Making the Word of God Fully Known

Essays on Church, Culture, and Mission in Honor of Archbishop Philip Freier

Paul A. Barker, Bradly S. Billings

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781725259102
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Making the Word of God Fully Known is a collection of essays on church, culture, and mission relevant for the Australian church in honor of the sixty-fifth birthday of Archbishop Philip Freier, archbishop of Melbourne. The essays cover aspects of mission strategy, ministry of women, ministry to Australian indigenous people, responding to past history of child sexual abuse, and issues of liturgy and ecclesiology. The target is Australian ministers and laypeople. The essays largely come from Melbourne, a richly diverse Anglican diocese and reflect the priorities and strategies of Archbishop Freier's thirteen years as archbishop.

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Making the Word of God Fully Known

Paul A. Barker

The motto that encapsulates the mission, goals, and directions of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne under Archbishop Philip Freier is “Making the Word of God fully known.” A suite of different goals and priorities for the diocese exists under this heading, and Archbishop Philip has led a mission-shaping strategic process over recent years to place mission at the forefront of the diocese’s culture, priorities, and decisions. The motto is from Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians, 1:25, and this essay aims to expound what it means to “make the word of God fully known.”

The Word of God to Convert

Paul is writing to a church he doesn’t know. As far as we can tell, he never visited Colossae. The gospel was taken there by his colleague, Epaphras, whom he references in 1:7.

Paul begins his letter giving thanks to God for the Colossian church because he has heard of “your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven” (1:4–5a). The three great Christian virtues of faith, love, and hope are evident in this church, to the extent that Paul, who does not even know them personally, has heard such positive reports of them.

As Paul expresses his thanks, he reflects on how these virtues have been produced. Intriguingly, faith and love appear to have been generated by hope: “because of the hope.” We may not often consider that hope generates faith. Indeed, we probably consider faith to be the more foundational of the virtues. Yet Paul appears to be suggesting that at the heart of the gospel is a message of hope, and thus those who hear that message and welcome it come to faith as a result of the hope. As Moule says, “Precisely because it is stored in heaven, it is a potent incentive to action here and now.”1

Paul goes on to say that these Colossians have “heard of this hope” in the “gospel,” which is synonymous in this verse with the “word of the truth.”2 In turn, those expressions appear to be synonymous with “the grace of God” in verse 6. If it is right that “gospel” and “word of the truth” are also synonymous with “word of God” in 1:25, as seems to be the case, then at the heart of the word of God is a message of hope. The language of hope occurs later in chapter 1 in the famous statement, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (v. 27). This expression takes further the description of hope in verse 5, “hope which is laid up for you in heaven.”

What is important is that both references to hope in Colossians 1 are grounded in Jesus Christ. “Laid up in heaven” directs us to the resurrection and ascension of Christ, a theme developed further in chapters 2 and 3. “Christ in you” implies the Holy Spirit being given to Christians from Pentecost onwards, and thus the ongoing life of Jesus available for believers.

That Jesus is the center of hope—and thus faith and love—for a church and its message ought to go without saying. It is worth stressing nonetheless, as it is easy for a church to drift into other messages, as indeed the Colossian church was in danger of doing. In a motto for a diocese’s goals, the significance is that our hope is not in management, a leader, finances, church structures, or adequate compliance. Our hope is in Jesus, grounded here in his resurrection, ascension, and Spirit.

We ought also to note this emphasis on the gospel being truth. In modern Western society, religion is regarded as a matter of personal opinion rather than a matter of truth or falsehood. When Christians succumb to that societal pressure, we will lose confidence in the gospel itself as truth, and thus we will be reticent to proclaim it at all.

The other synonym for “gospel” and “word of the truth” is “grace of God” in verse 6. The Colossians have heard and truly comprehended “the grace of God” (or “comprehended the grace of God in truth”). While grace is not here explained, Paul is clearly referring to a central part of the Christian message, that salvation is God’s doing and not our right or just desert.

We ought also to notice that this word of the truth or gospel that the Colossians had heard through Epaphras has converted them. In the next paragraph, as Paul concludes his prayer for the Colossians, he gives reasons for joyful thanks, noting that God has enabled the Colossians to share in the inheritance of the saints, rescued them from darkness, and transferred them into Jesus’ kingdom (vv. 12b–14). This has happened for the Colossians because they have embraced the gospel, the word of the truth, and comprehended the grace of God.

The implication of this is that the word of God is powerful. In a modern society and culture, it is easy to lose confidence in the power of the word of God to convert, to generate hope, faith, and love. A danger for any church or denomination is to seek to trust methodology, mission strategy, or programs, rather than the ultimately powerful word of God. A church that is missional will have to have confidence in the power of God’s word or gospel to convert. Only then will it have reason and desire to make that word fully known.

The emphasis on the Colossians having “heard” (v. 6) underscores the importance of proclaiming, speaking, preaching, teaching the word of God. Such oral communication is essential. The idea of preaching the gospel without words, falsely attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, subverts the importance of speaking the gospel. While deeds of love and compassion back up the message and add credibility to the church and to the gospel, the message of Colossians, consistent with the rest of the New Testament, is that primacy of place is with speaking the gospel so people will hear it.

The Word of God to Bring to Maturity

So far, I have shown an emphasis on the word of God, the gospel, bringing people to conversion, to faith. However, conversion is not the full story. Paul reflects the importance of growing people to maturity of faith also through that same word.

In his prayer for the Colossians in 1:9–14, Paul prays they may be “filled with the knowledge of God’s will” so that they lead lives “fully” pleasing to the Lord. Colossians does emphasis the language of fullness, which points to maturity or perfection. Paul’s aim in ministry—in preaching, writing, or praying—is not simply conversion but maturity. His prayer expresses this idea, and he comes back to it in different words later in chapter 1. In verse 22, Paul expresses the goal of Christian life as being presented “holy and blamele...

Table of contents

• Synopsis of Archbishop Philip’s Career
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Making the Word of God Fully Known
• Chapter 2: A Diocese in Mission
• Chapter 3: Cathedrals
• Chapter 4: The Changing Context of Ministry Through the Pastoral Offices
• Chapter 5 :Ministry and Mission
• Chapter 6: Aspects of Multicultural Mission in Melbourne
• Chapter 7: Towards an Australian Anglican Ecclesiology
• Chapter 8: Archbishop Philip Freier and Aboriginal Ministry in the Northern Territory
• Chapter 9: “Each in Our Own Language”
• Chapter 10: James and Angelina Noble
• Chapter 11: No Longer Male and Female
• Chapter 12: Our Father in Heaven, or Is It Our Mother in Heaven?
• Chapter 13: At the Third Altar
• Chapter 14: When Theology Risks Life and Limb
• Chapter 15: Te Rongopai, Te Tiriti, Te Pouhere; Gospel, Treaty, Constitution
• Chapter 16: Identity Angst
• Chapter 17: “Walking with a Limp”