What Is New and What Is Old

Abstract

Gospel ministry—particularly cross-cultural gospel ministry—involves a new-old dynamic. There are new settings, new people, new technologies, new languages. There is also the same triune, the same need to receive, the same posture of humble service. New challenges and questions emerge in gospel ministry; and, earlier examples, methods, and principles inform how to meet such new opportunities in gospel service. Most importantly, while he gives new insights into his spectacular goodness and holiness through redemptively working new settings, the same God doggedly keeps his eternal covenant to re-make his sin-wracked creation into a glorious new heaven and earth. This issue’s articles all pointedly analyze, instruct, and exhort how servants in mission are to “bring out of [the gospel’s] treasure what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13:52).