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I am honestly getting tired of watching Dr. Gary Yates trying to explain away the supernatural events of the Old Testament and make them natural occurrences like earthquakes and storms. I thought LBTS was more of conservative school, but after this class and the book I had to read for it; some of their professors are not as conservative as I thought they would be.
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Introduction
Christopher J.H. Wright is the international director of the Langham Partnership; who also serves at All Souls Church in London, England. In his book, Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament, Wright seeks to show that Jesus’ identity can be defined by the readings in the Old Testament, and that it was in the Old Testament that Jesus developed his values as well as developed an understanding of His mission. Wright also sets out to show how that we can better understand Jesus by understanding the Old Testament because that is what Wright believes influenced and defined Jesus.
Summary
Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament is separated into five sections involving Jesus as He relates to the Old Testament story, promise, identity, mission and values. In each of these sections Wrights displays how that we can better understand Jesus by understanding what Wright believes aided Jesus in understanding who He was.
Wright uses the genealogy of Matthew as a springboard to show the history of the Jewish people. Israel’s history is shaped in order as Wright states; “.the Old Testament which shows us the nature and extent of sin and evil.” It is those stories in the old that shed light on the redemption found in the New Testament. The genealogy also shows that Jesus was not a starter of a new religion, but rather a perfecter and finisher. Wright uses the information found in the genealogy to show that if you toss out the Old Testament you also lose part of understanding Jesus.
Wright shows that you can view the promise that Jesus fulfilled, in the Old Testament. By utilizing the infancy narratives, Wright seeks to show that Matthew desired to introduce aspects of the promise from the Old Testament: while rejecting the idea that Matthew views Jesus was just the fulfillment of a bunch found in the Old Testament but rather Wright states, “Matthew sees the whole Old Testament as the embodiment of the promise.” In view of the Old Testament promise Wright displays that the Old Testament and New Testament plan of salvation is based on grace. Also it is shown that the promise of the New Covenant echoes parts of the four covenant promises found in the Old Testament.
Furthermore in Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament, Wright examines what the identity of Jesus was and focuses on the statements made by God the Father at his baptism. He breaks down what God said and shows its relation to Old Testament scriptures. Write also emphasizes that in order to know Jesus’ identity in the Old Testament you must look at more than just his titles, but rather you need to look at the many themes that run through Old Testament. One of the main themes Wright illustrates is how the sonship of Israel relates to the sonship of Jesus.
Looking at Jesus’ mission, Wright explains how Jesus’ mission did not meet the expectations that the Israelites were looking for in their Savior. And that the term was so loaded with those expectations that Jesus did not refer to the term as himself, because of those expectations. He shows how the Messiah is discussed in the Old Testament in Daniel 9:25-26 and that in these verses the idea of fulfillment is very strong, the idea that Jesus is going to put an end to transgressions. He states that he believes prior to these verses there isn’t a verse that explicitly states a promised messiah. In focusing on Jesus’ mission it is discussed how He is ushering a new era, by both being the Son of Man and the Suffering Servant.
The rest of the book discusses Jesus’ value system and how it was built on the Old Testament Law and that instead of demolishing it, Jesus fulfilled it. Wright also discusses how Jesus’ whole value system was based on holiness and what holiness means and the importance of human rights.
Critique
In Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament, Wright seeks out to show how to really know Jesus you must look at the Old Testament to truly see where He developed his identity , mission and values. The writer’s goal is to show how Jesus developed into the person He became by looking at the Old Testament and showing the tidbits of his Old Testament Jewish History. He further seeks to show how if you “jettison the Old Testament, we lose most of the meaning of Jesus himself.”
Wright presents a viewpoint that appears to show that he believes Jesus lost many of His attributes of deity when He became man. Wright also demonstrates from his writing that He believes Jesus didn’t fully realize His mission without the Hebrew Scriptures. Wright states:
It was the Old Testament which helped Jesus understand Jesus. Who did he think he was? What did he think he was to do? The answers came from his Bible, the Hebrew scriptures in which he found a rich tapestry of figures, historical persons, prophetic pictures and symbols of worship. And in this tapestry, where others saw only a fragmented collection of various figures and hopes, Jesus his own face. His Hebrew Bible provided the shape for his own identity.
Furthermore, Wright also puts a major emphasis on Jesus’ baptism and that He did not fully understand His mission until after God the Father identified Jesus at His baptism. Wright also mentioned on occasion that it was Jesus’ self conscience confidence that He was the son of God, based on His Father’s identification of Him. Showing that Wright believes that Jesus lacked the knowledge that He was God’s son until He learned of it in the Hebrew scriptures and events in His life. Thus, Wright removes Jesus attributes of deity.
Wright also writes from the perspective that the promises God promised Israel may not happen, and that the prophecies did not have a literal meaning. He states, “to insist on literal fulfillment of prophecies can be to overlook their actual nature within the category of promise, with the potential of different and progressively superior levels of fulfillment.” He appears to come from the standpoint that the Bible doesn’t differentiate from the Israel and the Church and that when Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament, by promise rather than literal fulfillment that all the Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled and denies future fulfillment in the last days.
In seeking to prove the importance of showing how you can identify, know and understand Jesus through the Old Testament, Wright overstresses and stretches aspects of the Old Testament and Jesus’ story, while at the same time neglecting and downplaying other parts of the Old Testament. In seeking to prove the Importance of Jesus’ Baptism in helping Jesus to identify His mission and His identity, he takes God the Father’s words and dissects them, trying to show how they were taken from pieces of the Hebrew Scriptures to show how Jesus identified with his mission. He stretched it too far, and thus I feel did not prove his point.
Overall, though I feel he proves the point, that to truly know Jesus and what his mission, values and identity were, the Hebrew scriptures prove to be a valuable tool. Even though I would not take it as far as Wright took it, that the Old Testament was how Jesus knew who he was, I feel he does show how the Old Testament is very important and thus should not be discarded, because it helps us to know who Jesus was. He showed this by his in depth look at the Old Testament Scriptures showing what Jesus would have learned, read and taught. So even though I disagree with Wrights premise throughout the book, he did show how valuable the Old Testament can be, when it comes to knowing Jesus.
In Horton’s review of Wrights book, he brings out the issue that Wright believes that he takes this belief too far, in that not saying that the promises are figurative and should not be taken literally. This issue is a very relevant issue to bring up, because so much theology hinges on the prophecies and their literal fulfillment, especially regarding the end times, because it is through this and his other writings throughout this book that is from an amillennial standpoint as well as it appears he believes in a replacement theory, all stemming from the Old Testament prophecies, which he states should be taken as promises instead expecting them to be literally fulfilled.
Another important work that has been written on this subject is Walter Kaiser’s Messiah in the Old Testament. In this book Kaiser takes a more literal look at the Messianic prophecies and views them more of a literal fulfillment. Kaiser focuses more on the aspect of looking at the Old Testament prophecies and showing how they show Jesus was the Messiah, while Wright seeks to show how the Old Testament framed who Jesus was, and does not put as much stock in the Messianic prophecies. A major difference between Wrights and Kaiser’s view of the Old Testament and Jesus can be found in their commentary on Genesis 3:15. Kaiser takes them time and goes into a word study, looking at the tenses and shows how the seed can be referring to Jesus. While Wright chooses to focus on the other side of it, that it wasn’t referring to Jesus and does not take the time to back his position.
I feel that Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament can be a useful tool for someone wishing to understand key thoughts on Jesus and how the Old Testament relates to Him. However, I feel like everything you need to separate the good from the bad, and gather what you can out of it, while not believing everything it says. A reader must be careful when he read this because Wright takes a liberal viewpoint on many foundational items, and a person not grounded should be cautioned against reading this book.
If a person, who is grounded in what they believe, and who can differentiate between what is good and bad theology, they can gather valuable insights on how to apply the Old Testament to Jesus, and culturally what the Old Testament meant to him.
Bibliography
Horton, Stanley M. 1997. “Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 40, no. 2: 287. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed February 14, 2010).
Kaiser, Dr. Walter C.. Messiah in the Old Testament, The. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1995.
Wright, Christopher J. H.. Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992.
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Introduction
When Jesus gave the Great Commission, He commanded his disciples to go out and “make disciples of all nations.”[1] When proclaiming the gospel to people of other nations, obstacles are highly likely; language, traditions and worldview all play a part of how they will perceive the gospel. Can the gospel and culture interact, and if so, how? This paper will show how the gospel and culture can interact together by looking at biblical examples of culture and the gospel coming together, and approaches that do not compromise the gospel message, while making it relevant to the culture of the hearers.
Terms Defined
When relating the gospel and culture and conversing about their relation, it is important to understand the meanings of various terms used when relating the gospel to culture.
Gospel comes come the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον, which means good message.[2] Paul further defines the word gospel in his first epistle to the Corinthians where he writes; “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”[3] Simply stated, the gospel is the good news of the salvation that Jesus offers to all.
The Peace Corps define culture as “a system of beliefs, values, and assumptions about life that guide behavior and are shared by a group of people. It includes customs, language, and material artifacts. These are transmitted from generation to generation, rarely with explicit instructions.”[4]
The core of the culture many view is called the worldview; Kraft describes it like being the deep part of the river; whatever happens down below may not be able to be seen: however, you can see the effects on the surface of the water.[5] Some would prefer to separate the worldview from culture. Using an illustration of a community, all drive on the same side of the road, yet they have different views when it comes to obeying the traffic laws; Rick Brown shows his point that “different individuals in a community can share a common culture yet hold different worldviews.”[6] Whatever the stance, it must be agreed upon that the worldview is where the values, assumptions, and moral compass lies; it is what truly defines a person and their culture.
Contextualization is a new word in the scheme of things; however, the process has been around since the earliest beginnings of the Church. Fleming defines contextualization as “the dynamic and comprehensive process by which the gospel is incarnated within a concrete historical or cultural situation.”[7] Contextualization seeks to enable the gospel to be relevant to the culture and context of the people to whom it is being presented. Kraft states, “contextualization of Christianity is not simply to be the passing on of a product that has been developed once for all in Europe or America. It is, rather, the imitating of the process that the early apostles went through.”[8]
When relating the gospel and culture together, one thing that must be carefully watched is syncretism. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines syncretism as “the combination of different forms of belief or practice.”[9] Kraft explains the existence of syncretism by stating that, “Syncretism exists whenever people practice Christians rituals because they consider Jesus just another of many human manifestations of one of their deities, or as in Latin America, practice pagan divination and witchcraft right in the churches, or insist that people convert to a different culture to become Christians.”[10]
The Gospel and Culture in the Bible
Throughout the New Testament, it can be seen how the gospel and culture interact with one another: both in stories of them contextualizing and in examples from their writings. Looking at the contextualization in the Bible helps relate the two, gospel and culture, in our own world and time period. Because even though the cultures of then and now may be different, the principles and methods they utilized can still very much be relevant and useful for us today.
The Gospels
The Gospels each present the same story of the gospel of Jesus by four different authors and to four different groups of people. Fleming states that each of the Gospels could be viewed as a contextualization of the life of Jesus, each presenting the gospel geared to the culture of the author’s original audience.[11]
Matthew, the most Jewish of all the Gospels from the beginning to the end, focused on how Jesus was the true King of the Jews, their awaited Messiah. Matthew used language and topics that were fitting to his Jewish readers; he used the term Kingdom of Heaven,[12] referenced the Old Testament on numerous occasions, spoke of Jewish customs and traditions without explaining them[13], and used untranslated Aramaic words[14]. Matthews’s goal was to contextualize the story of Jesus for his Jewish audience.
In the Gospel of Mark, Mark contextualizes[15] a Jewish story for the Gentile Christians in Rome, which were undergoing intense persecution under the emperor Nero for their beliefs. He portrays Jesus as both the Son of God and the suffering servant. Flemming states, “from start to finish, Mark’s portrayal of Jesus and his followers would have offered hope to hard-pressed Christians, encouraging them to stand firm in their faith.”[16]
Luke was likely “a Gentile who targeted his Gospel to a predominantly Gentile audience.”[17] He desire was to show Jesus as the Son of Man. To contextualize his book to his audience, Luke showed Jesus in the light as the Savior of the World.[18] Throughout his whole Gospel, his language is geared toward the culture to whom he was writing, from his Hellenistic terminology to the all encompassing saving grace of Jesus.
John wrote his Gospel to show that “Jesus is the fully divine Son of God in whom we should believe to receive eternal life.”[19] He wrote his Gospel for a large audience of both Jews and Gentiles,[20] and geared his Gospel to be read by a multitude of cultures. Flemming further states,
He brings an abundance of symbols and images from his world. Nearly all of them have deep roots in Jewish thought…Images, however, like life, light, darkness, water, bread, wine, birth growth, and so on are universal symbols that are found not only in Judaism, but also in various other religious and philosophical traditions in time. John draws upon a whole range of symbols that enable him to communicate theologically to Jews and non Jews alike.[21]
Each of the Gospels in the New Testament focus on a different aspect of Christ, and all four of them, had a different original audience in mind. From just a short study of the Gospels, helps to see that the author has contextualized the story of Jesus to fit his audience, not changing any aspect of Jesus’ life, just looking at it from a different viewpoint.
Life and Ministry of Paul
Paul is the ultimate example of someone who sought to preach the gospel in a relevant way, so that his listeners could be able to understand it in their context. In
1 Corinthians 9:19-23 Paul states,
For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. [22]
Paul put this verse into action in Acts 16:3. It states, “Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he ctook him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.”[23] That is an example of the great lengths Paul would go, in order for someone to culturally accept him and his companion.
Looking at three sermons Paul preached in the book of Acts, you can see how Paul culturally adapted the presentation of the gospel in order to aid the hearers in better understanding it.[24] As we look at the following three sermons, Paul never changed the gospel or any elements in it; rather he started first where the hearer was.[25]
The first missionary sermon we find by Paul preaching in the synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia.[26] His audience is made up of both Jews and God-Fearers:[27] it can clearly be seen that his presentation of the gospel was contextualized for them[28]. Paul began his message with an overview of Israel’s history, linking God’s promised deliverer to Jesus. Followed by a call to action, Paul states, “and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.”[29] Throughout his whole delivery, even encompassing his style of delivery, proem homily,[30] and proof texts from the Old Testament, see how the culture of the Jews and the gospel are presented together.
In Acts 14, we can see the background and the eventual message Paul delivers to people of Lystra, in what would be the first presentation of the gospel, shown in Acts, to a pagan culture. In Lystra, Paul and Barnabus, after healing a crippled man, are thought to be Zeus and Hermes in human form. Paul uses this opportunity both to correct their misdirected worship and point them to the one true God. Keener states, “Although using biblical language, Barnabas and Paul preach to these Anatolian farmers in terms they would not need to know the Bible to understand, emphasizing the God who rules nature, who was already recognized by paganism.”[31] Paul’s focus was clear, and he accomplished this, not by syncretism, but rather contextualized the message to one they could truly understand and relate to themselves.[32]
While Paul was in Athens, we find another instance of how he related to the culture at hand. Athens was an epicenter for polytheism, so much, so that Paul became deeply troubled in his soul.[33] Paul ended up getting invited to appear at Aeropagus before the council, which we can see how he approached the gospel message to the intellectuals in a culture of many Gods. Paul started where they were by using their tradition of the unknown god[34], to show them the God that they needed to know. Flemming states, “Paul takes advantages of similarities between the Jewish Scriptures and Hellenistic thought in order to construct apologetic bridges to his listeners.”[35] An in depth look at Paul’s sermon would find many ways he contextualized his sermon to both the Epicureans and Stoics, without compromising the gospel of Christ.
The three sermons of Paul, found in Acts, showed just a small bit of his life and ministry, but they provide the perfect example of what his ministry was. Paul’s life purpose was making the gospel available and understandable by all cultures; without compromising the message, just adjusting the delivery style and methods. Flemming notes four of the processes Paul used in relating the gospel to culture: affirming, relativizing, confronting, and transforming.[36]
Gospel Communication and Modern Day Culture
About two thousand years have passed since the Church’s beginnings, and today is much like it was back then[37]. Rather than the Jewish believers trying to convert the culture of the Gentiles to that of the Jews, the gospel and its converts are pushed into becoming westernized. In order to see what it will take to present the gospel as Paul did cross-culturally, it is important to look at some of the methods of gospel communications that have been and are being used today, and the flaws that come with them.
Traditional Approaches
In the 1800’s, when western culture really started mission work, they brought more than just the gospel to their mission field; they brought the westernized version with them.[38] Hiebert explains the reason for this was that “there was nothing in the non-Christian culture on which the Christian missionary can build, and therefore, every aspect of the traditional non-Christian culture has to be destroyed before Christianity can build it up.”[39] The missionary would then go and work on making an exact replica of western Christianity, in a non-western society. With this westernization of their culture, the new believer took hold of it and wanted to leave their culture behind, because that is what they thought was biblical.[40]
This practice is still common today, the practice of going on other mission fields without taking into account culture when presenting the gospel. Many missionaries go over to the other country, preaching everything in a western context. There is a book called Getting Ready to Go by Lynn Raburn:[41] as it gears missionaries for the foreign field, there is not one mention of adapting to the culture. It is just one example of the lack of cultural understanding and acceptance toward other cultures.
There are not many positives when you use the traditional western approach of preaching the gospel without gearing it to the culture you are trying to reach. You might be able to lead someone to Christ; however, the overall effectiveness is greatly decreased.
There are several undesirable effects of communicating the gospel in a western context to a non-western culture. The greatest is syncretism; Whiteman states, “noncontextualized Christianity seldom engages people at the level of their deepest needs and aspirations.”[42] What happens is when the message is not contextualized to their culture, they have a westernized church, but outside of the Church, and what used to be done in secret (i.e. the caste system in India) has now became existent in the Church in India.[43]
Another consequence of this traditional approach is that superiority of the western culture over the respondent’s is shown. Whether it is meaningful or not, when you try to convert not only their souls but also their culture and way of life, which does not contradict Biblical standards. Ethnocentricity is one of the main reasons why people reject Christianity in other countries, because they view it as a foreign religion.
Relating the Gospel to Culture
Contextualization is important in the relation of gospel and culture. As earlier stated, contextualization was an important part of the apostles and the early Church’s evangelism. Kraft relates the gospel to a tree; this tree was not made to be planted in western soil and then transplanted into another culture. Rather Kraft states, “the gospel is to be planted as a seed that will sprout within and be nourished by the rain and nutrients in the cultural soil of the receiving peoples.”[44]
Contextualization is more than a passing fad contextualization serves vital functions in the spread of the gospel. Whiteman discusses three of the functions of it. He states,
Contextualizatíon attempts to communicate the Gospel in word and deed and to establish the church in ways that make sense to people within their local cultural context, presenting Christianity in such a way that it meets people’s deepest needs and penetrates their worldview, thus allowing them to follow Christ and remain within their own culture…contextualizatíon in mission is to offend—but only for the right reasons, not the wrong ones…contextualizatíon in mission is to develop contextualized expressions of the Gospel so that the Gospel itself will be understood in ways the universal church has neither experienced nor understood before, thus expanding our understanding of the kingdom of God.[45]
Simply stated, contextualization serves to relate the gospel to the world in a way that makes sense to them, whether in a different country or to another culture in your own backyard.
Within contextualization, there are different schools of thoughts and theology. There are liberal scholars that want to use syncretism and merge Christianity with the cultures religion. Then someone who is more orthodox generally holds fast to the doctrines in the Bible, that the culture might seem undesirable, yet they will not compromise. Then there are also yet still many people who are somewhere in the middle of those two stances. Hesselgrave breaks down these divisions into four many schools, each bringing a different perspective: traditional liberalism, traditional orthodoxy, neo-orthodoxy, and neo-liberalism.[46]
With all the different schools of thought, it makes it hard to decipher what truly is the proper way to contextualize the gospel. The proper way must have the Bible as the source and authority, without compromising the gospel message. Many contextualizers seek to make the gospel so available to another culture that they will change key elements in the gospel. There have been missionaries to a culture that did not have sheep, so they changed it to make Jesus the “pig that was slain.” Hesselgrave goes even further by reiterating the fact that we need to make sure to includes the Old Testament as well. He states,
Missionaries have tended to use a truncated “systematic theology” type of framework in evangelism (e.g., “Five Things God Wants You to Know”) and discipling and theologizing (e.g., studies on God, man, sin, salvation, Christian life, etc.), and have neglected biblical theology. When biblical narratives have been used or a New Testament Gospel translated, seldom have they been put in context of the “whole story.” The Old Testament has often received but little attention even though the New Testament can hardly be understood without it. We have displayed the “crown and head” and covered up the “legs and feet.”[48]
It is crucial that the entire Bible is presented so the gospel can be understood and fully realized.
It is also important to remember, when contextualizing the gospel, that there are three cultures to consider. The missionaries culture, respondents culture, and the bible’s original culture.[49] When the missionary first heard the gospel it was probably in his original culture, a western culture, unless he was indigenous. If contextualizing, he would go right from his original culture to that of the hearers culture: he would be missing the most important culture, the biblical culture.
When the Bible was written, the original audience was not people in America, England, Russia, Africa, or any other modern day culture: the original writers wrote by inspiration to the culture of their day, in their context. As we have learned it in our cultural context, we must go back to the original in order to be able to contextualize it to the culture we are trying to reach with the gospel.
Paul Hiebert introduced a form of relating the gospel to other cultures, with the goal in mind of presenting a method properly balancing the Bible and culture: critical contextualization. Critical context involves allowing members of the culture evaluate their own culture in light of the Bible.[50]
The first stage of critical contextualization involves an overall study of the culture. In this stage, the congregation gathers and reviews the tradition and customs of their culture pertaining to a question. With this the Heibert states, “the purpose here is to understand their old ways, not to judge them.”[51]
Next, the missionary would study the scripture in regards to the topic in question. In this stage, the missionary must be able to navigate the different cultures, in order to make the biblical truth understandable to the receiving culture.[52] Finally, the local leaders gather and evaluate critically their own culture’s customs with the biblical mandates. They then “must make a response”[53] based on what was revealed to them in the Bible.
Critical contextualization can be a valuable tool for witnessing to other cultures. Using this method, helps to understand their culture, show them what the Bible says, and allow them to respond to the teaching. It is also very beneficial, because the worldview is effectively being affected, thus allowing changes to be made, rather than just telling what is wrong with the culture, thus giving them ownership of their beliefs; leaving syncretism a less likely occurrence.
One more method of the gospel and culture relating is Redemptive Analogy, which is another concept some use when reaching other cultures. Don Richardson came discovered it after introducing the Sawi tribe to Jesus. His premise is that “outside of scripture, it appears that God’s general revelation is the source of redemptive analogies worldwide.”[54] We can see in Acts 17 that Paul utilized analogies with their religion, to apply them to Christ: however, I would not say that God planted them in cultures worldwide. Demorest states, “It is important to realize that in its universal disclosure general revelation imparts no redemptive truths. Rather, general revelation performs the limited function of enabling all persons to know that God is and something of what He is like.”[55] The basic concept of finding analogies in cultures and using them to relate to Christ is a very effective concept, if you properly understand, that there is nothing redemptive about them, but we can use them to point to the redemptive Savior.
When relating the gospel to culture, we must be cautious we do not unknowingly open the door to syncretism, because contextualization is such a fragile concept. Before you begin to try to contextualize the gospel to another culture, it is very important that it is immensely prayed over, to make sure the Holy Spirit is guiding you as you reach another culture.
Conclusion
As we minister to people, whether in our own backyard or in Africa, it is important that we learn to see the relation between the gospel and their culture. We cannot expect people to understand the gospel in our culture, so it must be related to the respondents culture. It was evident that the early church adapted the way they presented to the culture, and hopefully it will be evident in evangelism ministry today as well.
Bibliography
Barclay, William, “A Comparison of Paul’s Missionary Preaching and Preaching to the Church,” in Apostolic History and the Gospel. Biblical and Historical Essays Presented to F.F. Bruce on his 60th Birthday, eds. W. Ward Gasque and Ralph P. Martin, (Exeter: Paternoster, 1970).
Brown, Rick, “Contextualization without Syncretism,” in International Journal of Frontier Missions 23, no. 3 (2006).
Browning, W. R. F., A Dictionary of the Bible. ( New York: Oxford, 1997).
Demarest, Bruce A., and Richard J. Harpel. 1989. “Don Richardson’s “redemptive analogies” and the biblical idea of revelation.” Bibliotheca sacra 146, no. 583: 330-340.ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost(accessed December 9, 2009).
Flemming, Dean, Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2005).
Hesselgrave, David J., Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally: An Introduction to Missionary Communication, 2nd ed., (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991),
Hiebert, Paul G., “Critical Contextualization,” in International Bulletin of Missionary Research 11, no. 3 (1987): 104-112.
Keener, Craig S, The IVP Bible Background Commentary : New Testament. (Downers Grove, Ill. : InterVarsity Press, 1993).
Kraft, Charles H., “Culture, Worldview and Contextualization,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement 4th ed., ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne (Pasadena, C.A.: William Carey Library, 2009): 400-406.
Laussanne Committee, “The Willowbank Report,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement 4th ed., ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne (Pasadena, C.A.: William Carey Library, 2009): 506-528.
MacArthur, John, The MacArthur Bible Commentary, (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2005).
Nida, Eugene A., The Message and Mission: The Communication of the Christian Faith (New York: Harper and Row, 1960) quoted in David J. Hesselgrave, “The Role of Communication in Culture,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement 4th ed., ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne (Pasadena, C.A.: William Carey Library, 2009): 425- 429.
Paul D. Coverdale WorldWise Schools ,”Defining Culture”; Peace Corps, http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/educators/lessonplans/lesson.cfm?lpid=346 (accessed December 4, 2009).
Raburn, Lynn, Getting Ready to Go, (Lakeland: Macedonia Call, 1999).
Richardson, Donald , Eternity in their Hearts, (Ventura: Regal, 1984), 16.
Richardson, Donald, “Redemptive Analogies,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement 4th ed., ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne (Pasadena, C.A.: William Carey Library, 2009): 430-436.
Whiteman, Darrell L. 1997. “Contextualization : The Theory, the Gap, the Challenge.” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 21, no. 1: 2-7. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed December 6, 2009).
[2]James Strong, New Strong’s Guide to Bible Words. Electronic ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997), 2098.
[3] 1 Corinthians 15:3,4 ESV.
[4] Peace Corps Paul D. Coverdale WorldWise Schools ,”Defining Culture”; Peace Corps, http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/educators/lessonplans/lesson.cfm?lpid=346 (accessed December 4, 2009).
[5] Charles H. Kraft, “Culture, Worldview and Contextualization,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement 4th ed., ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne (Pasadena, C.A.: William Carey Library, 2009), 400.
[6] Rick Brown, “Contextualization without Syncretism,” in International Journal of Frontier Missions 23, no. 3 (2006), 127.
[7] Dean Flemming, Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2005), 19.
[8] Kraft, “Culture, Worldview and Contextualization,” 404.
[9] Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 10th ed. , s.v. “Syncretism.”
[10] Kraft, “Culture, Worldview and Contextualization,” 405.
[11] Flemming, Contextualization in the New Testament, 234.
[12] John MacArthur, The MacArthur Bible Commentary, (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2005), 1111, further explains that Matthew was protecting the Jewish sensitivity to the name of God.
[13] Flemming, , Contextualization in the New Testament., 245. lists some of the traditions as; “hand washing at meals, or the wearing of phylacteries and fringes.”
[14] Cf Matt 5:22; 27:6.
[15] Flemming, Contextualization in the New Testament, 241. He expounds on it by saying; “Its roots are thoroughly Jewish. Many traits of the Gospel bring this out, including quotations and allusions from the Hebrew Scriptures, familiarity with Jewish customs and religious sects, Jewish apocalyptic notions and symbols and traditional Jewish titles for Jesus, like Messiah, Son of David, Son of Man. At the same time, there are strong indications that Mark was writing primarily to Gentiles of the Greco-Roman world.”
[16] Ibid, 242.
[17] Ibid, 250.
[18] Ibid, 250 discusses how his version of the Great Commision stresses going to all nations.
[19] Macarthur, “The MacArthur Bible Commentary”, 1114.
[20] Flemming, Contextualization in the New Testament, 259. Relays there are characteristics that you can tell he wrote his Gospel for the Jews, and also that he explained Jewish customs lends people to believe he wrote to Gentiles as well.
[21] Ibid, 261.
[22] 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 ESV.
[23] Acts 16:3 ESV.
[24] Flemming, Contextualization in the New Testament, 57.
[25] William Barclay, “A Comparison of Paul’s Missionary Preaching and Preaching to the Church,” in Apostolic History and the Gospel. Biblical and Historical Essays Presented to F.F. Bruce on his 60th Birthday, eds. W. Ward Gasque and Ralph P. Martin, (Exeter: Paternoster, 1970), 165.
[26] Cf Acts 13:16-41.
[27]W. R. F. Browning, A Dictionary of the Bible. ( New York: Oxford, 1997), s.v. “God-Fearer” A God-Fearer is “A class of persons mentioned in the Acts (e.g. 10: 2) as religious, probably adherents of the synagogue but not yet proselytes who had been admitted to full membership by circumcision.”
[28] Flemming, Contextualization in the New Testament, 57.
[29] Acts 13:39 ESV.
[30]Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary : New Testament. (Downers Grove, Ill. : InterVarsity Press, 1993), S. Ac 13:16 – Proem homily was the rabbinic teaching style.
[31]Ibid, S. Ac 14:15.
[32] Barclay, “A Comparison of Paul’s Missionary Preaching and Preaching to the Church,” 166 states, “Certainly no one there would know anything about Jewish history or Jewish scriptures. Lystra had not the widely disseminated culture of Athens, and there was no point in quoting the Greek poets. He therefore started straight from nature, from the sun and the wind and the rain and the growing things. In his missionary approach Paul had no set scheme and formula; his approach was completely flexible. He began where his audience was.”
[33] Cf Acts 17:16.
[34] Donald Richardson, Eternity in their Hearts, (Ventura: Regal, 1984), 16. recounts the story of a plague that was going on in Athens, and the Athenians desire to please any god that was interested; so they released sheep and they erected alters to unknown gods wherever they sat down.
[35] Flemming, “Contextualization in the New Testament.” 77.
[36] Ibid, 126.
[37] Cf Acts 15, The early Jerusalem church, liked to try to force Jewish traditions on the early Gentile Believers.
[38] Laussanne Committee, “The Willowbank Report,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement 4th ed., ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne (Pasadena, C.A.: William Carey Library, 2009), 520.
[39]Paul G. Hiebert, “Critical Contextualization,” in International Bulletin of Missionary Research 11, no. 3 (1987): 104-112, 104.
[40] Laussanne Committee, “Willowbank Report,” 520.
[41] ,Lynn Raburn, Getting Ready to Go, (Lakeland: Macedonia Call, 1999), backmatter. Getting ready to go it is a prominent manual for missionaries in the American Baptist Associaton, it is geared to be a comprehensive handbook to prepare missionaries for the field.
[42] Darrel Whiteman, “Contextualization: The Theory, the Gap, the Challenge,” in International Bulletin of Missionary Research 21, no. 1 (1997): 2-7, 5.
[43] Heibert, “Critical Contextualization,” 106.
[44] Kraft, “Culture, Worldview and Contextualization,” 404.
[45] Whiteman, “Contextualization: The Theory, the Gap, the Challenge,” 2-3.
[46] David J Hesselgrave, Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally: An Introduction to Missionary Communication, 2nd ed., (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 141.
[48] Hesselgrave, Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally, 205.
[49] Eugene A. Nida, The Message and Mission: The Communication of the Christian Faith (New York: Harper and Row, 1960) quoted in David J. Hesselgrave, “The Role of Communication in Culture,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement 4th ed., ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne (Pasadena, C.A.: William Carey Library, 2009), 427.
[50] Heibert, “Critical Contextualization,” 109.
[51] Ibid, 109.
[52] Ibid, 110.
[53] Ibid, 110.
[54] Donald Richarson, “Redemptive Analogies,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement 4th ed., ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne (Pasadena, C.A.: William Carey Library, 2009), 430.
[55] Bruce A. Demoreset and Richard J. Harpel, “Don Richardson’s ‘Redemptive Analogies’ and the biblical idea of revalation.” In Bibliotheca sacra 146, no. 583: 330-340, 335.
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As I start this new blog, and about to start a whole new stage of my life. I thought it might be a good time to reflect on the road behind, as I look forward.
I think of the times when things were not going the greatest, but my friends kept me going. I don’t think they know how much they kept me going.
But now the future, in 2 weeks I will be married to the Love of my life. It is interesting as life has gone by, the opportunities we could have had to come together, I would like to think we could have had more time together, but I wasn’t ready, God had to groom me to be the Godly man, that she deserves. It all happened in God’s time, the right time.
So as for now my new chapter starts, it is no longer just me, but it is we, in the singular since. My decisions no longer just affect my life, but God has entrusted me, with his most precious jewel, Aimee Renee. 1+ 1= 1, a hard equation to grasp, but as I look back as I press forward I must realize, everything I do, every decision I make it is not just me.
Filed under: life | Tagged: aimee, friends, marraige, past | 1 Comment »
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