371 - Unity and Plurality: Mission in the Bible

Unity and Plurality: Mission in the Bible

By Lucien Legrand

Maryknoll, N.Y., Orbis, 1990.189 Pp. $18.95.

Legrand's work is a substantial and welcome contribution to missiology: a biblical perspective on mission. The author shows that, taking the Bible as a whole, there are various approaches to mission, which are not necessarily antithetical but complementary. In the Old Testament, we find types of mission such as "the call to the nations" (Abraham), "the pilgrimage of a liberated people" (Exodus, Moses), "participation in creation" (the Yahwist, Isaiah, wisdom literature), "particularism and universalism" (the election of Israel, the gathering of peoples).

In the New Testament, we don't have a break with the Old Testament perspective, but we do have continuity and change. Jesus' earthly mission is described as an eschatological and holistic proclamation, concentrated in Israel but open to the nations. The mission of the risen Christ, represented in the four accounts of the last missionary mandate, are in continuity with Jesus'own mission, but rooted in the resurrection and universally projected. Legrand elaborates on Paul's prototype of mission, according to Acts and Romans, and concludes with a clarifying reflection on "the Gospel of John as a missionary synthesis."

Lucien Legrand brings two fundamental assets to this type of biblical and missiological reflection: his lifeengagement with mission in India since 1953, as a member of the Paris Foreign Missionary Society, and his updated and serious biblical work.

Mortimer Arias, Iliff School of Theology, Denver, Colo.