Mission in the Way of Daniel: Empowering Believers to Live into God’s Plan

EMQ » April – June 2024 » Volume 60 Issue 2

Reviewed by Tenny Farnen, pastor’s wife at Chinese Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia.

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Providing a unique approach to the prophet Daniel, Edward L. Smither’s book examines Daniel’s life from five missiological perspectives. First, he focuses on Daniel’s cross-cultural displacement, resulting in his participation in God’s mission in a new context.  Second, he notes Daniel’s natural abilities allow him to have a special role in his mission. 

Thirdly, the author highlights Daniel’s God-given favor with authorities. Fourthly, he focuses on Daniel’s experiences with and demonstration of the power of God. Finally, he describes how Daniel was a bold witness through his prayers and sufferings. Basing his arguments on the life of Daniel, Smither demonstrates how each of these phenomena is relevant to contemporary missions work and is confirmed by the lives of other biblical characters and the history of missions, both distant and recent. 

I would say this book can serve as a brief introduction to mission and is very easy for a layperson to read and follow. He cites several missiologists here and there, but this does not make the book difficult to read. For example, in chapter 1, Smither borrows from Christopher Wright’s concept of the missional work of God in Scripture and Andrew Wall’s theology of migration and then proposes a third category combining (a) Abrahamic response to God’s initiative and calling with (b) Adamic plight as the consequence of judgment and punishment and demonstrates its relevance to Daniel’s life. He then uses this lens to look at the lives of Joseph in the Bible and Patrick of Ireland in missions history. He then shows how it is relevant to contemporary global migration and forced displacement that God is using to carry out his mission. 

Likewise, in chapter 4, when discussing Daniel and God’s power, Smither points out how God continues to use this approach throughout Scripture and missions history. He observed that today’s missionaries tend to overlook what Paul Hiebert called “The Flaw of the Excluded Middle.” With a dualistic worldview grounded in Christianity and the contemporary scientific worldview, they fail to address the realm of what he called the excluded middle of the spiritual, demonic, or magical, which causes them to miss opportunities to bear witness to God’s power. 

He also describes the two types of encounters proposed by Charles Kraft that missionaries can use. The first is the power encounter, with the goal of freeing people from captivity so that they discover liberty in Jesus. The second is the truth encounter, with the goal of countering error with Christ’s truth. 

Readers may be disappointed with the book if they are expecting something more academic. As Smither mentions, this book is for lay people. It makes it easy to see God’s story in history through the lens of Daniel’s life. 

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EMQ, Volume 60, Issue 2. Copyright © 2024 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: [email protected].