At the table so much happens in the Bible, especially with Jesus and his fellow Galileans. We ignore perhaps the significance of meals and food in our world and this leads us not to notice the importance of meals and food in the world of Jesus. If we have eyes, however, we will see how central meal time was for Jesus. Hence, a chapter on this topic in Justo Gonzalez, The Story Luke Tells: Luke’s Unique Witness to the Gospel.

Today we do not often linger at the table with others for conversations throughout the evening and into the night; we eat in haste between activities. The ancient world didn’t have entertainment at night; the entertainment was discussion and conversation and playfulness.

Luke asks us to think again about the table and food and meals:

Commentaries have often pointed out that, much more frequently than in any of the other Gospels, in the Gospel of Luke we find Jesus eating. And that there are many other references to food and drink. One commentary offers a list of sixty such references — which comes out to about two and a half references per chapter! (77)

The table demonstrated or embodied central social realities and values and honor and worth.

Eating and drinking are not only a physical necessity, but also an important element in the fabric of any society. Even to this day, when we sit together with someone at a table, this implies some sort of relationship. It may be a matter of friendship, of business, or of simply trying to get to know each other better. But in any case, sitting with another at a table is both a sign and a way to create and develop relationships (78).

It has been said, and I have this in A New Vision for Israel, that one ate with one’s worthies and to eat with those above you was a honor-enhancing and below you as honor-diminishing. The table embodied worth and status. Hence the funny story in Luke 14:7-11, a story that trades in honor at the table.

Also, meals in the world of Luke’s Gospel are especially connected to discussions — what in the Roman and Greek worlds is called the symposium. One of Plato’s most famous and studied books is called Symposium. It’s about public philosophy in conversation at the table.

Jesus isn’t simply traveling along the road, hungry, when somebody invites him in for a quick bite. He is usually invited to rather prolonged dinners, during which the guests, reclining at the table, have the time to discuss subjects at length. And these dinners are also mostly formal occasions, during which certain customs and practices are expected to inform the behavior of both the host and the guests (80).

One can easily speculate that many, if not most, of Jesus’ parables came from evening table conversations. His pointed teachings often emerge from the table practices:

Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors  and others were eating with them. Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”  (Luke 5:31-32).

Jesus sets out his kingdom vision for human relationships at the table, as seen in Luke 14:13-14 (also Luke 14:23-24):

But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” 

Meals, as Gonzalez shows so well, are also the opportunities for Jesus to probe and push and plead and to warn, as seen in Luke 7’s famous discussion at table: Simon the Pharisee is the host; a sinful woman is the actor; Jesus is the central story and Jesus pushes against Simon on the basis of her behavior. But we are wrong, Gonzalez says, if we condemn the Pharisee here — that’s a stereotype we get from other texts. In this one, we get a Pharisee who is pushed but the story does not end with condemnation but with wondering what he will do. Hence, Luke 7:36-50:

  When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.  A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.  As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

  When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet,  he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

  Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

  “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,  and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

  Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

  Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet,  but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss,  but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head,  but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

  Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 

  The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

  Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you;  go in peace.”

Instead of listening to Jesus instruct the Pharisee here we often play the Pharisee by condemning him. But, in Luke Jesus eats with Pharisees. In Luke Simon does not reject Jesus but is warned with the counter example of the sinful woman. The story ends as a wondering invitation, not condemnation, like the elder son in the prodigal son story.

Instead of condemning we should be wondering:

If the Pharisees, the most religious people of their time, were to be definitely excluded from the reign of God, what hope would there be for us religious people of today? (86).

This is not to say Jesus does not warn, for he does, as Gonzalez puts it — one ought to come to dinner on guard if Jesus is present:

Luke thus depicts Jesus as reclining at a table with a group of Pharisees and lawyers who have invited him for some polite and edifying conversation, only to be surprised to hear words that they find offensive (88).

One of the great stories of meals in Luke is in Luke 19, with Zacchaeus and here are the four major points: Jesus encounters a paradigmatic and stereotypical sinner; and Jesus invites himself to his home; Jesus does not leave but stays at the home; most notably, the man is transformed. Fellowship with Jesus leads to transformation.

The author of this blog post is a missionary in North Africa with Pioneer Bible Translators. She, along with her husband and two little girls, lives on the outskirts of a refugee camp working to facilitate disciple-making, Bible translation and mother tongue literacy among two least-reached Muslim groups. Her favorite things about North Africa include drinking scalding hot mint tea, wearing colorful tobes, watching her daughters play on ant hills, and hearing people’s stories. Her least favorite things include rats in the kitchen and dry season dust storms. 

I first remember hearing the word sabur while sitting on a sagging rope bed in the suffocating shade of a tattered UN tent next to a woman who had just had her fourth stillbirth. She was just a friend of a friend at the time, a familiar face from the small community of Christians that meet under a tree here in the refugee camp, not someone I knew well. But when my close friend asked me to come to visit Om-Iman, the pretty young woman with the four dead babies, I was quick to say yes.

On this particular day I didn’t know exactly what to do or say. I had never sat with someone from my own culture who had just lost a baby before and sifting through my Arabic, which was neither of our mother-tongues, I felt clumsy and inept at communicating my deep sorrow for her loss. For a while Om-Iman spoke openly about how big the baby girl had been, how much blood she had lost, how long she must stay inside until her time of mourning has passed. As she spoke her voice was steady but tears trickled down the side of her obsidian cheeks while milk blossomed painfully against the cloth covering her breasts. I watched her, a woman whose life was marked with loss – born into a small tribe in a corner of the world where the government is actively trying to wipe her people off the face of the earth, not for the religion they share, but for the color of their skin. When the bombs became too much, she walked with her family for weeks through a wasteland to reach this sprawling refugee camp where there is at least usually food to eat. But like everyone around her, she feels every mile that separates her from home, and the thinly veiled tension with the host community. She has been here for four years.

So when she said the word sabur, I was taken aback. “But in this life we must have sabur, patience,” she said. “God sees everything, does he not? He has asked us to be patient. So we are patient.”

In my six years in North Africa I have learned a lot about patience. Patience with government officials who drag their feet issuing whatever stamp of the month we so desperately need. Patience with another rat in the kitchen. Patience with the care package from my mom that gets lost somewhere between the post office a country away and the bush plane that is supposed to deliver it to our dirt airstrip. And sometimes, when I am feeling especially spiritually mature, even patient with the wars, political instability and general blasted hardness of a context that forces us to keep reimagining what this ministry will look like.

But patient with four dead babies?

Patient when you can still hear the bombs falling across the border back home, and wonder who they hurt this time?

Patient as you wait out your life in a refugee camp and wonder if anything will ever change for the better?

I am learning so much from my North African brothers and sister and about patience. Sabur. The word holds so much more significance that simply waiting in a long line or trying really hard not to yell at your kids. There is something much closer to a word we might only here in an old translation of the Bible at church. Longsuffering. Enduring hardship for a long time. Sabur.

One might say that fatalism clouds much of what I see in women like Om-Iman. No doubt it is a mindset reality in huge swathes of Africa. But among these baby Christians here in the refugee camp where I have made my home, apathy is not what I see when they speak of patience. The tears and heart-wrenching cries at funerals, the singing and feasting at a new birth all seem like something much more alive to me. The patience I see strikes me as so close to something our Lord Jesus lived out. The willingness to encounter suffering not with anger or resentment, but with genuine grief and absolute trust in the goodness of God, even if it is hard to see at the moment.

Though there are certain things I chose to let go of in moving to North Africa, at the end of the day I still put a lot of trust in things other than God. The dark blue passport that gets me across most borders, the list of bush pilots phone numbers and the satellite phone to call them if the cell network goes down, a shelf full of antibiotics and home testing malaria kits. I still have my safety nets.

But women like Om-Iman don’t. They have their faith in God and the belief that he sees everything. And the fact that he sees is somehow in their favor. To be honest, there are days that the thought of God seeing everything doesn’t bring me great comfort. But for Om-Iman, it does. She will be patient, and in the end, God will make it all right. Because he is just and he is good. And this world clearly is not.

God is endlessly delighted in making the least into the greatest. And this barren refugee woman living out the beatitudes in the middle of war-town North Africa is my teacher in so many ways. I am drawn to her, not just out of my desire to be a bearer of hope for her and her community, but because I want to learn from her. People like Om-Iman are close to God’s heart in a way that I will probably never be. Many of us have been spared the circumstances in life that best teach patience. With grateful hearts, may we seek out those who understand it best, sit for a moment at their feet and learn just a bit of patience, true sabur.

John Goldingay. Do We Need the New Testament?: Letting the Old Testament Speak for Itself. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2015. ISBN 978-0-8308-2469-4.

Review by Michael C Thompson, doctoral student at Northern Seminary.

Every now and then a book comes along that grabs your attention just by the topic or, as in this case, the title. Do we need the New Testament? is probably a question which most modern Christians have thought about before, and perhaps has the potential to disrupt more than a few people in the pew. But here Professor Goldingay goes directly at the issue of whether or not the Hebrew scriptures have lasting value in light of the New Testament. Given his passion for what he calls ‘The First Testament,’ he is certainly the right person to have authored a book such as this, which finds its foundation on his conviction of a certain unity and continuity between the two Testaments (9).

At the outset Goldingay gives us his answer, and also issues a challenge, “Yes, of course, we do need the New Testament, but why?” (7). This takes the all-too-common discarding of the significance of the First Testament in many contemporary expressions of Christianity and turns it on its head. As the author highlights the importance of the First Testament, the reader is met with statements that will certainly give pause for thought. “In a sense God did nothing new in Jesus. God was simply taking to its logical and ultimate extreme the activity in which he had been involved through the First Testament story” (12). The underlying perspective here is that we cannot rightly understand the New Testament – most importantly Jesus himself – if we do not pay attention to what we have been given in the First Testament. Does such a conviction still exist in our churches today?

The challenge given by Goldingay doesn’t allow for a simple check-the-box acknowledgment of inerrancy, but pushes the reader to better understand the significance of the Hebrew scriptures as a part of God’s grand story and revelation. “God’s promises are not all fulfilled in Christ (in the sense in which we commonly use the word fulfill), but they are all confirmed in Christ” (26, emphasis original). This, of course, leads to the question that is found in Chapter 2: Why Is Jesus Important? In framing this part of the discussion the author states, “In none of the Gospels does Jesus tell his disciples to extend the kingdom, work for the kingdom, build up the kingdom, or further the kingdom” (34).

This pushes the reader to a reconsideration of who Jesus was and what it was that he did. It appears that Jesus came to announce the kingdom, and to draw people into an experience of the kingdom. Thus, the church is called to live in holiness and spread the knowledge of God throughout the world (46). “Implementing God’s reign is fortunately God’s business” (47).

From this the book goes on to explore the presence of the Holy Spirit in the First Testament, and the nuance of language that expresses the understanding of the Spirit in that context. In this fourth chapter Goldingay introduces what he calls Middle Narratives, smaller narrative units that express the Bible’s story (72). The Bible does not come simply as one overarching theme, but also incorporates other “extensive expositions of part of God’s story” (88). This helps the reader better understand the movement of scripture’s story as well as its interconnectedness.

Key to this reading also is Chapter Five: How People Have Mis(?)read Hebrews. This particular discussion is quite insightful, as Goldingay seeks to recalibrate what many casual readings of Hebrews get wrong. It centers on the nature of sacrifice. In keeping with the overall theme of the book, Goldingay pushes the reader to consider the importance of the First Testament as foundational for understanding what the New Testament says of Christ. The notion of a new and better covenant is a key element as well, and here the connection is made between the church’s role as analogous to Israel’s role (97). In the end it is the uniqueness of Christ’s sacrifice that is highlighted, in that he offers an eternal salvation, which is not found in the First Testament (100). Such a reading is vital for understanding the story of salvation.

Chapter Six identifies the loss of First Testament spirituality, a lament for that which goes missing whenever the church ignores its spiritual heritage. This section centers on the way the First Testament presents a worship that is intended to encompass the whole of life, drawing the community deeper into God’s narrative as found in the gospel. Goldingay asserts that in the forfeiture of First Testament use this is lost: “But in worship we have given up on those” (107). He believes that the way forward in this (Chapter Seven) is in recovering a sense of memory as part of hope and life. There are some good perspectives on Israel’s memory found in this chapter, as Goldingay identifies it as the means by which preserves history and ethic within the community, even when such memories conflict (124).

So, what about those times when the New Testament changes the ethical ideals of the First Testament? Chapter Eight addresses this question, and the notion that the New Testament presents a higher or better standard of ethic. “Jesus’ talk of fulfillment and his subsequent examples, then, point to one aspect of what is involved in interpreting the ethical implications of the biblical material” (141). Once more, the continuity of the biblical story becomes key to understanding these dynamics. There is a hermeneutical discussion about how the New Testament interacts with the First Testament, and this chapter has good examples of this as well.

The final chapter is a good summary of the method of theological interpretation from which Goldingay works in this volume. In a sense, this conclusion is the drawn-together theory his study as a whole. As such, he makes good and challenging statements to the process of biblical interpretation: “Theological interpretation is proper exegesis” (160). Goldingay admits that there is a diversity in the New Testament’s view of the First Testament, in that there are a variety of readings that can be identified throughout (161), and he strongly asserts that being christocentric is not the aim of the biblical story, or even of Christ. Rather, the story of scripture and the work of Christ is to be theocentric, which helps define the unity of the two Testaments (162f.).

In the end, this book is accessible to the pastor and a good deal of laypersons, though many in the church might not be ready to think about biblical interpretation quite at this level. But for those asking questions about the relevance of the First Testament to the church, this is a great tool to begin such an investigation. Foundational for this study is the understanding of the work of Jesus, not in bringing a new revelation, but in his life and message that give significance “in who he was, what he did and what happened to him, and what he will do” as the central figure of God’s grand story (177).

We all know what crowdsourcing is and most of us think it’s a special form of social support that can do much good. I propose in this post that we disapprove of crowdpounding.

First, Ellen Pao at Redditt has recently been crowdpounded by those she calls “trolls,” and that will refer to persons who, often incognito, use the internet and especially Comments or Twitter feeds to pound on someone with heavy denunciation, name-calling, accusations, and speculations.

The Internet started as a bastion for free expression. It encouraged broad engagement and a diversity of ideas. Over time, however, that openness has enabled the harassment of people for their views, experiences, appearances or demographic backgrounds. Balancing free expression with privacy and the protection of participants has always been a challenge for open-content platforms on the Internet. But that balancing act is getting harder. The trolls are winning.

Second, you may well know that Julie Rodgers, formerly on staff at the Wheaton College office of the chaplain, has chosen to affirm same-sex marriage. She’s now being crowdpounded and crowdaffirmed. Eric Teetsel wrote what is not surprisingly a conservative response and it is on the whole quite reasonable. Here are his concluding words:

We must not allow vulnerable students to meander down the alluring path of affirmation, or to shrug off the debate over biblical sexuality as a tertiary theological question not worth the time, effort or strife. Hiring Rodgers and giving her access to students as a voice of wisdom and authority was an error for which Wheaton owes students, parents and the entire alumni community an apology. But, for now at least, that era is over, and for that we can be thankful.

Enter, now, crowdpounding and crowdaffirming. Crowdpounding is groupthink in the accusatory and denunciatory mode. It grows on itself like kudzu or a clematis and multiplies fast. Crowdaffirming is the positive side of group adulation of a person. It’s all a pyrrhic victory, no?

I cringed in reading only some (I had to stop reading) the Comments after Pao’s piece and I waded through only a dozen hotheaded conversations after Teetsel’s piece. Crowdpounding is to rise up verbally into very strong comments, accusations, vituperations, rants — call it what you want — in comments so that the comments (1) incite others and (2) become uncivil and uncharitable in impact. When one can garner hundreds of comments that become a sickening example of Christians warring amongst themselves about who is most faithful, then you have an example of crowdpounding. Some people specializing in creating posts that lead to crowdpounding. It reminds of political rallies.

Crowdpounding is pounding a person. It is the Girardian scapegoat mechanism coming into play; it is mimetic rivalry in a Comment box.

The Comment box on such blogs thus becomes a platform for the culture war of whatever sort.

The blog or website owners are to blame for a lack of moral monitoring. The Commenters for incivility.

The Comment box becomes far more seriously an opportunity for Christians to exhibit their worst nature and to fail to communicate in love with one another or with anyone. I have no opinion on Pao, having never been to Redditt, but I do cringe in watching how Rodgers has been treated. She’s become a hero to the crowdaffirmers and a devil to the crowdpounders.

I can name websites, some of them well known, that simply do not monitor with Christian discernment the culture that is being created in the Comment box. So worried are some about censorship that they fail at the deeper level of charitable communication and discernment. The deeper level of moral formation.

How then shall we respond? Our approach at the Jesus Creed is this: We ask you to speak to others and about others in the Comment box the way you would communicate with others in a public coffee shop. Think of the other person as someone you like. In other words, ask questions and inquire and talk and exchange ideas.

Pao is right. The trolls are winning. The worst part is that far too many Christians don’t see the damage they are doing.

John Walton sums up his book The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate by asking why it matters that we dig into the question of Adam. Aren’t we simply letting science dictate the terms?

The historicity of Adam and Eve is significant for two reasons: inerrancy and The Fall. On the first point Walton has argued that Genesis is an ancient text and it is only natural that God would accommodate his message to the understanding of the original audience. We need not affirm everything mentioned in the text if it is incidental to the message of the text. Such an approach has ample support in the history of Christianity. Walton brings up John Calvin’s commentary on Genesis 1 as an example. That Saturn is larger than the moon, or that the moon “only” reflects sunlight, does not mean that there is an error in the text of Genesis. This is an accommodation to the level of the audience.

Walton turns to an earlier book, Four Views on the Historical Adam, where he presented a sketch of the argument made in much greater detail in the current book. Philip Ryken offered one of two pastoral responses (Greg Boyd offered the other). Ryken argued that we need a historical Adam. His reasons are summarized by Walton (p.. 203):

1. The historical Adam explains humanity’s sinful nature.

2. The historical Adam accounts for the presence of evil in the world.

3. The historical Adam (with the historical Eve) clarifies the biblical position on sexual identity and family relationships.

4. The historical Adam assures us that we are justified before God.

5. The historical Adam advances the missionary work of the church.

6. The historical Adam secures our hope in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

Walton points out that these reasons illustrate the truly significant questions in the discussion of Adam. Inerrancy is a rather minor one that can, if these other issues are addressed, be handled rather easily (for most of us at least).

But Walton doesn’t address these issues specifically. Rather he argues that

… even if we accept without question all these points, we could still maintain that no theology is built upon the scientific implications commonly associated with Adam and Eve: that they must (theologically speaking!) be created de novo, as the only people at the beginning of humanity and those from whom we are all still descended. (p. 203-204)

This has been the thrust of his book. It isn’t that we have answers about everything. Simply put, the traditional interpretation of a unique pair isn’t the only interpretation that is faithful to scripture and to the theological claims of scripture. And this is important:

In other words, if neither exegesis nor theology intractably demands those conclusions that argue against modern scientific consensus premised on common descent, we have no compelling reason to contest the science. (p. 204)

We don’t interpret scripture through the lens of science, looking for concordance with modern science, but concentrate on the theological message of scripture and let science wander along the path to truth. There is certainly no guarantee that all we affirm today with respect to human evolution is “truth.” And it certainly is not true that the atheistic, materialistic, naturalistic statements made by some scientists must be accepted as truth. But the science itself need not be feared or resisted.

But, but, but, … what about tradition!

Some readers will feel some reticence about adopting new interpretations of the biblical text. How dare we disregard two millennia of church history? Are we better than the church fathers? Would God leave us without sound interpretation for so long? These sorts of questions show a commendable impulse to caution. As we address these concerns, however, we might recall that opponents of the Reformers would have raised similar objections. Furthermore it is noted that in this work the suggested innovations are primarily exegetical rather than theological. (p. 204)

We would do well to remember that all of the church fathers (and the Reformers) were human beings limited by their time, place, and resource. For example, we have access to a million cuneiform texts unknown to the church fathers. We also have knowledge of the natural world – not just deep history and cosmology, but also geography, flora, and fauna – that is completely foreign to them. We would also do well to look into the diversity of interpretations throughout history. They are not as uniform as we often suppose.

Here is a key point:

These comments do not suggest that we neglect or ignore the history of interpretation, only that we recognize that a history of faithful interpretation continues and that as the textual evidence dictates, we may still find occasion to take our departure from some traditionally held ideas. (p. 206)

Walton doesn’t put it like this, but I will. God did not put us on autopilot 2000 years ago, 1500 years ago (after the Nicene Creed), 500 years (after the reformation), 100 years ago (with the rise of fundamentalism in the US), or yesterday. We have to wrestle with God’s message afresh in each new generation in the changing contexts of life trusting his Spirit to lead us forward. The canon is closed, but the Spirit isn’t absent.

And why does it matter? Here I find it interesting that Ryken claims that a historical Adam advances the missionary work of the church. It is clear that a united humanity does this – but that doesn’t require a historical Adam. Nor does a historical Adam necessarily lead people to appreciate the full humanity of all (David N. Livingstone’s books Adam’s Ancestors and Dealing with Darwin bring important insight into the various influences in our church history).

Walton suggests that this discussion matters for reasons of mission, ministry, and evangelism. Unnecessary certainty on issues that conflict with science marginalizes those who understand the science. It leads to an unhealthy bifurcation of life into “church time” where we “church think” and “professional time” where we “science think.” This is not a comfortable position. It would be far better to chart a path of convergence and compatibility if such does not compromise on the theological core convictions of our faith.

The church’s approach to science also has a significant impact on evangelism. “Many non-Christians opposed to the gospel and to Christianity habitually ridicule the church for what they paint as a naive commitment to an ancient mythology.” (p. 208) We should be careful to present the gospel and not encumber it with non-essential opinions and interpretations. Walton concludes “The gospel is clear – believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” (p. 209)

I’ll go a little further … Not only is the gospel clear, but the historical Adam isn’t important to it at any level. It is Jesus Christ who assures us that we are justified before God. It is Jesus Christ who advances the missionary work of the church. It is Jesus Christ who secures our hope in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. A Christian who never hears about Adam, but is taught the life, death, and resurrection of Christ lacks nothing.

Getting our priorities straight does matter. I am always willing to discuss the science. But this isn’t the main point. Jesus Christ is. When we equate the gospel with a preferred presentation of the gospel we have a problem and it is hurting our witness.

Does the historical Adam matter?

What theological point stands on the traditional view of Adam?

Does it matter that this view prevents many from even considering the gospel message?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Jackson Wu (PhD, SEBTS) teaches theology and missiology in a seminary for Chinese church leaders. Previously, he also worked as a church planter. In the next month, he has just released his second book One Gospel for All Nations: A Practical Approach to Biblical Contextualization In addition to his blog, jacksonwu.org, follow him on Twitter @jacksonwu4china.

Hundreds of books and articles talk about contextualization. Nearly every one of them focuses on two questions: What is contextualization? and How do we contextualize? Of course, those are important questions. There is a more basic question that too often gets overlooked––Why should we contextualize the gospel?

Why we contextualize determines how we contextualize. Perhaps, one reason people struggle with how to contextualize is because they don’t sufficiently grasp why to contextualize.

Contextualization Saves the Gospel

“Contextualization” shapes every aspect of the Christian life. It is more than a missionary strategy, a narrow evangelistic concern. Contextualization refers to the process wherein people interpret, communicate, and apply the Bible within a particular cultural context.

“All theology is contextualized” has become of a well-known dictum. Our question is not whether we contextualize the gospel; that’s inevitable. The real issue is whether we do it well.

Unless we intentionally contextualize the gospel, we might even lose the gospel. How so? If we are not careful, our message will neither be biblically faithful nor culturally meaningful. We will then be content with being relevant only to the theological tradition of our denominational or organizational subculture.

In One Gospel for All Nations, I try to develop a more holistic model of contextualization. There are four fundamental reasons we need a new perspective when it comes to contextualization. Today, I answer the why question. In the next post, we’ll revisit the “how” question. If we lose sight of the purpose of contextualization, we will inevitably slide into pragmatism and theological partisanship.

1. All of Life

We contextualize the gospel in order to make disciples, not converts. Therefore, biblical contextualization seeks to transform people’s entire view of the world, not merely their religious affiliation and traditions.All too often, many have reduced contextualization to an evangelism strategy. Yet, the gospel announces that Jesus is king now and forever, not merely “in the next life.” In order to ensure someone is saved from future judgment, many people proclaim what they regard as the basic doctrines of the Christian faith.

Some people seem to think contextualization means finding a “redemptive analogy” that conveys a theological idea. Perhaps, this makes for an interesting first conversation, but it doesn’t get to the gospel’s underlying worldview.

Our gospel message does not necessarily touch upon the whole of people’s lives simply because we change some wording and imagery. It might still seem like we’re offering just another religious option otherwise disconnected from the concrete realities of life. If we have a superficial view of contextualization, our message will sound foreign and fragmented.

For some, contextualization is little more than a tool for efficient communication. However, efficient evangelism might not make faithful followers.

2. All of Scripture

Typically, people regard contextualization as something we do to the gospel. This is only a partial truth. After all, Scripture reveals a gospel that is already contextualized. (More on that point in my third post in this series). Nowadays, people equate contextualization only with communication and application. In other words, one does exegesis and theology, then he or she contextualizes the message.

This is a fundamentally problematic perspective. As I explain in Saving God’s Face, we miss the fact that contextualization begins with interpretation. Yet, when we “assume the gospel”, we easily confuse the gospel with the particular emphases of our theological tradition.

When we have a more robust view of contextualization, the entire biblical canon shapes our gospel perspective. One is freed to use the grand biblical Story when presenting the gospel, not merely passages from Romans and Galatians.God inspired the entire Bible, not simply Paul’s letters. When we grasp this point, we are closer to understanding why Paul directly equates the Abrahamic covenant with “the gospel” (Gal 3:8).

3. All Nations

The gospel is for all nations. Sadly, too many people around the world think the God is the Bible is a Western God. I have regularly spoken with these people. There are various reasons for this.

One reason is that people (like missionaries) typically share the gospel in a rather Western way. I don’t at all imply that “Western theology” is somehow “bad” or “false.” However, a traditional Western contextualization of the gospel is merely one way of presenting the gospel. This shouldn’t surprise us since even the biblical writers vary in how they express the gospel.

Therefore, we need to take contextualization seriously in order that all nations will know the one true God.

4. All Generations

Unfortunately, people too often judge churches by their size. Among many missionaries, a similar measure is used to judge one’s ministry––speed. In some circles, the worth of a ministry strategy or method largely depends on whether it leads to rapid reproduction.

From this perspective, pragmatism wins out over genuine contextualization. One can simply observe what others have done, “reverse engineer” the process and then expect God to brings about a rapid multiplication of churches. When churches plant churches, this result is sometimes called “generational growth.”

Pragmatism however can be shortsighted. It is hardly worthy of the name “generational growth” when churches are planted rapidly but few last 10 years later.

Contextualization that is biblical faithful and culturally meaningful will invest in the long-term maturity, not merely short-term multiplication. We should judge contextualization methods not based on what is fast but rather what will last.

Why We Need a New Perspective

By starting with why we should contextualize, the Bible reminds us of our true priorities.

Fundamentally, we want to make disciples who follow Christ and faithfully interpret Scripture for the sake of all nations until Jesus returns. In the next post, I’ll explore an important, practical implication of what I’ve said above.

In your church or organization, how do people normally think about contextualization?

How have you answered the question, “Why should we contextualize?”

I have to admit that the conclusion to Mark Harris’s book The Nature of Creation (both the chapter on Scientific Eschatology and New Creation and the concluding chapter itself) leave me somewhat befuddled. There are a number of clear (and useful) points, but less clarity concerning the nature of creation and new creation and what these should mean to the Christian. Perhaps this confusion is unavoidable given the complexity of the topic.

Harris has outlined two forms of creation – creatio ex nihilo and creatio continua, creation out of nothing and continuous creation in earlier chapters.  In this last section he adds a third form of creation into the mix – creatio ex vetere, creation from the old.

Science really cannot shed much, if any, light on eschatology.  What science has to say about the end of the world has little to do with the biblical vision. This shouldn’t be surprising – the new creation arises as a fresh start from the old. It is a redemptive creation and “redemption is always a divine action.” (p. 167)  This is true in the exodus, in the Old Testament prophets, and in the apocalyptic literature. It is a message of hope that reflects a change in the current social and political situation and a completely new beginning for creation, the latter primarily in the later apocalyptic writings.

Harris argues that “any description of divine action must be metaphorical by definition.” Biblical texts fall into a number of different categories. Some are historical – accounts of kings and battles and such. These we can interpret in the light of our experience (although it also helps to understand the ancient Near East.

There is, however, a profound difference when we are seeking to understand a biblical text which describes something entirely out of our experience, such as a miracle, or a divine action, even one of creation. And the prophecies of new creation, by their very nature, concern divine action, and new action at that. Clearly all talk of contact between the divine and the earthly must then be inherently metaphorical, an attempt to explain the otherworldly in terms of our world. But this is all that we can do: speak of the new creation using language of our creation, images from our world which refer to a reality coming from another world. (p. 174)

The resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection body is our only real point of contact. This, of course, we only know of through the text of scripture – through human language inadequate to the task of description. It is something new for which the words and ideas dis not really exist in first century Greek.

The second coming is also an important part of the picture, although again portrayed in metaphorical, figurative language. But that we are to interpret it as an actual material return is unquestioned.

But at root, the idea of the second coming articulates an important theological point about the Christian slant on the new creation. Just as God chose to be revealed as a human being in the incarnation, inorder to redeem creation, so God will do so again at its completion. (p. 175)

The resurrection is an example of creatio ex vetere, creation from the old. There was discernible continuity with his pre-death body and something new as well. This “was more than the resuscitation of a corpse.”

Conclusions. None of the creation texts in the bible should be pinned down to a single physical meaning. This shouldn’t surprise us as the ancient Israelites (like other ancient authors) were capable of sophisticated literary thinking. If we view them as “primitive” we will get nowhere. The creation texts display a depth of thinking and imagery.  Harris summarizes it well:

Creation is a major theme in the Bible, with many diverse strands and layers of meaning, but we have seen that modern science only impacts on them on a surprisingly superficial level. While we can pinpoint traces of an ancient scientific view in the texts which is clearly superseded in our modern perspective, yet it served wider theological aims that are still relevant. In other words, the fact that the Bible’s creation texts are drastically outdated from a scientific point of view has not invalidated their various portraits of the relationship between God and creation; indeed modern science can say very little directly about this relationship. Furthermore, against the reductionist tendencies of science, we found that the Bible takes a much more expansive approach. Its creation texts can rarely be pinned down to a single level of meaning, a single interpretation, or a single explanation, and certainly not an explanation in terms of physical reality alone. (p. 185)

Another way to say this is to point out that the creation texts were never intended to simply convey physical realities. They convey a theological message. The ancient scientific view found at times in the text is incidental to the message. God, through the text, uses the views of the original audience concerning “scientific” questions.  No new science is introduced in the text.

The creation texts in scripture describe the relationship of God with the world. Creation out of nothing is “best expressed as a statement of God’s transcendence.” Continuous creation “is most clearly an expression of God’s immanence.” God is in intimate relationship with humans and the rest of creation. Creation from the old “is fundamentally a descriptive term for God’s redemptive activity in creation. (p. 186) Creation from the old is clearly connected with the resurrection of Jesus, but is seen in other texts and situations as well.

These three aspects of creation are simplifications and should not be separated rigorously.

God’s work of creation ex nihilo, continua, and ex vetere are not three different actions, but one creative action, while at the same time they point to the diversity and diversity of the unitary God. It is no accident that this is reminiscent of Trinitarian language of God – three in one and one in three – for it was through observations such as these, of God’s diverse work in the theatres of creation and redemption, that the three persons of the Trinity came to be recognized and distinguished as such. But the three categories of creative work are not to be identified with the three persons of the Trinity; rather it is distinctions such as these that have been important in the development of Trinitarian thinking. (p. 187)

Finally we note that it should not be surprising that the world is comprehensible, subject to mathematical description and analysis. The book of nature reflects the mind of the Creator God.  Harris sums it up:

The Bible’s creation texts therefore supply us with an explanation for the miracle of modern science, namely its unstoppable success in understanding the physical world: it is because science taps directly into the mind which made it all. (p. 193)

All in all an interesting book (although I’ve skipped the more esoteric scientific, philosophical, and theological discussions in my summaries). An academic book, but one I’ve found worth the time and energy.

In what ways does the Bible emphasize the three aspects of creation described by Harris (out of nothing, continuous, and from the old)?

Is Harris right that metaphorical language is required to describe divine action – something outside our material realm?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Marriage, Homosexuality, and Heaven
by David Opderbeck

I wonder if my personal feelings about the U.S. Supreme Court’s gay marriage case are common among Christians of my age and social location:  ambivalence, uncertainty, discomfort, regret . . . .

Some of this is unsurprising, I suppose.  As a lawyer, with a bent towards judicial restraint, I can’t fully endorse Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion.  I’m no expert on all the nuances of substantive due process, but I am, I confess, of the school of thought that Constitutional “penumbras, formed by emanations” too often lack the stability needed for the rule of law.  (If you didn’t catch that reference, it’s to the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut).  As a citizen in a pluralistic democracy, with gay friends and colleagues, I have a hard time sussing out the role of government in the face of such a contentious question that hurts people whom I love.  As a Christian, I’m disappointed, but not surprised, by the tone and content of much of our intramural and public discourse about the question.

Well, maybe in one way I am surprised:  it seems odd to me that so many conservative evangelicals cast this issue in terms of “heaven” or “salvation.”  This is evidenced, for example, in Kevin DeYoung’s “40 Questions for Christians Now Waiving Rainbow Flags,” which asks (Question 9), “[d]o you believe that passages like 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Revelation 21:8 teach that sexual immorality can keep you out of heaven?”  The notion here seems to be that “getting into heaven” is based on keeping certain rules – that is, on works – and that certain kinds of sexual misconduct, particularly homosexual conduct, is one of the big deal breakers.  For many conservative evangelicals, these texts seem to function as the hammer in this debate.  This strikes me as exceedingly odd, since a hallmark of evangelicalism is the belief that salvation comes by faith alone, not by works.  To suggest that “salvation comes by faith, not by works, unless you commit sin x, y, or z, in which case you’re out,” obviously doesn’t make sense.

Of course, even if we believe in salvation by faith alone, we have to grapple with texts like 1 Cor. 6:9.  Those of us who aren’t personally gay tend to ignore the other vices in these passages, such as greed, idolatry, and even “the cowardly and all liars” (Rev. 21:8).  Given Jesus’ teaching about the connection between lust and adultery, who among us can read the reference to “adulterers” and not shudder?  Can anyone living a comfortable life in America, while much of the world suffers in poverty, not be pierced to the heart by John the Seer’s reference to “cowards” and “liars?”  Who among us can read Paul’s broad, general reference to the “unrighteous ones” (adikoi) without falling to his knees with a forlorn cry for mercy?

I think Richard Hays sums up the sense of the 1 Corinthians passage well in his book The Moral Vision of the New Testament:  “The rhetoric of this passage treats the readers as participants already in a new life.  The statement that evildoers will not inherit God’s kingdom is set forward not as a threat to the Corinthian community but rather as an invitation to them to claim their own baptismal identity as a sanctified people under the lordship of Christ, no longer living under the power of sin.”  (Hays, at p. 41.)  In other words, the question in 1 Cor. 6:9 is not so much about “who qualifies for heaven” as “what does it mean to participate in the community called the Kingdom of God?”  That emphasis is exceedingly clear in 1 Cor. 6:1-8, which is about disputes in the local congregation over money leading to lawsuits, and even in Rev. 21, which is about God’s final eschatological dwelling among the community of his people in the context of a call for perseverance in congregations that are presently experiencing persecution.

Martin Luther correctly said that every Christian is simil iustus et peccator — at the same time justified and a sinner.  We might not opt for Luther’s stark contrast between “law” and “gospel,” but we should not, I think, understand the New Testament witness as a call to seek a future Heaven by keeping a temporal law.  It is, rather, a call to start becoming now, by grace, a new kind of community that anticipates its eschatological dwelling with God.  To be sure, how we live together now as sexual creatures is an essential part of that communal task.  When we engage in licentious sexual practices that destroy this beloved community, we endanger the community and our own place within it.  I think this means the Church ought to tread with great care over this ground, and in this sense I agree with DeYoung:  there is a great deal at stake in how we instruct, exhort, encourage, and even discipline ourselves within the Church on issues relating to sexuality.

For many, including for me, this means the Church can’t simply equate gay marriage with the lifelong union of one man and one woman.  As a side note, it also means, I think, that the Church can’t simply equate divorce and remarriage with a lifelong union between one man and one woman (recall Jesus’ warnings also about divorce, remarriage, and adultery) — which isn’t the same thing as saying all divorce and remarriage completely disqualifies a person from life in the Church.

So here is the uncomfortable place where I stand at the moment:  even if you think there is some place for committed gay relationships in God’s economy, it shouldn’t be a matter of simply taking up the culture’s rainbow flag; and even if you think there is no place at all for any kind of gay relationships in God’s economy, it shouldn’t be about a law an individual must keep to get into Heaven.  It should always be about the counter-cultural community God is forming us to become in Christ.