Fav Five Missions Books

As you may recall, Greg Gilbert and I are working on a book tentatively titled What is the Mission of the Church? Hence, over the past several months we’ve been reading dozens of missiological tomes. There are tons of missions resources, and we barely scratched the surface with our reading. But from what I’ve read, here are my Fav Five books on the theology of mission.

(This list is for theological books and doesn’t include biographies, books on global Christianity, or “field manual” type resources).

5. M. David Sills, Reaching and Teaching: A Call to Great Commission Obedience (Moody 2010). I’m not sure if this is destined to be a classic, but I just read this new release and found it very helpful. Sills reminds us that the Great Commission is about making disciples, not making decisions. He criticizes the “need for speed” mentality among some mission groups where evangelists aim at little besides getting the message out to as many people as possible. Sills wants to see the unreached come in contact with the gospel, but he says we need to teach, train, and write more than we are currently. The book is a bit repetitive and speaks most clearly into Southern Baptist life, but Sills’ wisdom, experience, and clear-headedness will benefit everyone with a passion for reading and teaching the nations.

4. John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions (Baker 2010 [1993]). For getting the big picture and the big passion behind missions, there is no contemporary book better than this one. Piper covers worship, prayer, suffering, exclusivism, and the biblical concept of “nations,” and he does it all with an eye to the glory of God for the joy of all peoples. The first few sentences are already justly famous: “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exist because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man.”

3. Eckhard Schnabel, Early Christian Mission (IVP 2004). With two volumes and 1928 pages this is a big haul. Schnabel covers everything–I mean everything–related to the Christian mission in the first century, from Jewish background to Jesus and the Twelve to Paul and the early church. Schnabel is scholarly, readable, and thoroughly evangelical. An invaluable resource. (And in case you’re wondering, I haven’t read the whole thing.)

2. P.T. O’Brien, Gospel and Mission in the writings of Paul: An Exegetical and Theological Analysis (Baker 1993). Here’s a good rule of thumb for commentaries: if Carson or O’Brien wrote it, get it. I’ve always found O’Brien to be extremely knowledgeable, judicious, and fair. This little book is no different. O’Brien explains the fundamental nature of Paul’s mission and how the Apostle could dare claim to have completed his mission in certain parts of the Roman world. He also demonstrates, against scholarly skepticism, that Paul’s ambition should be ours.

1. Andreas J. Kostenberger and Peter T. O’Brien, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology Mission (IVP 2001). The best one-stop resource for a biblical missiology. With just over 250 pages of text, Kostenberger and O’Brien are thorough without being overwhelming. They handle their texts with care and highlight the mission theme throughout Scripture without over-interpreting OT passages. The book also includes many helpful summaries along the way. If you read one book on the theology of mission read this one.