On Freedom Day, 27 April 2013, he posthumously received the Order of the Baobab from the President of South Africa "for his selfless struggle for equality ... and his dedication to community upliftment.
That same year however Bosch began studying and teaching at the University of Pretoria, where he joined the Student Christian Association and was more exposed to black members of the community.
Sensing a call to be a missionary, Bosch changed to the theological school and graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity and a Master of Arts in languages (Afrikaans, Dutch, German).
He then went to Switzerland to study for his doctorate in the field of New Testament at the University of Basel, under Oscar Cullmann, who influenced Bosch to accommodate more ecumenism.
Bosch wrote about his concerns that the Christian mission to bring good news to black Africans could be confused with colonial and nationalistic motives that entrenched racial divisions.
He was offered the Chair of Mission and Ecumenics at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, United States but chose to remain working against apartheid from within South Africa and the DRC.
In 1979 he helped coordinate a gathering of more than 5000 African Christians from every background, SACLA, as a demonstration of the church as an alternative community embodying the Kingdom of God.
He was an active member of the International Association for Mission Studies and the key leader, and inspiration of the South African Missiological Society and founding editor of its journal, Missionalia.
His loyalty to his native land, South Africa, seemed to be intensified precisely by a personal integrity that required that he live out what he understood the gospel to entail.
Along with his vast knowledge of the field of biblical studies, theology, church history, and missiology, David Bosch had the rare ability to distill the insight and wisdom to meet the demands of the day.