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 PrintableVersion Paul the missionaryTop drawerPAUL THE MISSIONARY If you turned away from the size of Schnabel’s two-volume work Mission in the Early Church, this book will provide an easier entry into the great vault of his scholarship. Bringing together evidence from Acts and Paul’s letters, Schnabel first describes Paul’s missionary work and then seeks to define the missionary task, message, goals and methods of the apostle. He brings to the book a careful reading of the biblical text, together with a comprehensive view of the world in which Paul was operating. Even those who think they know the biblical material well will get new insights, especially on Paul’s early Arabian and post-Rome ministry. The final chapter of 125 pages applies what we have learned about Paul into the modern missionary movement. Schnabel has been a missionary in Asia and is very familiar with the various theories of ‘doing mission’ that are popular today. He is thus able to combine New Testament scholarship and Missiology. While he recognises the very different situations we face today, and cautions against a simplistic application of Paul’s missionary principles, he has good biblical criticism of much that is popular among missionaries and church leaders from ‘seeker sensitive’ churches to the ‘homogenous unit principle’. He critiques the trust in methodology and those patterns of contextualisation that ignore the cultural change that is demanded by response to the gospel in the West, as well as the rest of the world church. This book should be required reading for all involved in mission and will be profitable for all church leaders and thinking members. Ray Porter, © Evangelicals Now - October 2009 |
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