Christopher Wright in The Mission of God’s People:
What compelled the first followers of Jesus, Jews as they were, to make the world their mission field?
“Jews as they were” – I slipped that in because it is the key to the answer. That is, those first believers knew the story they were in. And they knew the story because they knew their Scriptures. They were Jews. They knew the story so far, they understood that the story had just reached a decisive moment in Jesus of Nazareth, and they knew what the rest of the story demanded.
In fact, when the first missionary journeys produced a sudden influx of “pagan” converts (let’s call them Gentiles, or people from the non-Jewish nations from here on), and when that in turn produced a big theological problem for the Jewish Christians, how was the problem resolved? They met in Jerusalem in the first council of the Christian faith, and the event is recorded in Acts 15. As an aside, it is worth noting that the first Christian council was called because of the problems caused by highly successful Christian mission. It would be wonderful if all church committees, councils, conferences and congresses had the same cause!
The problem was solved not by referring to the command of Jesus. One could easily imagine Peter standing up to say to the critics, “Listen, friends, Jesus told us to go and make disciples of all nations and that is what Paul and Barnabas are doing. So back off!” But instead, James settles the matter by reference to the prophetic Scriptures. He quotes from Amos 9 and affirms that what the prophet foresaw is now happening: the house of David is being restored and the Gentile nations are being brought in to bear the name of the Lord. That’s where the story pointed, and that’s what was now happening.
Or come with Paul to Pisidian Antioch in Acts 13. It was a Gentile city, but Paul went to the Jewish synagogue on the Sabbath, as he usually did. What did he do? He told them their own story (the Old Testament narrative) as a prelude to telling them about Jesus and then adding “the good news: What God promised our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus” (Acts 13:32 – 33). The story led to Jesus, Messiah, crucified but risen.
But the story went further. For when some of the Jews rejected the message while Gentile “God-fearers” (converts to Jewish faith) accepted it, Paul had an Old Testament passage for them too, to justify his missionary appeal to them. He quotes Isaiah 49:6 and applies it to himself and his missionary colleagues:
“For this is what the Lord has commanded us:
“ ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles,
that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ”
When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed. (Acts 13:47 – 48; italics added)Once again, Paul could easily have said, “Jesus commanded us to bring this good news to you Gentiles.” He could even have referred to the specific missional command that he, Paul, had personally received in his conversion-commissioning encounter with the risen Christ on the way to Damascus. But instead, Paul points to the Scriptures and the story they tell – the story that leads inevitably to the gospel going to the nations. And he took that “story-yet-to-come” aspect of the words of the prophet and heard in them a command from the Lord himself.
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