If you or your church leaders / elders / pastors want to learn how to brainstorm on raising up your own missionaries and sending them from your local church, check out the mission group called "Propempo". "How shall they preach unless they are sent?" Romans 10:10-13 The local church sends missionaries. "Just as the Father sent Me, so also I am sending you." John 20:21 It is good to partner with a good mission agency, but the primary base of sending out missionaries is the local church. The local, Biblical church is the primary sending body for missions. We must trust God to open hearts (Acts 16:14 John 6:44) but also we have to work hard at communication and clarity. Some are going to be offended no matter how much language learning and good contextualization we do. If you truly preach the gospel, even with love and understanding and patience and knowing the other person’s language, some people will still not receive it. Neither is it meant to mean the removal of all stumbling blocks or offenses. It should never have meant to mean “changing the message so it is more palatable” or “agreeable”. It also involves clear communication of the gospel, (translation of the message into their language, and/or speaking their language) and illustration of the message. It involves understanding the other person’s worldview and culture if you will, “where they are coming from”. “Contextualization” originally was meant to put the truth of the gospel and God’s word into the context and language of a person from a different culture and language and religion. Although many Evangelicals have today drifted into un-Biblical forms of contextualization and compromise with the message, I believe there is a valid and Biblical and right kind of contextualization.Ĭommunication of the Gospel into another context Good contextualization involves more of changing ourself (putting aside our own freedom and culture and biases) and, it means not being rude but it does not mean changing the message. Another passage related to contextualization is Acts 17, where Paul uses the idea of “the altar to the Unknown god” and quotes from the Greeks poets/prophets as a springboard to talk about the true God. We are to preach and explain the incarnation and the cross, and issues of God’s holiness and sin, which are stumbling blocks to unregenerate man, and be willing to explain those theological stumbling blocks. That is, as much as possible, we seek to get rid of, or minimize, social, cultural, external, and political stumbling blocks and mis-understandings, but not compromising on the truth of Scripture. “Contextualization” is basically an application of 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (“to the Jew I have become like the Jew, in order to win Jews” “to those without the law, I have become like those without the law”, etc. Here is an excerpt from Part 1 of my articles on Contextualization: "Introduction to the Contextualization Controversy" What is contextualization? White walked through a large portion of John chapter 8 and then challenged us all to love Muslims as the heart motivation of evangelism and apologetics to Muslims. White's message after Phil's, because Dr. I praise God for all the messages and the work that Pastor Josh Buice and his team from "Pray's Mill Baptist Church" in Douglasville, Ga. There is a legitimate and Biblical level of proper Contextualization. ![]() ![]() Contextualization CAN be dangerous, but it does not have to be. It was a great message and went very well with Dr. ![]() Sounds like what a lot of American Christians have said to me over the years about Muslims. Phil Johnson preached about God's rebuke of Jonah's self-pity and anger when God poured out His grace on the Assyrian people in Nineveh and they repented and converted to the true God (Jonah chapter 3), Jonah got upset because he wanted God to wipe them out. I don't know why they don't change the description of the video!! Originally, his title was "The Danger of Contextualization". Phil Johnson walked through the text of Jonah chapter 4 and did an excellent job of the historical background of the book, and showing the problems with Jonah's anger, self-pity, fear, and hatred against the Ninevites /Assyrians (racial hatred) and his overall really bad attitude. These 2 messages (see videos at the end - one by Phil Johnson and the other by James White) were especially excellent and really went well together. and I have finally got back to editing this for this new web-site of mine, "Missions and the Bible". (January 16-19, 2019) Then 2020 and the over-reactions to Covid-19 hit, the social and political upheavals, etc. These are 2 excellent messages at the G3 Conference in 2019. The 2019 G3 Conference, "The Mission of God"
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