Book Review: “Come and See"

“Come and See: A History of Theology of Mission”

By Glen Scrivener and Justin Schell

Published by Union Publishing, 2022.

The aim of “Come and See” is laid out on page one: “to help you grasp what God is after in the world.” What a beautiful purpose with which to write. And what an amazing purpose to be on the receiving end of, because what Christian does not want or need a biblical reminder of what God is up to in the world?

After a brief introduction Scrivener and Schell set out to meet that purpose. Over the course of twelve chapters and one-hundred-twenty-three pages, they cover an incredible number of topics, all serving that one goal. They examine the doctrine of God and mission, the Old Testament and mission, the New Testament and mission, a history of mission, the influence of the reformation on mission, the church and mission and much more.

Now, if that sounds like a lot of different aspects of mission to cover in one book, it is. Through the years I have found a lot of reward in studying the mission of God and the missionary movements. By my own slow reader standards, I have read a lot of books on mission. Books about the history of mission, books about the Bible and mission and books about the different philosophies of mission. But I have rarely found a book like this one, that puts so many aspects of mission into the same book binding.

Of course, Scrivener and Shell are not able to go into the same kind detail that many of those single aspect books do. For example, they don’t have the space to examine the history of mission in the same detail as Stephen Neill does in a book like, “A History of Christian Missions.” Still, the detail that they are able to go into is beyond impressive, making for an exceptionally well-rounded book.

On top of that, they write in ways that exude experience, knowledge and white-hot passion for the subject at hand, and furthermore for the author of that subject. You cannot read what they write without catching their excitement on every page, for God and His mission.

Whatever you end up paying for “Come and See,” its worth it. You will get your money’s worth simply because of how much solid biblical content on such a variety of aspects of mission is packed into a short book. You will also get your money’s worth because they really do accomplish what they set out to accomplish. When I finally put this book down, I did so with a fresh, overflowing excitement for exactly what God is after in the world.

Another book I recommend to… every Christian (and non).

Missions and End Times

Do you ever think about missions and end times in the same thought?

Do you place those two things in the same category?

I will give you my answer to those questions, or rather what use to be my answer. No.

I rarely if ever thought about missions and eschatology (the study of the last times/things) together. For the longest time I treated them like two separate theological subjects with very little overlap. That is until one day I happened to come across a journal article from the 1970’s by New Testament Professor, James W. Thompson, entitled “The Gentile Mission: As an Eschatological Necessity.”

In the article Thompson addressed Mark 13.10. If you don’t recall Mark 13.10, its that point in Jesus’ Olivet speech when He says to the disciples, “And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations.” Now, maybe that seems to you like an obvious and simple enough verse, but I had never really grasped it before, especially its eschatological implications. I knew it was an important one for the missions community, but I never thought about its relation to the end times.

And then I started reading Thompson’s article, wherein he argued, and in my estimation argued successfully, that Mark 13.10 was an indication that the mission to the nations was just as much a prelude to the end as the other apocalyptic signs from the beginning of Mark 13.[1] As he says in his own words in the article, must indicates that for Mark and his readers, “the world mission was an eschatological necessity.”[2]

Without unpacking the entire article, argument and exegesis for you, just think about the implications of that for a moment. If, as Thompson suggests, Mark 13.10 is describing the mission to the nations as a precondition to Jesus’ return, then 1) missions should not be just another department of ministry, it should be everyone’s ministry! And 2) our thoughts about the end times should be consumed not with raptures, and anti-Christs, but with the Gospel going to the edges of the earth!   

During the blip that was COVID, I preached through the book of Revelation. I can’t tell you how many people came to me during that series to talk about things like whether so and so was the beast out of the sea, or whether the new apple watch was the mark of the beast. It was endless. Of course, I don’t fault them for it. When we think about eschatology, our minds seem to naturally go there. But maybe, if Thompson is right, and I think he is, it should go somewhere else first.

Since reading Thompson’s article, I have become even more convinced by Scripture that world missions and eschatology are actually not two separate and unrelated things. Missions is eschatological in its very nature, and eschatology has to do missions. So then, if we are drawn to thinking about the end times, then let us be drawn to thinking first and foremost about (and being a part of) the mission of Christ, to bring the Gospel to places where it has not been named.

In the words of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24.14).

[1] James W. Thompson, “The Gentile Mission as an Eschatological Necessity,” Restoration Quarterly 14 (1971), 23.

[2] Thompson, “The Gentile Mission as an Eschatological Necessity,” 24.