Is Mobilization in the Old Testament?

“Is mobilization in the Bible?” This is a common question I get asked.

While the words “mobilization” “mobilizer” or “mobilize” are nowhere to be found in Scripture, the concepts themselves are found throughout.

Two Major Themes of Scripture

In fact, it could be said the idea of mobilization is found from beginning to end in the Bible. Just as the major theme of “God’s Mission” or “Missio Dei” runs throughout Scripture and is unfolding as the Bible progresses, so is the mobilization of the people of God as the human instruments of that redemptive mission.

These two major themes of the Bible are two sides of the same coin. Both revolving around God’s redemptive purpose in the earth. One, the mission itself. Two, the vehicle God has ordained to achieve that mission.

Scholars have traced the “Missio Dei” throughout Old and New Testaments. That is not a new concept. Seeking to trace the “Mobilization of God’s people” in Scripture as His choice instrument to accomplish that plan needs to be rediscovered.

Defining Mobilization

To better see this theme in Scripture we need to define what we are talking about. Mobilization needs to be seen in a broader, more comprehensive way than is generally understood today.

A short, concise definition of Biblical mobilization is “calling the people of God to her core corporate identity as God’s multiplying, reproducing, missionary-type people.” Mobilization is more than this, yet this is the core. The historical outworking of the people of God has always been with a redemptive, mobilization purpose in the heart of God.

Jesus’ and Paul’s Mobilization

We are aware in the New Testament of both Jesus and Paul as tremendous mobilizers. Jesus, the perfect mobilizer, spent His three years in ministry primarily mobilizing a group of committed disciples, who following His ascension would be a trumpet among His people of their calling and purpose in the earth, bearing their own mobilization calling.

Paul took up that mobilization calling as he challenged the Church to be that instrument through which God could reach the nations as well, declaring in Romans 1:5, “Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name, and among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ.”

Notice a few things in this verse. Paul uses the word “we” not “I” as he states the calling. This is not merely Paul’s calling as an individual leader, but the corporate “we” of the body of Christ. If the Romans didn’t quite catch that, Paul repeats the concept in the very next verse, vs. 6, “And among who you also are the called of Jesus Christ,” again affirming this is their calling as well.

Were Jesus, Paul and the early Church highlighting something brand new or had the same mobilization purpose of the people of God been long at play before then?

While there is an evident outworking of the mobilization theme across the Old Testament as a whole, in this article I want to focus primarily on the first five books of the Bible – The Torah or Pentateuch.

Mobilization In Genesis

God first told Adam and Eve that they were to be “fruitful and multiply.” (Genesis 1:28) We know this was primarily physical reproduction yet also took on spiritual dynamics as through the first human beings God intended to reproduce a people of the highest order in relationship with Himself.

The DNA of our core identity as a people who multiply and reproduce others who live under the rule and reign of Yahweh was always in focus.

Then humanity fell into sin, flooding the human race with violence, corruption, immorality, fear, hatred, broken relationships and much more. Yet, God had a plan from eternity past to reverse this curse, bless the world, and redeem it unto Himself once again.

That “mission” plan from the beginning included “mobilizing” a people to Himself as a starting point of the reconciliation purpose. Whenever starting some new endeavor, there has to be a beginning. From a beginning, something can spread. Abraham and God’s promise in Genesis 12:3 was that beginning. “And in you all the families (ethnic peoples) of the earth shall be blessed.”

Mobilization In Exodus

From Abraham came 70 descendants that became 2 million over a 400-year period in Egypt. Exodus tells the story of God’s mobilization plan to form this rag tag group into a redemptive people – God’s channel to bless the world with His own goodness and righteousness.

Throughout Exodus God is stamping His eternal, global purpose upon Israel’s DNA, “You shall be a special treasure unto Me from among all the peoples…and you shall be unto Me a Kingdom of priests and a Holy nation.” Exodus 19:5-6.

God is seen as mobilizing Israel into their primary purpose and mandate to represent Him rightly among all the surrounding peoples and assuring them of the central fact that through it all, “I will be with you,” for that is God’s name and character. 

Yet this people had only very recently (a few months) been powerfully brought out of Egypt. They had no law yet, no sacrificial system to atone for sins, no sense of being a set apart people. It is fascinating that those necessities came after God first stamped His “corporate identity” on them – they were to be His representatives among the nations.

Mobilization In Leviticus

The book of Leviticus takes place during the same time period as the second half of Exodus and cannot be understood apart from the events of Exodus. God had provided the ten commandments and given the blueprint for the building of the tabernacle where His manifest presence would dwell, revealing the center of the new nation’s organized life was to be worship and obedience to God.

Now in Leviticus, God lays out the specific protocols to take place within the tabernacle outlining what is necessary to approach Him in true relationship. This is necessary so that the newly organized nation can cooperate with God’s ways and pass on those ways to every succeeding generation, enabling them to be faithful to God’s purpose of Israel as a light to the nations.

Mobilization In Numbers

In Numbers, the people of Israel are in a process centered around getting them into the promised land. It is from that land that God intends to reveal Himself, through Israel as a light, to all the surrounding nations.

This is the mobilization plan being unveiled through the first five books of the Old Testament – God’s redemptive instrument (Israel) being prepared to accomplish His redemptive purpose (among the nations). All that stands in the way to entering the promised land is themselves. 

As soon as they start moving in the book of Numbers, complaining and grumbling begins, revealing the Israelites’ inner questioning of the goodness and trustworthiness of God. The complaining reaches a crescendo through the outright disobedience against God’s command to go into the land at Kadesh-Barnea, right on the southern border of Canaan (the promised land). This is one of the greatest crises in the entire history of Israel.

Joshua and Caleb can be seen as valiant mobilizers in Numbers 14 as they sought to help Israel understand the nature of God’s intent to get them into the land. Ten of the spies could only see the walled cities and giants, due to a small vision of God, while the two (Caleb and Joshua) possessed a big vision of God, knowing the obstacles were real yet God was greater. They sought to lift the people’s eyes from fear to trust in the unseen God who promised these things to start with.

Mobilization In Deuteronomy

The Torah finishes with Moses providing the new generation of Israel a needed overview of the Law, God’s ways of the blessings of obedience and the curses of disobedience, all for the purpose of preparing them to settle in the promised land. God’s intent from the beginning was to mobilize Israel into the land and from the land they would shine the light of Yahweh among all the nations of the world. Israel’s disobedience does not negate the mobilization plan and intent in the heart of God, instead revealing their own weakness.

As the Old Testament unfolds, we know Israel failed to walk out her “core corporate identity” that God had marked her with. The history of Israel is one of ebbs and flows, ups and downs, with many prophets (mobilization voices) seeking to bring correction to get Israel back into overall obedience so they could walk out their destiny as God’s “light to the nations.”