I want to share with you all something that has truly changed how I look at sharing the gospel and is foreign to most “western” churches. Simply, gospel contextualization is the process of making the gospel and church at home in a given cultural context. This means not imposing our “religion” or “practices” onto other cultures.
When I say religion and practices, I refer to how we worship, participate in communion, attend church on Sunday, or how we view God. Through this concept, we try to understand how other peoples groups view God, the world and humanity and lower cultural and social barriers.
People groups are ethno-linguistic groups, of the same ethnicity and language, within which the gospel can spread as a church planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding and acceptance. Meaning, before we try to bring them to Christ we must remove religion and focus on the foundation of the Bible. Simply put, we are not trying to convert other religions to our western culture. This is similar to how Jesus came to fulfill the law to allow Jews and gentiles to come to the Kingdom through him and not forcing gentiles to conform to the Jewish tradition circumcision and other laws. (Scripture: Matthew 5:17-18, Romans 3:28, Romans 2:25-29) (See diagram below)
Barriers that keep us from accomplishing this include; language, dialect, culture, caste, socioeconomic class, etc. We must understand their culture, common ideas and behaviors of the group of people.
Gospel contextualization does not mean that we forget our culture and change who we are, instead we adapt to the cultural norms to allow the good news to sound like good news. We must be sensitive and remove bias. Our goal is to lower barriers to build a bridge to the Kingdom of God.
We must think, “what is the good news for this person.” In order to do this we must understand three cultures: shame/honor, fear/power and guilt/innocence.
Guilt – Innocence is most commonly found in western cultures. Here we have a moral compass of right vs. wrong and expect others to act rightly. This culture has a black and white view where identity is based on what you do. The way to best speak here is through forgiveness. For example, you have sinned and by repenting you receive “forgiveness” through Christ Jesus.
Fear- Power applies to mostly tribal areas that are animistic, worship idols. Here the deity needs appeasing which leads to power and they fear negative spirits. Their morality is defined by what pleases the spirits. In this culture we must speak of the power found in the name of Jesus, the power Jesus has over demons and refer to scripture about dreams and prophecy. Ultimately we must prove God is the ultimate ruler and power through love providing freedom. (Scripture: Colossians 1:13 and 2:15, The Exodus from Egypt, Elijah, Jesus tempted)
Shame – Honor culture focuses on social worth, caste systems. Shame comes from how others view them and they strive to not shame or dishonor others. Here we find it shameful to be different and their role in society is their identity, name and reputation are everything. Bring Jesus and biblical understanding looks like restoration through Christ. For example, your identity is not of a lower caste system but a precious child to God. You wear a crown in heaven. (Scripture: Naomi, Ruth and Ester, David and Bathsheba, Hebrews 12:2)
It is important to understand these three cultures to appropriately share the gospel. The goal is to remove barriers and allow the gospel to be good news. We should not look at our “religion” but focus on how the gospel applies to each person. Understand where they are coming from and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal truth. I hope this enlightens you as much as it did me.
