VULNERABLE MISSION

ECONOMY OF GRACE
This instruction by Jesus is grounded in the conviction that those with whom God intends
the disciples to work—the household of peace—will be ready to receive these
vulnerable disciples, so the disciples are not to waste their time casting about for other
options. Attentiveness to the Master’s prevenient work in people, here invoked by the image,
“the Lord of the harvest,” becomes the means by which the disciples appropriately
concentrate their work out of one household that will become a beachhead for the coming
kingdom in that place.
This instruction to his disciples simply mirrors the approach they repeatedly witnessed
Jesus himself taking. He is steadily on the watch for those ready to receive him and, on
discovering such people, goes into their homes. This careful attention to God’s initiative
does not end with the life and missionary training of Jesus. It continued naturally in the
early apostolic teams and among those who formed the household-based churches of the
first centuries, as we will see in what follows. 25
The Nature of Leadership in the Economy of Grace
What does it mean to be a leader in a household economy—if you are not the owner/
master? Throughout the ancient Mediterranean world, to have such a role meant to
be a steward, a household manager, an oikonomos. Those given responsibility within an
oikonomia, the household economy, were servants of the household under the master/
father’s leadership.
The dominance of the household theme in the New Testament, and God’s role within
that household as Master/Father helps to explain, not only Jesus’ prohibition of calling
people “father,” but also explains the curious shortage of the word “leader” as applied
to believers in the New Testament. Where the notion of leadership is in view, it is usually
Jewish leaders opposing the coming kingdom, or Gentile leaders whose “lording”
approach is explicitly prohibited. 26 By contrast, positions of influence and responsibility
in the church are routinely described in the language of servanthood and stewardship. 27
The focus of that stewardship within an economy of grace can be given sharper definition
by reclaiming the old English word, eduction, which means “the drawing forth of
what is latent or potential in another.”
In Ephesians 4, this idea offers a most helpful and comprehensive way to understand the
function of Christian stewardship. In God’s economy of grace, certain gifts are given to
more arrive as a missionary team acting in the power of Jesus.
25 The saying of Jesus uniquely recorded in Luke 22:35–38 has sometimes been seen to represent a fundamental
shift in the missionary approach the disciples are to take thereafter as they bring the gospel to the
Gentiles. This position seems difficult to reconcile with the unambiguous teaching of Jesus elsewhere, the
continuing narrative in Luke-Acts, and the subsequent experience of the earliest church. See Christopher
Hutson, “Enough for What? Playacting Isaiah 53 in Luke 22:35–38,” Restoration Quarterly 55, no.1 (January
2013): 35–51.
26 “You are all brothers, and call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven”
(Matt 23:8–9). Joachim Jeremias points out that, among all images for the community of salvation, Jesus
prefers the eschatological family of God. “In the eschatological family, God is the father (Matt 23:9), Jesus is
the master of the house, his followers the other occupants (Matt 10:25).” New Testament Theology (New York:
Scribners, 1971), 169.
27 Even in the rare cases where leadership language is used of Christians, it is clearly in the context of service
to the community, e.g., Heb 13:7 ff.; Rom 12:8.
27