Some broad conclusions

I've finished reading the book, and I said I'd write some broad conclusions in this post. 

I want to start with one, taken from the epilogue on page 535:

'It was the rise Jesus...who opened the eyes of the disciples to understand the Scriptures, by reading them in the double light of his own identity as the Messiah and of their ongoing mission to all nations in the power of the Spirit. "This is what is written,... and you will be my witnesses...to the ends of the earth," he said, in that richly missional account which spans the ending of Luke's Gospel and the beginning of Acts.'

'...Christ crucified and risen is the key to all history, for he is the one who accomplished the mission of God for all creation.'

'If, then, it is in Christ crucified and risen that we find the focal point of the whole Bible's grand narrative, and therein also the focal point of the whole mission of God...'

I totally agree. 

And again I raise the question: the way that the many, many different things that are touched on in this book fit together under the heading 'The Mission of God' surely - surely - can't be flattened out in the way that Chris Wright's commitment to holistic mission seems to do so. That is not to say there is only one thing to do - evangelism. I agree with his critique of certain streams of Protestant mission thinking that reduces everything to merely winning souls for heaven. That is truncated and reductionistic.

But what if there is a clearer, simpler, more fundamental answer to the question 'what is God's mission?' that makes the answer to the second question: 'and how do I participate in it?' more accessible and more faithful?

I am convinced there is a better answer. I doubt if Chris Wright would really disagree with it, but I don't think this book has uncovered it.