Introduction
Introduction
It was a special privilege for me to be the speaker for the annual William Menzies lectureship at the Asia Pacific Theological Seminary in Baguio, Philippines, on January 27-30, 2009, on the theme “For All Peoples: A Biblical Theology of Mission.” I developed this material from earlier lectures on this theme at two previous institutions: a 2008 Spring Lectureship at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri, USA (Jan. 15-17, 2008), and the 2002 Ritter Lecturer for Evangelical Theological Seminary, Myerstown, Pennsylvania, USA.
Although I was working on my Acts commentary at the time I spoke at APTS, it had not yet begun to be published; my John and Matthew commentaries, however, had already been published, with Hendrickson (now with Baker Academic) and Eerdmans, respectively. The articles thus reflect the state of my academic work as it was in 2009—the ideas that went into the Acts commentary are here, but I do not cite it because I wrote the articles first.
Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies graciously published the lectures as the following articles:
• “Matthew’s Missiology: Making Disciples of the Nations (Matt 28:19-20).” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 12 (1, Jan. 2009): 3-20.
• “Sent like Jesus: Johannine Missiology (Jn 20:21-22).” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 12 (1, Jan. 2009): 21-45.
• “Power of Pentecost: Luke’s Missiology in Acts 1—2.” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 12 (1, Jan. 2009): 47-73.
• “One New Temple in Christ (Eph 2:11-22; Acts 21:27-29; Mk 11:17; Jn 4:20-24).” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 12 (1, Jan. 2009): 75-92.
I had earlier published a different article in AJPS:
• “Between Asia and Europe: Postcolonial Mission in Acts 16:8-10.” AJPS 11 (1-2, 2008): 3-14.
This article offers an example of a specific mission passage in Acts with special relevance to mission in Asia. I hope that I have not overenthusiastically read too much into the passage, but it offers, in any case, a preliminary exploration of a relevant mission question in the New Testament. It thus can provide, in a sense, a fitting climax for the other essays in this volume by illustrating an approach to a particular passage.
I am grateful to the friends at APTS who contributed to the initial journal publication of these studies (Paul Lewis and others), and am grateful to Dave Johnson, who suggested to me the incorporation of these studies into a book on the theme of missiology in the New Testament. Dave and I attended the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary together in Missouri back in the twentieth century, and we discussed the idea for this book when we reunited at the Society for Pentecostal Studies meeting in Cleveland, Tennessee, in March of 2018.
Obviously one could elaborate on this theme in the New Testament at greater length, but my hope is that as a short book (admittedly not typically a trademark of Craig Keener) this one can provide a contribution, on a basic level, to discussion of biblical theology of mission, possibly as a supplemental text in Pentecostal, charismatic or other Spirit-valuing schools.