WHAT DOES HERMENEUTICS HAVE TO DO WITH MISSIONS?

May 8

STATEMENT

Hermeneutical principles derived from a firm commitment to the sufficiency of Scripture should drive faithful missions. Poor hermeneutics lead to the poor exegesis of Scripture that has fueled common, unbiblical practices in modern missions. Most missionaries want to be guided by Scripture, yet bad hermeneutics can lead to careless evangelistic methods, unbiblical understandings of conversion, and unhealthy churches. Poor hermeneutics ultimately does damage to disciple-making among the nations. Missionaries should master sound hermeneutical principles and exegetical skills before and throughout their service to continuously evaluate their methods and goals against Scripture.

Article Written by Brian Parks

Christians are committed to obeying Jesus and his word. God commands his people to obey him, neither adding to or taking away from his word (Deut 4:2). This claim wouldn’t stir much controversy with God’s people down through the ages. Yet, the interpretation of what exactly God means to command through his word is where Christians begin to differ. If hermeneutics are the principles of interpreting Scripture, then it makes sense that our hermeneutics play a crucial role in understanding how we should obey our Lord’s command to make disciples of all nations. Sound hermeneutics are the foundation of faithful missions practice. Bad hermeneutics will lead us to be unfaithful to his call to take the gospel to the nations.

Wayne Grudem defines hermeneutics in his Systematic Theology:

In order to help people to avoid making mistakes in interpreting Scripture, many Bible teachers have developed “principles of interpretation,” or guidelines to encourage growth in the skill of proper interpretation. The word hermeneutics (from the Greek word hermēnēuo, “to interpret”) is the more technical term for this field of study: hermeneutics is the study of correct methods of interpretation (especially interpretation of Scripture).

Wherever there is unbiblical missions work happening, bad hermeneutics is almost always at the root of the problem.

Consider this list of bad mission practices rooted in bad interpretation of Scripture:

Some Muslim converts are taught that they should continue to visit the mosque and publicly identify themselves as Muslims based on 2 Kings 5:18–19 rather than identify themselves as Christians and claim Christ as Lord.
Rapid church planting movement strategies are justified based on a poor understanding of Matthew 24:14 or efforts to manufacture the rates of growth seen in Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost. These methods often run the risk of placing new converts in leadership, which contradicts Scripture and doesn’t allow enough time for new Christians to mature and demonstrate the fruits of repentance.
Some missionaries wrongly use 1 Corinthians 9:18–23 to argue that some sinful practices could be justified in order to “identify with” or “relate” to a people group they’re trying to reach with the gospel.
Some missionary methods are prescribed solely based on historically descriptive passages in Acts. For example, some argue that missionaries must give their energies to fields that are presently showing fruit because Paul went to Macedonia instead of Asia (Acts 16:10).
The proliferation of the prosperity gospel in missions is often based on bad interpretations of Old Testament promises applied to new covenant believers. Sometimes the context is ignored when interpreting New Testament passages about money and provision from God or God’s promises to “ask and you will receive.”

Bad hermeneutics is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it’s as old as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. When the Serpent said, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Gen 3:1) his intention was to lead Eve into a false interpretation of God’s word. Bad hermeneutics played a role in the first act of disobedience in human history. And so it continues to affect missions today.

Bad hermeneutics is not just a modern problem either. The hyper-Calvinism of late 1700s England was rooted in bad hermeneutics and prevented many from even considering being a missionary or giving to missions work. Many are familiar with the (likely apocryphal) story that William Carey’s desire to share the gospel among the nations was met with this response:, “You are an enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he’ll do it without consulting you or me.” Thankfully, few evangelicals today would question that the Scripture teaches every Christian’s responsibility to care about and support missions in some way.

But before we cast stones at bad missions practices, we need to acknowledge that missionaries doing damaging work almost always have good intentions. They have a genuine desire to see people converted to Christ and churches planted. Many simply follow what they’re taught. But their interpretation of Scripture has led them to adopt goals and methods that hinder their intended goals. Consider Paul’s warning to the Corinthian church that everyone will have their ministry practices assessed by Christ on the day of judgment (1 Cor 3:14–15). It’s right to carefully assess the hermeneutics undergirding any missions practices we support.

To that end, here are four ways bad hermeneutics undermines faithful missions work.

1. Bad hermeneutics compromises the sufficiency of Scripture

Scripture is a sufficient authority for all things related to faith and godliness—and that includes missions work. But God’s Word will only be sufficient if it is interpreted properly. Bad hermeneutics renders Scripture functionally insufficient.

2. Bad hermeneutics often gets the gospel wrong.

The gospel is the message of God that leads to salvation. So getting the message wrong will hinder people from being born again and coming to Christ. Any interpretive approach that argues that the gospel primarily means to rescue people from material poverty is deluded. Furthermore, in reality, such assertions tend to enrich clergy and leave the congregation unchanged, both materially and spiritually. What’s more, any evangelistic practice that simply requires people to say the words “Jesus is Lord” (Romans 10:9) and then encourages missionaries to move on to the next village will lead to many false conversions.

3. Bad hermeneutics leads missionaries to teach new converts to disobey God.

When 1 Corinthians 9:22 (“... become all things to all people”) or other biblical narratives are misinterpreted and Hindu converts are encouraged to call themselves “Hindu Yeshu Bhaktas” rather than “Christians”, the missionaries are leading new converts astray. Rapid church planting movements that declare evangelistic Bible discussions a church mislead their people about what the Bible teaches is a true church.

4. Bad hermeneutics leads to a legacy of unqualified indigenous leaders who teach false doctrine.

Missionaries leave a legacy of teaching and discipleship that will affect the churches among a particular people for decades, if not centuries. Paul urged Timothy and Titus to put leaders in place who knew how to rebuke false teaching in the church (1 Tim. 1:3, 2 Tim. 2:2, Tim. 1:10-11). When bad hermeneutics are passed from generation to generation, it will warp a church, which is supposed to be “a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).

What can be done to ensure that missionaries go to the field with good hermeneutical skills?

1. Missionaries need sufficient biblical and theological training before they are sent.

In a church’s eager rush to christen someone as a missionary, it’s easy to skimp on assessment. But churches should be vigorous in their assessment of potential missionaries. They need to make sure a person has the biblical grounding and interpretive skills to do missions work well. A willingness to go and fundraising skills are simply not enough. Attending a healthy church where there’s faithful expositional preaching will usually offer a great foundation. That’s how many future missionaries learn the fundamentals of how to interpret God’s Word well.

2. Missions agencies’ theological and methodological commitments should be carefully vetted.

If a missionary or church is considering a missions agency, they should carefully vet the agency’s statement of faith, philosophy of ministry, and on-the-field strategies. They should ask agency leaders about the most controversial issues in missions: the Insider Movement, disciple-making making movements (DMM), orality, and so on. They should make sure their missionaries know what a healthy church is.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then do your research. Learn about what’s being debated in missions circles today. These issues might seem confusing and not all that important now, but it’s better to understand these things on the front-end rather than find out you disagree with the agency you’ve chosen only after the missionary arrives on the field.

3. Once they’re on the field, make sure missionaries join a true church with faithful preaching.

Even missionary teams in remote areas can covenant together as a church and gather regularly for preaching and worship. Regularly sitting under good preaching will help missionaries stay sharp and continue to grow in their hermeneutical skills.

Conclusion

Scripture is God’s inerrant and authoritative word. Any faithful missionary must believe this. But merely believing these truths doesn’t necessarily mean a missionary will know when a text is being misinterpreted or misapplied. Good hermeneutics grounds and guides all good missions practice. If we want to obey Jesus, we must get our hermeneutics right. After all, every missionary and the sending congregations behind them want to hear those words of commendation from our Lord one day, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt 25:21).

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