Mission in the Old Testament: Israel as a Light to the Nations

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Mission in the Old Testament: Israel as a Light to the Nations. By Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000, 101 pp., $9.99 paper.

"Probably the last thing a person is likely to think about in connection with the Old Testament is a missionary message to the Gentiles" (p. 7). Kaiser addresses such a view, arguing with characteristic clarity and concision that the OT should indeed be read as a missionary message to the nations.

Two fundamentally different views of mission are at issue here. Kaiser distinguishes them as "centripetal" and "centrifugal" witnessing. The former view understands Israel to have a passive, Zion-centered view of mission. It is, one could …