Bringing Jesus Into Focus

Posted by Joe Thorn - 21/06/06


One of the things I appreciated about the Pastors’ Conference at the SBC this year was the emphasis, at least on the second day, on preaching the Gospel in the language of those to whom we have been sent. Yep, contextualization and cultural relevance was said to be a virtue, and I agree.

I know what some of you are thinking… “pomo, emerging church, missional, church growth nonsense.” All I have to do is scan a few popular blogs to find this kind of response to the phrase “cultural relevance.” But Let me explain why I believe we must contextualize and strive for cultural relevance in our ministry.

The main reason is because God himself is the Great Contextualizer. God contextualized, both by using human language so that all men could understand, but also by speaking truth and acting in a way that allowed a particular culture to get his message. Contextualization (for the church) boils down to using cultural symbols to translate eternal truth. The truth remains the same, but its expression varies. Think about it - God contextualized his message by choosing to reveal himself through the use of Ancient Near Eastern law forms. I imagine some think God invented case law, etc. but the truth is God used what was already in place; what was culturally understandable. God also chose to use various genres of literature to make his glory known, speaking to us in poetry and prose, in historical narrative and epistles. Beyond this he also commanded circumcision to be the sign of the covenant between himself and his people - a rite used by many other peoples during the same time period. In other words, God did not invent circumcision, but used an established cultural practice for his own purposes. God did all of this in order to bring himself, his work and his gospel into focus. This is why Jesus taught the way he did. He did not simply use parables, but “culturally relevant” parables. In fact, some of his parables are so culturally relevant to a first century, Palestinian, agrarian culture they make little sense to 21st century, U.S. urbanites without the help of some background information.

Churches that contextualize well are not sugar-coating, watering down, changing or ignoring the gospel or the hard truths of Scripture. Sidestepping orthodoxy is not contextualization, but unfaithfulness to God leaving the church with nothing left to make clear. Churches that contextualize well speak the language of the people, bringing Jesus and the gospel into focus. This demands that we have a firm grasp on both doctrine and culture.

In reality, most people get this on some level. If we did not allow for contextualization, we would have to do away with translating the Scripture into different languages, stop writing new songs that express our ancient faith, and put an end to our cross-cultural missionary endeavors all together. These are obvious examples, but the point should be clear.

What does this mean on a practical level? It at least means that we need to know people (individually and/or collectively) well enough to apply the gospel to them in the most appropriate way. Yes, we preach law and Gospel in our evangelism, but what that looks like and what aspects of the Gospel we will push forward must be determined based on who we are talking to. If you have read my posts on evangelism or worship you know where I am coming from.

Let me be clear by saying contextualization does not mean accommodating our culture at every point. In many ways, we contextualize the truths of God’s word when we work against the sins prevalent in our culture, in counter-cultural ways. Defending the innocent, liberating the oppressed, serving the poor, rebuilding community, and every other value of God’s Kingdom requires a unique expression in each context. And in light of our increasingly globally-connected culture, what this looks like will begin to appear very different from what we were doing last century.

The church that contextualizes the Gospel is a church faithful to the example and command of God. May God give us the grace to speak plainly to the people. I believe we are called to be faithful stewards of the mysteries of God, while preaching them to the world following the example of God. Let’s not merely contextualize, but let’s contextualize well. Let’s not try to make the bible relevant, but to demonstrate that it is relevant to every tribe tongue and nation as it points us all to the one who died on the cross for our sins.

26 Comments

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  1. Well said Joe. We still need to preach the message, but in a manner that Bob next door can somewhat understand. (language wise)

    Comment by james — June 21, 2006 #

  2. My hope is that this post will provoke a “Of course, what’s the big deal?” response, because so many seem afraid of the word and concept. Of course some will abandon the truth in the name of contextualization - but that is not contextualization, it is something else all together.

    Comment by Joe Thorn — June 21, 2006 #

  3. Joe,

    A great intro! At the same time, I think it would be helpful for you to flesh this out some more. What should an evangelical do to contextualize well? What have you done in your local community? Etc.

    Comment by John Divito — June 21, 2006 #

  4. Well done Joe! I fear that most people’s problem with contestualization is there fear of the culture more than anything. They don’t understand the post-Christian culture that real people live in and only understand living in a Christian context they have emersed themselves in so they are afraid that if it doesn’t look like what they are familiar with then it must not be of God.

    When are we going to get past our stupid Christian hang-ups and realize there is a whole big world out there that needs to hear of the good news of what Christ did for them. Also, that big world is not coming to the church for the answers to their life questions, so we need to meet them where they are and allow God to use the contextual motif to touch their hearts.

    Comment by Chirs Walls — June 21, 2006 #

  5. Good post Joe. I pray that I can learn to effectively contextualize the message in a way that is faithful to the Jesus movement and relevant to my community.

    I haven’t heard anyone talk about McManus’ talk from the Pastor’s Conference. I’ve heard some about Searcy’s but not his. Anything of significance said by McManus? And in general I haven’t seen many who hover around your blog and Steve’s that talk about McManus in general. What’s your take on what’s happening at Mosaic? Just curious.

    Comment by jason allen — June 21, 2006 #

  6. Great post, Joe.

    I do think we are scared of the culture. I talked about Paul walking around Athens and finding a point of intersection between their culture and believers. I was met immediately afterwards by the wife of our deacon chairman. “You mean you want me to become friends with THEM?”

    My question to her was, “what do you think Jesus would do?” but it was met with a blank look. :(

    Comment by Tom Bryant — June 21, 2006 #

  7. [...] Mark Lauterbach continues to write about faithfulness and relevance. Joe Thorn has a post about contextualizing the Gospel that compliments Lauterbach recent posts. Unfortunately when many Christians hear the words “contextualize” and “Gospel” in the same sentence they prepare for battle. They don’t realize that both here and abroad Christians contextualize the faith all the time in ways that are commendable and faithful to God. [...]

    Pingback by ryan::wentzel » Blog Archive » Faithfulness, Relevance, and Contextualization — June 21, 2006 #

  8. Joe, I also would love to hear more of your thoughts on contextualization, practically speaking. What does it look like?

    Very helpful post.

    Comment by Steve McCoy — June 21, 2006 #

  9. I believe Jesus practiced contextualization in both his choice of illustrative material when teaching in parables, and in the different ways he preached the gospel to different people, bringing out different emphases of the gospel with each person depending on where he/she was at spiritually (I deal with this in my posts on evangelism).

    Ultimately the word to use is “incarnational.” The incarnational church is the one that practices contextualization. It is clearly the church of Jesus Christ, but one emerging within a unique context and bearing the mark of that particulr culture. This will wind up affecting elements of worship, dress, evangelism, ministry projects, how discipleship is done etc.

    David Sills has a lot on this at his blogs and website. Here is a portion of an SIM Position Paper:

    Contextualization should be applied to areas such as the following:
    1. Dress, behavior and lifestyle of the missionary.

    2. Types of development projects, which if inappropriate, might be interpreted as ‘inducements’ by the non-Christian community.

    3. Language, including the Scripture translation, used in evangelism and worship.

    4. Thought patterns and communication style as found in the new culture (e.g. story-telling or use of indigenous music).

    5. Initial selection, sequence, and emphasis of certain aspects of the gospel relevant to any culture. (e.g. the different way the early apostles shared the gospel with Jews versus the way they shared it with Gentiles.)

    6. Worship posture and expression in prayer, music or formal discourse, allowing for various forms. We need to be careful, however, that we do not overlook the delicate relationship between form and meaning. We should avoid inadvertently encouraging a form or practice which is perceived by the worshiper or his unconverted acquaintances as having a meaning which is in conflict with Biblical truth. (e.g. Certain kinds of music in African culture are related to evil practices. The posture of prayer may be much more significant for a Muslim than for a former Catholic.)

    7. Discipling and training methods, keeping in mind the past experiences and future needs of new converts.

    8. Church organization and government, allowing various forms.
    Taken from Contextualization and Ethnohermeneutics

    Comment by Joe Thorn — June 21, 2006 #

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  11. There’s all this bandying around of these sorts of terms. If anyone here is a college educated school teacher, you may remember something called “scaffolding”.

    I think it’s important to communicate to people “where they’re at”, but also to try to move them beyond their normative mode of understanding. The trick is to present bible teaching in such a way as to challenge not just their hearts, but also their minds and their ability to learn.

    “Scaffolding” in an educational context is when an educator presents the learner with something slightly more complex than they are used to, but not too complex for them to be confused.

    If we have simple folk in our congregations who have little or no college education, then obviously we need to tailor our bible teaching accordingly… but at the same time be working very hard to push their intellects.

    The result will be Christians who can think and contextualise for themselves, and who can learn more from the bible as they read it themselves.

    Comment by One Salient Oversight — June 21, 2006 #

  12. It is interesting to me that hardly anyone has a problem with contextualization on the “foreign mission field.” It’s just when it starts to cut too close that people react. However, it looks like Western society at large, and the USA in particular, has for all practical purposes in recent years become a “foreign mission field.” I believe the more biblical approach is to seek to “contextualize” as well as possible in whatever “context” we may find ourselves.

    Comment by David Rogers — June 22, 2006 #

  13. I agree and Thanks for commenting David. I saw you at the Conference, but did not get a chance to say hi.

    OSO, I agree with your remarks as well. Just one example at our church is a Deacon who has only a high school education, and works as a garbage man. He is a godly man and has been discipled and self taught to the point where he now reads the Puritans and has a very strong grasp on doctrine and truth.

    Comment by Joe Thorn — June 22, 2006 #

  14. Joe,

    I was under the impression we did meet very briefly after the Younger Leaders Summit. Maybe I got you mixed up with someone else though.

    Comment by David Rogers — June 22, 2006 #

  15. Joe,
    Excellent post.

    David,
    Great point about contextualization overseas vs. “at home”. I’ve often wondered why contextualization is a core value in “foreign” mission, but considered to be little more than a “buzzword” by many when its used for “local” mission. I think a similar question could be asked about “indigenous” church planting. We value it for one mission field, but not so much the other because it would infringe on our capacity to hoard sheep.

    By the way, your mother’s address was a real highlight for so many reasons. Blessings.

    Comment by Stuart — June 22, 2006 #

  16. I hope that this doesn’t come across as being contrary, but one of the challenges that comes with “contextualization” is when you have multiple ‘cultures’ in your audience. Ultimately, I want that to be the case in my church.

    Where I am, there is a vast difference between the average 55 year old church member and an 17 year old church member. Further, we have business transplants here who “grew up” Baptist, but many who come to our church have grown up Roman Catholic.

    The problem that I have, not necessarily anyone here, is when one’s “context” becomes so narrow (i.e target 18-25), I wonder if that is reflective of what a Church is supposed to be. Actually, I firmly believe that it isn’t. Yes, if you are one on one witnessing with such a group, you can nuance things. But on Sunday morning when the whole body gathers, one’s duty as a pastor is to communicate effectively to all present. If someone’s idea of contextualization is pushing the body further apart through age/race/language segregation and is not working to overcome those gaps, I think we miss something vitally important.

    Comment by Brad Williams — June 22, 2006 #

  17. David,

    You are right we did shake hands at the YLS. I don’t know what I was thinking. That night I was pretty out of it (tired).

    Brad,

    I believe a church will ideally reflect the culture/context in which it exists. Artificially forcing diversity in a commuity that lacks it is not a good idea, nor is ignoring the diversity within a community for the sake of a homogeneous church growth principle.

    I think contextualization happens on both the micro and macro levels. One has to consider their community as a whole when contextualizing as a church. But I admit it is not as easy as that. I have not found any easy answers or application in this area. And of course, I am not a missiologist, so I need to do more listening than talking on this issue.

    Comment by Joe Thorn — June 22, 2006 #

  18. Joe,

    You said,

    I am not a missiologist, so I need to do more listening than talking on this issue.

    *sigh* I thought you were going to clear this up for me!:)

    It is a huge challenge, and it is one which I struggle with daily. Let me sharpen the perspective and challenge a bit.

    The city in which I live has a terrible racial history. The community is deeply divided along the lines of race to the point of outright hostility. During a sermon in which I quoted, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples,” I had a person get up and leave. It was a purposeful demonstration.

    I am not certain what you mean by “artificially forcing diversity.” Also, I am not certain how this even relates to “contextualization.” The problem isn’t, in my opinion, that I am not communicating to the culture. More often than not, the problem is that they perfectly well understand what I am saying! Now, if by contextualization you mean I should remove any unbiblical roadblocks to faith (i.e. difficult terminology, adherence to extra-biblical traditions, etc.) I am all for that!

    Comment by Brad Williams — June 22, 2006 #

  19. Brad, I was not suggesting anything about you. “Artificially forcing diversity” was directed at those who think they should have a multi-racial church in a community populated by one race.

    I was merely saying that a given cultural context will set the parameters in which the Gospel will be contextualized. And as I said in the post, part of contextualization is confronting sin unique to that particular area. Contextualizing the Gospel for you will push the issues of racial equality, the imago dei, the scope of Christ’s atonement, oneness in the body, etc. Such Gospel work (contextualization) may cost you your job, or even your life.

    We do not have to hit the racism issue as hard in my context, but we do have to hit other issues.

    Comment by Joe Thorn — June 22, 2006 #

  20. Joe,

    Glad you were able to benefit from some of Dr. Sills’ work. I plan on getting with him to post some more stuff on intercultural communication and issues within contextualization. We need this discussion! Thanks for this post.

    Comment by Timmy Brister — June 22, 2006 #

  21. I am excited to meet him at the Founders Conference next month.

    Comment by Joe Thorn — June 22, 2006 #

  22. Joe,

    After I re-read my comment, I realize that I didn’t express myself so well. I didn’t mean to convey that I had taken offense or that you meant me personally, even though it reads like I did. I meant that I didn’t understand what you meant by a sort of forced diversity, but your last comment cleared that up.

    Also, I probably should have said that I do not know if the race issue relates to what you mean by contextualization, not how it relates. I think it does, but I may be drifting off of your purpose to interject it.

    This has been on my mind for quite some time. My home town is now about 30% hispanic, and the mission work to this group seems to be to plant hispanic churches. This troubles me because I think that we should do evangelism in a way that encourages intergration, not our division. It’s harder work, but I firmly believe that it is more rewarding.

    Comment by Brad Williams — June 22, 2006 #

  23. I am with you 100% brother.

    Comment by Joe Thorn — June 22, 2006 #

  24. Joe,

    Great post and extremely interesting dialogue in the comments section. This is my first visit and comment at your site, so if you have addressed something earlier, I apologize up front.

    I agree with David that contextualization is a natural part of international mission strategies and I agree with you and others that contextualization needs to focus on helping the listener understand. I do have some questions that I would be interested in how you and others that follow your blog might resspond.

    With around 44% of American adults at a basic or below basic literacy level does expository preaching enhance or hinder contextualization of Bible truth? I’m not against expository preaching by the way, but it is a highly literate form of communication. Having been outside the US context for 14 years now, I do not know the current reading level standards at LIfeway for their church publications. When we left for the field adult SS material was written at an 8th grade level. I find information like this is significant when speaking of contextualization. And we haven’t mentioned US adult attention spans yet either.

    Another question is, does contextualization of the Gospel also include location of where it is presented? One of the more difficult cultural changes we had to make when we began working among the K’ekchi’ of Guatemala was the fact that for the most part, they never gave invitations or alter calls at the end of services. When questioned about this they simply stated that evangelization took place outside of the church. Worship and Bible study is what they did in church. My point here is, when did Sunday morning become the “evangelistic” time for the church and how do you contextualize worship for lost people? This seems to be an oxymoronic position.

    I’m starting to soapbox so I’ll stop. Thanks again for the post and the critical thinking that is taking place here. We are still struggling in our part of the world with what it means to have Gospel clarity with the cultures we are trying to reach.

    Comment by Ken Sorrell — June 23, 2006 #

  25. “With around 44% of American adults at a basic or below basic literacy level does expository preaching enhance or hinder contextualization of Bible truth?”

    From my perspective and through my experience expository preaching (EP) is a help for both the educated and uneducated, but even that must be done in a way that works. Despite the efforts of mny well-intentioned Seminary grads, EP is not a pseudo Greek class, and should not merely be the transmission of information. EP is taking a text, explaining that text (author’s intent) in a way that men know God and themselves better. I have found that the byproduct of biblical preaching and discipleship is increased and improved learning.

    I don’t use Lifeway stuff at all, so I couldn’t speak t it.

    “And we haven’t mentioned US adult attention spans yet either.” Again this is something that changes over time, but must be addressed when “doing” ministry. Obviously preaching 2 hours will be much for almost all Americans. Preaching 1 hour will be too much for many. Bu consider a church like Mars Hill in Seattle where Mark Driscoll planted a church among the unchurched, and in an environment hostile to Christianity. From the early days he has filled his church with both Christians and seekers who did not grow up in church, but sit and listen to his preaching for over an hour. His church is primarilly filled with the younger generations.

    “Another question is, does contextualization of the Gospel also include location of where it is presented?”
    I am not sure what you mean. Can you be more specific?

    “when did Sunday morning become the “evangelistic” time for the church and how do you contextualize worship for lost people? This seems to be an oxymoronic position.”

    I have never given an altar call in any of my preaching, but believe every one of my sermons is inherently evangelistic since the Gospel is always present, and men and women are always exhorted to respond in faith and repentance. So, I do not think Sunday morning should be “the evangelistic time for the church.” From my perspective (search my blog for “worship” to read more on this) worship should not be aimed at the lost or the found, but at God, it must be governed by Scripture, but expressed culturally. So I don;t think we contextualize worship for the lost, but for the people to whom we have been sent. At Grace worship must be contextualized for the far west suburbs of Chicago.

    To see where I am coming from you may want to check out my thoughts here and here.

    It’s the weekend, so my blog gets very quiet. Hopefully someone else will post some of their thoughts as well.

    Comment by Joe Thorn — June 24, 2006 #

  26. Joe,

    I don’t know if you’ve been over there recently (or if you go at all!), but Mark Dever just did an article on the gospel and relevancy at the Together for the Gospel blog.

    Comment by Brad Williams — June 27, 2006 #

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