Israel and the nations
Posted by bms_editor at 14:08 on 7th May 2010
By James Chukwuma Okoye, Orbis Books, £14.99
ISBN: 1-57075-654-6
Although Okoye understands that mission in the OT has many faces, for the purposes of this book he selects four of them: universality of salvation and judgement; community-in-mission; centripetal mission, where “the nations stream on pilgrimage to Zion”; centrifugal mission, where “active effort is made to reach outsiders”.
Contending that Israel's understanding developed from an inward focus to a more inclusive, outward-looking missionary consciousness, Okoye is perhaps overly confident of his ability to trace and date this development of ideas. Nevertheless, this is a useful book and more accessible than Chris Wright’s excellent, but much larger The Mission of God.
Reviewer: Graeme Clark, minister of Central Baptist Church Paisley
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