A mission reading of the Fourth Gospel

The Fourth Gospel has contributed to the Church’s thinking on several theological themes. This thesis studies the missiology of the Gospel by reading the Fourth Gospel from a missional perspective. The study does not seek to find a pre-defined mission within the Gospel but seeks instead to discover the central message of the Gospel from a missional point of view. The former approach extracts the necessary parts of a text here and there to prove a pre-defined mission while the latter reads the whole story of the Gospel from a missional perspective. Part I concerns my motivation for this approach, and the meaning and shaping of a missional hermeneutic for reading the Gospel. Part II concerns the application of the shaped missional hermeneutic to the reading of the given text. The study divides the Gospel into four parts. From the point of view of a missional reading of the Gospel, the first part (1:1-2:12) of the Gospel provides a Johannine grand narrative of the missional God as an introduction for the rest of the Gospel. The second part (2:13-12:50) reveals a two-fold ministry of Jesus. One is his encounters with the Jews demolishing the pride of their natural descent and the other is his interactions with individuals, particularly the marginalized, building a new community through those who believe in him. The third part (13:1-17:26) addresses Jesus’ exclusive interaction with his disciples. Jesus explains what is expected of the discipleship community regarding not only what they are to do but also what they are to be, the oneness with the divine community and also among themselves. The fourth part (18:1-21:25) includes the achievement of Christ through his crucifixion and resurrection. The achievement includes both the fulfilment of what was prophesied in the Old Testament and the forming of a believing discipleship community. Part III of the study concerns the findings from the reading and the implications of them for mission, particularly for the concept of missio Dei. To conclude the thesis, I revisit a missional hermeneutic which I propose for this study, and also present limitations and suggestions of the study