{
  "id": "dict_003706",
  "term": "mission",
  "slug": "mission",
  "letter": "M",
  "entry_type": "practice",
  "entry_family": "theological_term",
  "tier": 2,
  "aliases": [],
  "short_definition": "Mission is the church’s calling to bear witness to Christ among all peoples in word and deed.",
  "simple_one_line": "Mission is the church’s calling to bear witness to Christ among all peoples in word and deed.",
  "tooltip_text": "Mission is the church’s calling to bear witness to Christ among all peoples in word and deed.",
  "lede_intro": "The topic of mission concerns the church’s calling to bear witness to Christ among all peoples in word and deed, so this entry should be read from the texts that define it and then from its place within the wider doctrinal shape of Scripture.",
  "at_a_glance_definition": "Mission is the church’s calling to bear witness to Christ among all peoples in word and deed.",
  "at_a_glance_key_points": [
    "Let the defining passages show mission as the church’s calling to bear witness to Christ among all peoples in word and deed.",
    "Trace how mission serves the gathered life, holiness, order, and witness of Christ's people.",
    "Do not define mission by tradition, reaction, or church culture alone; let the whole canon set its meaning and limits."
  ],
  "description_academic_short": "Mission is the church’s calling to bear witness to Christ among all peoples in word and deed. In dictionary use, the term should be explained from its immediate contexts, its place in biblical theology, and its bearing on faithful Christian life.",
  "description_academic_full": "Mission is the church’s calling to bear witness to Christ among all peoples in word and deed. More fully, the topic should be interpreted through the passages that name it, illustrate it, regulate it, or warn about its misuse. A sound treatment therefore asks how mission relates to creation, sin, redemption, discipleship, and the church's life under Christ, without turning a practical category into a slogan detached from context.",
  "background_biblical_context": "Biblically, mission is framed from Israel's assembly life, holiness patterns, and covenant signs through Christ's lordship and the apostles' teaching as the church's calling to bear witness to Christ among all peoples in word and deed. The canon therefore places mission within the ordered worship, discipline, fellowship, witness, and visible life of God's gathered people rather than treating it as a merely private religious preference.",
  "background_historical_context": "Historically, discussion of mission was formed by the church's actual patterns of worship, ministry, oversight, and sacramental practice as much as by formal doctrinal controversy. Patristic ecclesiology, medieval institutional development, Reformation debates over polity and ordinances, and modern church practice all contributed to its meaning.",
  "background_jewish_ancient_context": "In ancient Jewish and early Christian context, mission is heard against synagogue and temple patterns, covenant assembly, purity concerns, table fellowship, and the language of God's gathered people. That backdrop helps modern readers hear New Testament teaching with greater sensitivity to continuity, fulfillment, and the distinct new-covenant shape of the church.",
  "key_texts_primary": [
    "Gen. 12:1-3",
    "Matt. 28:18-20",
    "Acts 1:8"
  ],
  "key_texts_secondary": [
    "Ps. 67:1-7",
    "Luke 24:46-48",
    "Rev. 7:9-10"
  ],
  "original_language_note": null,
  "original_language_terms": [],
  "theological_significance": "mission is theologically significant because it refers to the church’s calling to bear witness to Christ among all peoples in word and deed, clarifying how Christ forms His people through teaching, service, shepherding, and mission.",
  "philosophical_explanation": "Philosophically, Mission lies at the intersection of sign and reality, communal identity, institutional authority, and corporate agency. Discussion usually turns on corporate identity, ministerial authority, symbolic mediation, and the extent to which institutional form carries theological meaning. Its philosophical usefulness lies in giving conceptual shape to ecclesial life while keeping that life normed by Scripture.",
  "interpretive_cautions": "Do not let mission function as an umbrella category that obscures the passage's actual argument. Read the language within ecclesial, liturgical, and covenant context, and avoid deriving a complete polity or sacramental system from usage that may be narrower or broader than later practice. Use the entry carefully enough to prevent it from carrying more doctrinal weight than the text assigns, while still allowing later theological reflection to summarize real biblical patterns.",
  "major_views_note": "Mission has a shared ecclesial core, but traditions differ over its form, administration, ministerial setting, and theological effects. The main points of disagreement concern the relation between command and wisdom, gathered worship and daily life, and the balance between order, liberty, and edification.",
  "doctrinal_boundaries": "Mission should be bounded by Scripture's teaching on the church, its ministry, and its ordinances, so that visible order and spiritual reality are related without confusion. It must not confuse sign with thing signified, office with personal holiness, or institutional belonging with saving union to Christ. It should keep sign and thing signified related without treating the rite as mechanically saving. Sound doctrine therefore lets mission serve the church's worship, order, and communion without treating secondary polity judgments as the whole of the doctrine.",
  "practical_significance": "Pastorally, mission matters because believers need wise, Scripture-shaped guidance for everyday obedience, worship, suffering, relationships, stewardship, and life together in the church.",
  "related_entries": [],
  "see_also": [],
  "meta_description": "Mission is the church’s calling to bear witness to Christ among all peoples in word and deed. In theological use, the topic should be defined from the...",
  "jsonld_description": "Mission is the church’s calling to bear witness to Christ among all peoples in word and deed. More fully, the entry should be read from the passages that establish its meaning, the doctrinal relationships that...",
  "source_basis": "scripture-led synthesis",
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  "canonical_term": "mission",
  "canonical_slug": "mission",
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  "review_state": "finalized",
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}