Category: Gospel and Culture

Gospel & Culture for Church “Planting” (Pt 2)

Posted on November 5, 2010

In my previous post, I laid out a three fold approach to understanding the relationship between Gospel, Church, & Culture. In summary, we must understand the Gospel in light of culture. Second, we must understand Culture in light of the Gospel. Third, only then can we wisely Church the Gospel in our cultures. These three layers of understanding build on each other the way you plant a tree. We need Gospel seed to be scattered in Cultural soil in order to grow the Church into a robust, healthy tree that can flourish and provide shade within its culture. In the next three posts, I will take each layer and explain what I’m getting at. Let’s start with the Gospel.

The Eternal Gospel

African theologian and Missiologist John Mbiti writes:

“The Gospel is God-given, eternal and does not change. We can add nothing to the Gospel. For this is a eternal gift of God; but Christianity is always a beggar seeking food and drink, cover and shelter from the cultures it encounters in its never-ending journeys and wanderings.”

This quote addresses our two primary concepts, gospel and culture, and does so by making a distinction between the eternal gospel and its never-ending cultural expressions. Although the gospel does not change, it is clothed over and over again, changing its appearance in various cultures throughout time.

The phrase “eternal gospel” only appears in Revelation 14 where an angel flies over the earth “with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people.” When we think of the word “eternal” our minds typically trigger otherworldly, un-earthy images, but God is connecting this eternal gospel with very earthly, worldly imagery. The gospel is not for heaven but for earth; it is not for escape but for engagement.

The Gospel is Cultural

In fact, its great news is for cultural-linguistic groups of people, i.e. nations, tribes, languages, and people. The gospel is focused on cultural groupings of people. It does not seek to rescue Americans from America or Africans from Africa, but rather to meet them in their cultural clothing. Someone has said that in heaven we will be “fully American” or “fully African.” The gospel is culturally particularized, focused, expressed.

In Christ, we discover the gospel clothed in cultural particulars. Jesus Christ does not drop out of heaven; he is born into a particular time and place, wearing particular clothing, speaking a particular language. He particularizes the good news in his flesh and in his clothing. Andrew Walls puts this phenomenon well: “Incarnation is translation.” Jesus is translates the gospel for us in space and time, in flesh and culture.

The Gospel is cultural. Jesus is cultural. We are cultural. Although the Gospel does not change, it does change its clothing. Incarnation is translation.

What the Gospel Isn’t

Posted on November 4, 2010

I’m so grateful for pastors and church leaders that remind me not only what the Gospel is, but also what it isn’t. Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, and Tim Chester have done this in a variety of ways. Here is my latest contribution to helping us understand and apply the gospel by understanding what it isn’t. Nothing particularly new here but perhaps some fresh ways of saying old truths.

The Gospel Isn’t Religious Performance

The Gospel isn’t about religious performance to prove yourself to God, others, or yourself.

  • We don’t have to impress [God] because Jesus impressed him for us.
  • We don’t’ have to seek approval from [Others] because are approved by faith in Christ.
  • We don’t have to perfect [Ourselves] because we are imperfect people clinging to a perfect Christ.

The Gospel Isn’t Spiritual License

The Gospel also isn’t spiritual license to flaunt your “freedom” in Christ.

  • The Gospel calls us to respond to Jesus in every situation—social, cultural, personal. We are his people not our own. We drive under his license.
  • The Gospel isn’t an obstacle to our happiness but the path to true happiness. Christ offers deeper joy than anything else can offer.
  • The Gospel calls us to holiness not legalism, to flaunt Christ not false freedom. Jesus calls us to be distinct not relevant as we orbit around him, not rules or liberties.

3 Layers of Gospel & Culture

Posted on October 26, 2010

The relationship between Gospel & Culture is often fuzzy. I’ve recently been explaining the relationship between the two with three layering claims that build on one another.

First, we must understand the Gospel in light of culture. Second, we must understand Culture in light of the Gospel. Third, only then can we wisely Church the Gospel in our cultures. These three layers of understanding build on each other the way you plant a tree. We need seed (Gospel), soil (Culture), and growth strategy for your trees (Church). The seed layer is seminal and the second two allow gospel seed to grow into flourishing trees.

The challenge of mission is to so understand the dna of the Gospel that we are compelled to exegete our culture and grow indigenous churches that offer shade and strength to their cultures.

The Gospel Seed

The seed layer is: understanding the Gospel in light of culture. It’s impossible to conceive of the gospel apart from culture. So many people miss this, get in a tiff about contextualization, say it is compromising the gospel, and create unnecessary division. It’s so important that we get off on the right foot by understanding the Gospel in light of culture. This is our first, seminal layer. It’s more theological.

The Cultural Soil

The soil layer is: understanding Culture in light of the Gospel. Before we can sufficiently start, lead, and grow churches that spread the gospel, we need to understand and work over the soil of our cultures. Trees grow different in various soils. We must understand the soil of people’s values, rhythms, and beliefs before we can properly plant the gospel in their culture. This second layer is more practical.

Planting Churches

Finally, the third layer is our growth strategy for nurturing the tree(s), where we will consider how to Church the gospel in our cultures. How does the seed of the gospel grow in the soil of our cultures in a way that actually grows a healthy, reproducing church? How do we church the gospel in our culture? The final layer is our strategy.

So, what I’m trying to practice and teach is putting Gospel seed in Cultural soil, with a strategy to Church the gospel in your culture. This is all vague and introductory, but if helpful, I will fill in this framework with future posts.

Quotes from: “What is the Gospel – Revisited?”

Posted on October 24, 2010

John Piper was recently presented with a festschrift called For the Fame of God’s Name, in which pastors and scholars contribute 27 chapters, totaling 508 pages, in honor of Piper’s God-centered life and ministry. New Testament scholar D.A. Carson made a considerable contribution in his chapter “What is the Gospel?–Revisited” (free by clicking on Sample Pages). This chapter will prove essential in clarifying positions and understandings of the meaning and scope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Though at times technical, this work is worth the read. After all, it doesn’t get more foundational or monumental than the Gospel!

Below I set up some important quotations from Carson’s chapter that help us clarify just what the Gospel is.

The Kingdom Gospel vs. The Salvation Gospel

Some have identified a “Gospel of the Kingdom” in contrast to a “Gospel of Salvation.” Carson explains why a distinction between the “individual” and “communal”, the saving and the kingdom gospel is artificial. His main point is that the Gospel of the Kingdom is something that is heralded by Jesus on his way to complete the Gospel Story. In other words, the Gospel of the Kingdom announced by Jesus in the Gospels can only be announced because of where Jesus is headed in the Gospels, namely to the cross and to the resurrection. To interpret it otherwise is backwards hermeneutics. He writes:

That is why it is so hermeneutically backward to try to understand the teaching of Jesus in a manner cut off from what he accomplished; it is hermeneutically backward to divorce the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels from the plotline of the Gospels. p. 160

Are the Narrow & Broad Two Gospels?

Carson then enters into a discussion of the narrower and broader foci of the Gospel. He points out that the narrower focuses on Jesus’ story (cross/resurrection) and the latter focuses on what Jesus’ story has secured (kingdom/new creation). Some have protested that there is too much focus on the former and that we need to focus more on the “gospel of the kingdom.” Carson points out that this reasoning assumes there are two gospels, to which he replies:

But this means that if one preaches the gospel in the broader sense without also emphasizing the gospel in the more focused sense of what God has done to bring about such sweeping transformation, one actually sacrifices the gospel. (emphasis added) p. 162

The Gospel is not Just for Non-Christians but for Christians

Preaching the gospel, it is argued, is announcing how to be saved from God’s condemnation; believing the gospel guarantees you won’t go to hell. But for actual transformation to take place, you need to take a lot of discipleship courses, spiritual enrich- ment courses, “Go deep” spiritual disciplines courses, and the like. You need to learn journaling, or asceticism, or the simple lifestyle, or Scripture memorization; you need to join a small group, an accountability group, or a women’s Bible study. Not for a moment would I speak against the potential for good of all of these steps; rather, I am speaking against the tendency to treat these as postgospel disciplines, disciplines divorced from what God has done in Christ Jesus in the gospel of the crucified and resurrected Lord. (emphasis added) p.165