The apostle Paul couldn't write about theology without meddling in the lives of his readers. In his letter to the church at Rome, he wrote about sin, law, grace, and election, and then spelled out the connections to obeying government authority and relating to believers whose weak consciences compelled them to observe dietary laws. In Colossians, he waxed poetic about the cosmic supremacy of Christ and then informed his readers what that meant for relationships between husbands and wives, children and parents, and slaves and masters.

Every good theology spills over into ethics, and the Cape Town Commitment is no exception. The first part of this document, released near the end of Lausanne's Cape Town 2010, spelled out a narrative and missional theology of world evangelization framed in the language of love (my analysis of the document's first part appeared in the December 2010 issue of Christianity Today).

The document's second part applies the love theme to the practice of ministry and ...

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