuff, but we love the world in offering them Christ, and evangelism has that priority.
SPEAKER_02But it you're not saying that uh you know there's a hierarchy in the Trinity, are you? That there's a flow coming from the Father is more important and then the spirit is you know second, and then all there's you know the other way around. Because that's that's uh a heresy from you know the early century monarchianism.
SPEAKER_00Ah, okay. Alright, yeah, yeah. When uh you know they they said so Subordinationism would be the real heresy, wouldn't it? That that the son is in terms of his being subordinate to the father.
SPEAKER_02Um So although there's a flow, that's not to say that they're any less Yes one is any less equal than the other.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_02If I could use say Yeah, any less equal.
SPEAKER_00No, that's that's exactly right. And and I think um what people say with regards to that is that there there is an ordering um in terms of their roles, but there is not an ordering in terms of their being. So the role, the father, is always sending the son. The son never sends the father. You know, and if you if you read in John's Gospel, you know, I and then I shall send the father and the father shall go. Yeah, no, that that wouldn't work. Well, you know, the spirit doesn't send the son. Um the spirit empowers the son as the father sends the son. So there is a shape to their life, and the father is always the one sending the son, the son never sends the father. So there's this you could talk about a hierarchy in terms of role, but you must never say it's a hierarchy in terms of being. Um the son is not a lesser being than the father. You know, if if you have a boss at work and your boss tells you what to do, okay, there's there is a hierarchy of roles there, but your boss is not a greater being than you are. Um, you know, and and in the same way, there is that hierarchy. But but because there is a hierarchy of role, that does mean a flow. That does mean a father sending out his son in the power of the spirit. Um, and because there's a flow, we go in that flow in order to offer Christ to the world. Um, and because it's offering Christ to the world, other things we might do in terms of digging wells and and looking after the poor must take their shape from that priority of offering Christ to the world.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so you might have convinced people that God has sort of a single-minded desire for mission. Uh look at if we look at the book of Genesis, we see how God provides um for uh Adam and Eve's physical needs and their spiritual needs. He walks with them in the garden. Um but uh how do we get away from that looking like a balance of physical and spiritual?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, does God's God balance the physical against the spiritual or in those sorts of ways. He certainly takes care of both kinds of needs. It's hol a holistic. We like the word holistic, that's a good word. Um it is, it totally is. Um and you can't get away from the fact that you know the Lord provides all the trees are hanging heavy with fruit and um provides for all their their actual physical needs as well as their spiritual needs. It comes, as you say, it comes walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Um and I'm all for being holistic in terms of of how we approach this world, and we can't just live in this intellectual realm of ideas, and we we're just into this idea called the gospel, we're not into any kind of physical practicalities called loving people. You can't you just can't do that. Um so whatever you do, when you say I want to be a gospely kind of person, that doesn't mean I'm gonna be an an aphysical kind of person and I'm not gonna bother myself with food and clothing and and all the practical needs that people have. But it is interesting in terms of this question, what is the ch mission of the church? What is the church sent into the world in order to do? Because it's absolutely true that I will spend a heck of a lot of money on my physical needs, and I will spend a heck of a lot of money on the physical needs of those who I love, and a certain amount on my spiritual needs, and that kind of thing, because we're physical beings and Genesis, it's a wonderful thing that we're physical beings and that kind of thing. But what is it that we are sent into the world to do? Let's think about Adam. What is he sent to do? What what is his what's the one thing he actually is is doing before the fall? Well his job is to name the animals. Yeah. Which is interesting, isn't it? Like 'cause when you when you think about, okay, what is Adam's work before the fall? You might kind of, you know, picture in your in your mind Adam with a shovel in hand tilling the earth or something and sweat pouring off and and of course that's all wrong because you know there's no such thing as sweat. Um it's not toil back then. Yes, Adam had been told to to work and until till the earth, but the one thing that we actually see him doing before the fall is proclaiming the true identity of creation and naming the animals, and in him speaking forth his word, creation is claimed and defined and finds its true identity as he sends forth his word, which is interesting, isn't it? Because that so the old Adam is has this kind of proclamation ministry to name the old creation, and now who are we? We are those who are in the second Adam, who have been sent out to name the new creation reality that there is in the gospel, and to to to name somebody's true identity in Jesus, so that they might find that true identity. And again, that's quite a proclamation kind of a thing.
SPEAKER_02So it's not so much I mean, we're not trying to recreate uh Eden, as it were. People people talk about Genesis 128. Should we have a look at that? Um Yeah, so people talk about uh Genesis 128, where God creates man, verse 26. It says, Let us God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Yes and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Um so some people would say that, you know, that's our goal. You know, we've got to go back to that, and we've got to kind of capture that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02How does that input into our discussion?
SPEAKER_00Well, Adam's name means humanity, man. There he is. And man is told to have dominion over the earth, and man ought to have dominion over the earth. So that's absolutely vital, and and I think like I say, we day by day ought to exercise dominion over creation in the way that we spend our time and money and resources, and there are all sorts of physical needs out there that we are meant to meet, and there are all sorts of practicalities where we're meant to order our lives for the blessing of the world. That is God's commandment to man as man. And so myself as a man, as a member of the human race, that is that is part of you know God's call on my life. Um but then how do I how do I think of the mission of the church? Should I think uh uh in terms of the mission of the church, should I think that on the one hand there's Adam over here and then there's the second Adam Christ over there, and that somehow I need to balance you know the needs of creation on this one hand and and the needs of you know the soul and that kind of thing on the other hand. I think the way in which the Bible always does it is that Jesus, um, can I use a big word, recapitulates. Ooh, recapitulates Adam. Now recapitulation is something that uh uh happens in music sometimes. So you've you've got a really simple tune dun dun dun dun dun dun dun and then yet later on in the in the tune it will recapitulate that, it will take up that basic tune and it will weave into that tune, you know, something much grander and that. So it takes up the old thing and and I don't know.
SPEAKER_02I know what you mean.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah because I don't take that old thing and embellishes it and raises it to a higher level and so it's even more glorious. That's what Jesus does to Adam. He takes the Adam thing and he raises up it up to an even more glorious thing. So while Adam is told to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, what does Jesus do? He says, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the fill the earth with disciples. Um those who uh aren't just physically like Adam, but those who are spiritually like Christ. So he raises up that creation mandate into a gospel mandate. So so that, yes, me as a human being, yeah, I'm meant to take care of the planet and and let's let's do that. But let's do that because we're human beings. What is the mission of the church though? Those who are part of the community of Christ, the second Adam. What we don't do as members of this of this community is to say that our mission must balance Adam's mission and Christ's mission. Let everybody have Adam's mission. We've got Christ's mission. And Christ's mission recapitulates the old thing and brings it up to this new level of yeah, we fill the earth and subdue it, and we make disciples of Christ. We disciple the nations. That's the way that we are fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. We do it by being part of the second Adam, and therefore being part of this naming the new creation, speaking out reality to the world, on this evangelistic mission to the world. So, yes, is there a place for creation care and all of that? Well, as creatures we ought to take care of creation. That's what Genesis 1 says. But as members of the church, what is our role? As members of the church, our role is a gospel mission to proclaim Christ to the nations.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I mean we're we're talking about social action and everything. Are you saying that we just preach the gospel like to starving people?
SPEAKER_00Alright, okay. So a starving person comes and says, Can I have some food? And we give them a tract. And we give them a tract, yes. A nourishing tract. Um to feed their mind because their soul is so much more important than their belly.
SPEAKER_02So you know, don't worry if you read this, the Lord will provide.
SPEAKER_00The Lord will provide. Be warm, be filled, as it says in James. Uh by no means. That's that, yeah. So we're gonna think about this a lot more in in the next episode. We're gonna think about well, what place does mercy ministry have in the life of the church? What place does meeting physical needs have in the life of the church? And the one thing I'll just say at the moment is um my calling as a member of the human race, and my calling as an individual Christian to love my neighbor as myself should make that a no-brainer. Somebody needs something, you give it to them, you know. Um so yeah, both my calling as a human being, as a member of the race of Adam is to take care of that person, my calling as an individual Christian is to take care of that person. But I would want to uh distinguish that from the mission of the church, because the mission of the church is that for which the church is sent into the world, and that for which the church is sent into the world is proclamation.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Well, we'll look at it next time. So uh we better leave it there. Uh if you'd like to find the relevant share links for this episode, or if you'd like to leave us a comment, you can do that on the discuss comment system. Just go to speaklife.org.uk slash tep98. And there are some links there. If you'd like to leave us a rating and review on iTunes or um Stitcher Radio, we'd be very grateful if you could do that. But uh we'll leave it there for this time and we'll carry on next time. Thanks very much. See you next time. See ya.