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The Redemptive Mission of the Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Extract

The title given to this paper makes clear what it sets out to do. The ‘mission of the Church’ is the work which the Church is meant to carry out, and the inclusion of the epithet ‘redemptive’ indicates that what is in mind is the Church's mission in relation to the world (she has also her Godward mission of offering worship). The aim, then, is to indicate the principles by which the Church must be guided as she seeks to fulfil her manward vocation, which is one of bringing men to redemption; and I propose to draw out these principles by following three lines, which I call the primary, the secondary, and the tertiary, because I believe that they should always be thought of in that order, though I do not think it possible for any of them to exist without the others. The mission of the Church, primarily, is to bring men into confrontation with God; secondarily, it is to bring men into the fellowship of the Church; tertiarily, it is to redeem society as a whole.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1957

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