Bauckham's Bible And Mission, By Richard Baakham

Over coffee in a Barcelona neighbourhood, an acquaintance expressed the remark, "I can't invite my friends to church, they will never return, and that might end our conversations about God." What an astounding observation. Usually, the church is where talk of God occurs. Yet, people are taking part in these God discussions both in and outside a church environment. However, there appears a disconnect between the exchange taking place about God in the church, and the exchange occurring outside the church. Distinct approaches of engagement exist.

One pastor described the challenges of ministering in a local church in the Barcelona area, by describing the cultural barrier between the church and the community. Interest in God is not the obstacle,
Surprisingly, he develops this hermeneutic, not by focusing on comments related to mission in the Bible, but by looking at the action and purpose of God as narrated in the biblical story. God's purpose, as Bauckham empathizes, results in the kingdom of God or "the achievement of God's purposes for good in the whole of God's creation." Bauckham desires one to read the Bible, "in a way that takes seriously its missionary direction." Therefore, one can call this hermeneutical framework missional. Missional describes something that "is related to or characterized by mission," and Bauckham is stating that, at its core, God's purpose or mission characterizes the whole of scripture and what one knows about God. Consequently, this is the first critical piece of Bauckham's hermeneutic-the mission is
The way one lives everyday life demonstrates, to whoever cares to pay attention, an understanding of God. Since God is a God of mission, engaging and caring in one's life for the benefit of God's creations, then a follower of God, will find one's mission or purpose within this mission or purpose of God. Moreover, David Bosch refers to this understanding of a God engaging creation as the misso Dei by which he means God's love of the world, and engagement in the world is that in which the church participates. Mission precedes the church. Furthermore, God is the starting point of purpose for creation since purpose "originates with divine, not human, initiative". The stories in the Bible are stories about people living life with purpose. Likewise, purpose originates from God, and the stories of the Bible present us with the issues faced by people as they attempt or don't attempt to live for this given