God Shines Forth: How the Nature of God Shapes and Drives the Mission of the Church 

EMQ » July–September 2023 » Volume 59 Issue 3

Reviewed by Cameron D. Armstrong, Asia Graduate School of Theology, Philippines. 

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Marveling at God in his radiant holiness far outweighs any emphasis on statistics as fuel for mission argue Daniel Hames and Michael Reeves in God Shines Forth. Gazing upon the Holy One and focusing on his communicative nature brings Christians back to the foundation of why we engage in mission activity in the first place.  

The book is meant to cultivate in readers’ hearts a glorious vision of God. This reorients mission motivation from man-centeredness, which leads to pharisaical emptiness and exhaustion, to God-centeredness, which leads to joy overflowing. 

God Shines Forth is divided into eight chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 focus on Christ as the radiating glory of God who perfectly images God the Father. A right understanding of who Jesus is, and how he displays God’s glory corrects our misunderstanding and miscommunication of God.  

Chapters 3 and 4 explain the fullness of God and how, when we are truly united with Christ, God’s fullness fills our emptiness. No longer empty, Christians are renewed, the imago Dei is restored, and Christ shines brightly in and through us as we learn to be satisfied in him (chapter 5). “Gratified satisfaction always shows itself outwardly,” contend the authors (97).  

Chapters 6 and 7 contrast self-directed mission efforts, whereby mission is motivated by guilt trying to please a demanding God, with joyful mission rooted in a right understanding of the Godhead. Chapter 8 concludes with an exposition of our bright future where we will eternally enjoy the loving-kindness of our God. 

I enjoyed this book from start to finish. In terms of strengths, the book drips with passion for God’s glory to be placed on full display. Leaning heavily on Puritan sources, like Jonathan Edwards, and other classical writers, like Augustine and Martin Luther, the authors carefully trace the theme of God’s communicating nature as the radiance of Christ into the world.  

The authors achieve their goal, then, in showing how a focus on God’s majesty provides the fuel we need for robust mission. Only a rightly ordered theology of God will produce missionaries who joyfully witness to the life, love, and joy of Jesus long-term. 

While God Shines Forth is clearly not a missions how-to book, I did find myself wondering at points if the authors were going to give examples of how we might proclaim Christ or mobilize believers using this theological foundation. Instead, the authors seem to assume that, with a solid foundation, mission will simply happen. The authors do point to Spurgeon as one whose theology moved him to overflowing mission (102–103), but they do not address how even Spurgeon was prone to depression and self-directed thinking. 

This minor ponderance aside, God Shines Forth is certainly a book I will recommend to any mission-minded Christian. As Hames and Reeves note, “The God we know – or think we know – is the God we will show the world” (123). Enlarging our vision of God is always necessary. This book helps us do just that. 

For Further Reading

Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission by Andreas J. Kostenberger and T. Desmond Alexander, 2nd ed. (InterVarsity Press, 2020).  

Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions by John Piper, 30th anniversary edition (Baker, 2022). 

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EMQ, Volume 59, Issue 3. Copyright © 2023 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.