Edgar Elliston’s chapter in the book, Teaching Them Obedience In All Things: Equipping for the 21st Century (Evangelical Missiological Society Series Number 7. Pasadena, CA: William Cary Library, 1999. 286 pages. $9.95. ISBN 0-87808-381-2) is the seventh in a series in a collection of ten papers presented in 1998 at the Evangelical Missiological Society. Under the rubric of obedience, the papers are organized in four sections: Biblical and missiological foundations, Christian higher education, case studies, and curricular issues related to the training of missionaries.
In the first essay, Kenneth B. Mulholland argues that obedience in the key quality of a disciple on mission as described in Matthew’s Great Commission passage. Any appropriate understanding of what it means to “teach†the Gospel must go beyond mere transmission of religious information, therefore. Mulholland favors what he terms “Obedience Oriented Education,†a concept he illustrates through two examples: practically through a missionary experience in Papua New Guinea, and conceptually through the ten theses of the Presidents and Academic Deans Declaration of 1997. The thesis of John Piper’s paper is that knowing God and enjoying Him [sic] is the greatest need. He argues that “knowing and being comes before doing and shapes doing†(p. 27), a statement seemingly at odds with the idea of teaching obedience, which essentially requires doing as a requisite for understanding.
Michael Wilkins and Rick Love each presents a chapter on a Matthean and a Lukan theme interpretation respectively. Wilkins examines the meaning and use of the term disciple and discipleship in Matthew’s gospel and applies it to the theme of teaching (discipling) for obedience. Love’s treatment touches on the book’s theme of obedience, but centers mostly on what he calls “power ministry and story telling†in examining the Lukan narrative.
Lindenfelder’s treatment on the relationship of the university and the church is one of the strongest chapters in the book. Using the metaphors of “plastered cisterns†and “ever-flowing springs,†Lindenfelder provides a sobering yet challenging interpretation of the limitations of both the Christian university and church in creating disciples. In a related article, Larry Poston examines the role of higher education in Christian world mission, arguing that in the debate concerning the influence of church and higher education in disciplemaking, the latter is the most influential. He reviews key historical shifts in evangelical higher education and provides both implications of current trends and a vision for a new paradigm of Christian higher education.
Two case studies help bridge theory to practice of the theme of teaching for obedience. Jonathan Campbell’s case study of engaging postmodern culture in Life Community church, Los Angeles, CA challenges the cell church concept in vogue since the 1970s. The second case study reports on the Limu Valley Project in Ethiopia, presented by Adellah Usman Muktar, and provides a rich example of transformative disciplemaking from a community perspective. The editor provides an interpretive concluding postscript to the book.
I was attracted by the title, being an advocate of “teaching for obedience.†The book as a whole, however, was a hit-and-miss on the subject. Given the variety of contributors and the source of the material, that was to be expected. The book does however provide some nuggets of insight worth pursuing, and the breadth of contexts from which the contributors write—missions, university, church, Biblical scholarship—serves to prevent a myopic understanding of Christian discipleship.
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