In the preface to this book the author presents his work to the reader as ‘a comprehensive and systematic study of the biblical concept of the sending aimed at a better understanding of biblical mission’. The reason for the author’s fresh quest for biblical mission, the sub-title of his book, is that ‘we do not have a commonly accepted definition of mission’ (p. 15) and that despite the excellent theological studies available regarding the meaning of mission, there is still a ‘lack of a conceptually clear theological understanding of mission from a biblical perspective’ (p. 16).

As the starting-point for his fresh quest for biblical mission, the author takes the word ‘sending’, a term which, according to him, carries a rather ‘universal consensus’ (p. 24) that mission means sending. From the hypothesis that in the sense of ‘the sending’ there is a biblical idea of mission, the author then goes on an extensive pilgrimage of investigation in pursuit of the sending concept, covering the vast expanse of the whole Bible. He starts by making a careful examination of all the linguistic variables involved in the word ‘sending’. He goes on to examine all the sending passages in the entire Bible in order to determine their likely theological content. This is followed by a search to ascertain the nature of the theology in the sending passages, etc.Finally Dubose tries to interpret the biblical evidence in terms of its implication for the total spectrum of Christian faith and practice, making the most practical application possible of the insights of this study for mission in our modern world.

In the first place one has to mention that this book is not only a study of the biblical foundations of mission but also a biblical theology of mission, offering an analysis of the biblical data on ‘sending’ and, using this as background, providing guidelines for missionary practice. The method of analysis follows the deductive method in the use of Scripture. In a chapter on a hermeneutic for a biblical understanding, Dubose refers to some authors who assume ‘the universal’ as the missionary motif of Scripture and who, beginning a priori with the universalist concept of God and the modern world missionary enterprise, go back to Scripture to discover the biblical justification for the universal activity of the Christian world mission. These authors follow the inductive method in the use of Scripture, which Dubose rejects as a ‘fallacy’ because the starting-point in this method is the practice, namely ‘a Western-orientated institutional mission methodology’ for which biblical justification is being sought by forcing Scripture to ‘speak’ the language of the practice. Dubose argues that one has to consult the Bible first with the express purpose of discovering ‘that first meaning, that original idea … which is the mission genius of the biblical message’ (p. 23). I agree with Dubose in his rejection of the inductive method of the use of Scripture, but I cannot share his certainty that ‘that first meaning, that original idea’ about mission can be found in the Bible. Even beginning with a universal consensus on mission as sending does not protect the Bible reader and interpreter from subjectivity and therefore from ‘interpreting’ the Bible literature. Is the understanding of mission as ‘sending’ not already an interpreted understanding of mission (like the universality of mission)? Is it really possible not to be captive to a word—even the word ‘sending’—even if a consensus on the meaning of such a word exists? Does consensus guarantee an objective investigation of such a word in the Word? Presuming that universal consensus can guarantee such objectivity can easily lead to the absolutizing of one’s investigation if one thinks it possible to investigate the sending concept over the vast expanse of the ‘whole’ Bible, to examine ‘all’ of the linguistic variables of a word, and ‘all’ the sending passages in the ‘whole’ Bible (p. 27) and thus to discover the ‘first’ meaning, the ‘original’ idea, the ‘proto-missio’ (p. 23). If such an investigation were possible, this investigation by Dubose would have been the last and definitive investigation on biblical sending. I doubt whether he is able to make such a claim. His research, for instance, has already whetted my appetite for an investigation into the understanding of mission as God’s action (actio Dei and not missio Dei) in the Bible.

Despite my questioning of the author’s method of investigation in his quest for biblical mission, the book as a whole satisfied me greatly and I can strongly recommend it for careful study by students and teachers of mission.

In conclusion: this study of biblical mission through a comprehensive and systematic study of the biblical concept of sending by a Protestant missiologist was published in the same year as a study by two Catholic biblical scholars on the biblical foundations of mission, namely Donald Senior and Carrol Stuhlmueller: The Biblical Foundations for Mission (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1983, xii + 371 pp., $25.00 hb, $14.95 pb). For an illuminating review of this excellent book by David J. Bosch, see Missionalia, Vol. 12, No. 2, August 1984.