Here at Circle City Fellows, we are rounding out October by thinking more about the mission of God and how we participate in it. Before our fellows really dig in to thinking about their personal vocations and next right steps in our city, we believe it’s important to begin with this big-picture understanding of God’s work in the world. Hopefully this has come through in the Monday Matters emails you’ve read from us so far this autumn!

This week, we turn to the work of Old Testament scholar Christopher J.H. Wright. In his book The Mission of God’s People, he writes, “...the mission of God’s people is far too big to be left only to missionaries (just as the ministry of the church is far too big to be left to those we commonly call ‘ministers’).” He explores how the mission of God applies to those who work in “the public square,” which we might otherwise call the marketplace.

He writes,

“Is God interested in the public square? Many Christians seem to operate on the everyday assumption that God is not. Or at least, they assume that God is not interested in the world of everyday work for its own sake, as distinct from being interested in it as a context for evangelism. God, it would seem, cares about the church and its affairs, about missions and missionaries, about getting people to heaven, but not about how society and its public places are conducted on earth.

The result of such dichotomized thinking is an equally dichotomized Christian life. In fact it is a dichotomy that gives many Christians a great deal of inner discomfort caused by the glaring disconnect between what they think God most wants and what they most have to do. Many of us invest most of the available time that matters (our working lives) in a place and a task that we have been led to believe does not really matter much to God – the so-called secular world of work – while struggling to find opportunities to give some leftover time to the only thing we are told does matter to God – evangelism.

Yet the Bible clearly and comprehensively, in both Testaments, portrays God as intensely interested in the public arena of human social and economic life – interested, involved, in charge, and full of plans for it.”

Questions for personal reflection:

• Do you resonate with the feeling that God does not care about the marketplace?

• In what ways does Scripture portray God’s interest in the public square?

• How does your approach to work change if you believe God is intensely interested in it?