How do we tell others about Jesus in ways they will understand? That question has always been important, but for those involved in diverse cultural environments at home and abroad, the challenge of evangelism is even more complex (see “Preaching Christ or Packaging Jesus,” pp. 24–40).
The easiest reponse to this challenge of “contextualizing the gospel” is to retreat into our own cultural cocoons. But this is unacceptable; some people will never hear the gospel if we are unwilling to leave our cultural neighborhoods. As evangelicals, we have the highest motive for expending whatever efforts are necessary to communicate to others. We believe the gospel—a piece of news about a person, Jesus Christ. We desperately want people to know him—who he is and what he has done for them. In fact, we believe the eternal destiny of every human depends on the clear communication of the gospel (Rom. 10:11–15).
Precisely because so much is at stake, we need to make sure others hear the gospel clearly. On the hermeneutical level, evangelicals need to be careful not to interpret Scripture strictly through Western lenses. Coming out of a long history of Western European theology and biblical interpretation, we sometimes accept unquestioningly the tradition that has shaped and, at times, warped our exegesis. That helps explain why, to people in Africa and Asia, American evangelicals sound like middle-class Victorians.
How do we free ourselves of this tendency to interpret Scripture under the influence of culture? We can’t entirely, but one place to start is to interact with other viewpoints. That is why serious evangelical scholars rely so heavily on the classic Greek text provided by a nonevangelical—Nestle—or on commentaries written by liberal or Jewish scholars.
It also is imperative that we listen carefully to how evangelicals in the Third World interpret the Bible. We can profit from their fresh approach to Scripture, freed from some of our long-standing traditions that we have come to cherish unquestioningly. Through interaction with Third World evangelicals we can glean new insights we may have overlooked.
At the same time, our loyalty to the truth in Scripture must take precedence over our feelings for any culture. Some evangelicals have been so eager to be accepted by either the liberal community or by evangelicals from other cultures that they have adopted whatever will gain ready acceptance. Christian instruction for them becomes whatever will cause no offense to those to whom they are carrying a message. Getting at the meaning of Scripture is too important to sacrifice for popularity.
Some evangelicals err in the opposite direction. They raise unnecessary obstacles to the gospel because they do not understand how their way of presenting it offends those they are seeking to win. American evangelists who force Western music and forms of worship on cultures given to other forms of expression unwittingly make this mistake. Their intentions are noble, but they have thrown up a barricade between the gospel and people who need it. Man’s sinful nature is a big enough barrier. If a sinner rejects Christ, it ought not be due to the insensitive ways in which we preach and witness.
Our task, then, is to discover what the Bible really says and then “translate” it into the cultural context of the lost. That means we must know the Bible better, know ourselves and our own culture better, and know the language, customs, and ways of thinking of those to whom we wish to communicate the gospel.
