Today while I was driving back from Kenwood with Michael Clary, we were discussing missiology and I made a shocking discovery. I am now willing to say that we cannot derive our full missiology from the life of the apostle Paul. To some this may sound mildly heretical but it seems as I entertain a more covenantal ecclesiology, I must confront a new missiology with an optimistic trajectory in mind. All this is to say that the epistles do not tell us everything about missions explicitly. There are implications of Paul’s behavior that lead me to believe in a particular trajectory, as in the christocentic nature of his preaching but do not insist on a methodology. We are in a different context amid different people, and living in different cities.

            My shocking discovery was that a missiology that takes as its paradigm the New Testament era is not the missiology we must employ today. In a post-evangelical landscape we have seen the rise and fall of Christendom, and this worldwide phenomenon has affected the secular world in such a way that it will never be the same again. We must employ new missiological concepts that derive their meaning from scripture, but do not attempt to mimic or copy those of St. Paul. Paul’s missiology was specifically meant for Philippi, Rome, and Ephesus. To use a pre-Christendom missiology in post-evangelical North America is error. This is yet again another nail in the coffin of those who would seek to dogmatically return to the practices of the New Testament era.

            Using the entire scope of the Old and New Testaments, it is a congregation’s imperative to develop a new particular missiology for their individual context in terms of geography, history, race, etc.