Worship; Contextualization

the privilege of being together here, studying your word, thinking through the implications and applications of what you have revealed to us in your word as we seek to live out our calling as world Christians here in our time. We ask Father that your Holy Spirit would give us insight into your word to understand it correctly and to apply it to the times in which we live. We ask you to do this now in Jesus name. Amen. The outline I've entitled the regular principle of worship and multiple cultures and I'd like to start with what I think is the most significant teaching about worship as it relates to cultures of the day and time in which Jesus lived as well as now. And it's found in John chapter 4 a familiar passage regarding the encounter that Jesus had with a woman from Samaria. It's interesting how different this woman was from Jesus in terms of her cultural experience in that time and it's to this woman that he reveals I think the most significant teaching about worship looking in verse 19 through 26. Sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. Our Father's worship done this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus declared, believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritan's worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is Spirit and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I who speak to you and he. Jesus has a Jewish teacher talking with a Samaritan woman was something that would have raised the eyebrows of even his closest followers and disciples. At that time, Jesus, Jewish men, including rabbis, would not only talk to women in public, they wouldn't even talk to their own wives in public. Jews generally avoided Samaritans. Here we have a Samaritan woman who would have been despised by most Jewish men, but this particular Samaritan woman is also despised by her fellow Samaritan women because she had had five husbands. The man she was living with now was not her husband as you look at the context of this passage. So it's to a woman very different from himself. A woman he shouldn't have even been talking with in the eyes of most people of his day that he reveals this deep teaching about worship. I believe that where the passage says that the father is seeking those who will worship him in spirit and in truth, captures the heart of the regular principle of worship. What does it mean to worship the father in spirit and in truth? Those are the kind of worshipers the father is seeking. I think that this passage where it uses the word spirit is even though I don't think we can worship God rightly apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. I don't think the word spirit here is referencing the Holy Spirit, but rather the human spirit. What it means to worship God in spirit means to worship him from the heart, from a heart that has its affections and love and motivations and focus set upon God himself. Jesus said, this people worships me with their lips, but their hearts are far away. So I think what he's saying is possible to worship in truth according to how God says he wants to be worshipped, but it not be true worship because the heart is not in it. So the worship God in spirit means to worship him from our hearts, and I think that's part of the regulative principle of worship. The regulative principle of worship basically says we should worship God as he commands. Well he commands us to worship from the heart. Sometimes that's overlooked when we look at forms and elements of worship. He also says that we're to worship in truth. It's not an either or it's not you know charismatic worship in spirit and Presbyterian's worship in truth. Okay, but charismatic and Presbyterians are to worship God in spirit and in truth. And to worship in truth means according to all that he is instructed and told us in his word about how he wants to be worshipped. Now you can search the scripture for the next year to try to find an order of worship for a worship service and you won't find it here. Okay, so to say that we worship God according to how he commands requires us to draw out from the scripture biblical principles for worship that then have to be applied in a particular context. I think that's a very important aspect that we must understand regarding the regulative principle of worship. Where does this regulative principle of worship come from? Well, the Westminster Confession in chapter 21, the first section says this in the second half. The acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself and so limited by his own revealed will that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men or the suggestions of Satan under any visible representation or any other way not prescribed in the holy scripture. Basically, it could be summed up like this. If the Bible doesn't command it, don't do it. It's really a negative formulation. It's prescribing worship in that way. Now in the Presbyterian Church of America, directory for worship, it says this, since the holy scriptures are the only fallible rule of faith and practice, the principles of public worship, notice that the book of church order says the principles of public worship must be derived from the Bible and from no other sources. And then in the last section of chapter 47 in the book of church order, says the Bible teaches that the following are proper elements of worship services, reading of the holy scripture, singing of Psalms and hymns, the offering of prayer, the preaching of the word, the presentation of offerings, confessing the faith and observing the sacraments and our special occasions taking oaths. Now, not everybody will completely agree with me, but I believe that to worship as God commands means that in our worship services, we worship with the elements of worship that God's word commands us to incorporate into the way that we worship Him. So I think the regular principle of worship has most to do with the elements that make up a worship service, like the preaching of the word, the singing of Psalms and hymns and so on. And if that's what the regular principle of worship, if that's what God in His word tells us, He wants us to do in worship, then there's a lot of flexibility of application and arrangement and incorporation of those elements in a worship service. Does the Bible say we're only to have one sermon in a worship service? Could we have five? Of course we could. We may want to take into account how weary we might get if they were all an hour long, but in some places, the world people delight to have very, very long worship services. And it's in some ways a very North American cultural expression to say the worship has to be over in an hour. And even that within the North American context is usually white, middle to upper class Presbyterian Lutheran Episcopalian types. If you've had any experiences in Black Baptist churches in this country, you know that it doesn't go just for an hour. Sometimes you bring your lunch to worship, okay, because it goes on for hours and people love it and delight in it. So there are a lot of multiple expressions of the biblical elements of worship that fit different contexts in different ways. And so to me, I think that's very, very relevant to our understanding of how we look at worship around the world among the people of God. In my dissertation, one of the things that I concluded is that a right application of the regular principle of worship will incorporate two things that I have listed there under number three. It will incorporate the richness of past expressions of biblical worship and the freshness of present expressions of biblical worship. The key is not traditional versus contemporary or North American, Northern European versus South American and the Far East. The issue is biblical worship and the wealth of what we have to draw on not only in our own history in tradition, but other cultures, history and tradition from the past can be brought into the present as well as what God is doing as people reflecting on the scripture, thinking through ways to creatively in a way that honors God and is faithful to the required elements of worship can be put together in a way that connects meaningfully to the people who are worshiping. It's very, we don't even think about that when we think about whether or not what language a worship service should be in. If the people who are gathered for worship speak only French, then we fully expect that that worship service will not be in English but will be in French and anybody speaking English will have a translated into French. Well, there's a whole lot more to a cultural context for worship than just the spoken language. I had the privileges past summer to be part of a mission team that went to Ghana, West Africa. And it was a delight and a great enjoyment to be a part of their worship experiences. It's quite different than the PCA in this country even though their doctrinal standards and commitments to theology are very, very similar to ours. But they did things in their worship services that we don't normally do in ours. In terms of participation of the people, in terms of expressions of joy in terms of movement during the worship service, I'll avoid the word dance here for the moment, which I don't think is even an issue of an element of worship. I think it's an expression of other elements of worship if you want my short version of that. But there are a lot of different ways in which the biblically commanded elements of worship are expressed around the world. And some people think that what we need to do as Presbyterians is find the most biblical expression of the regular principle of worship, freeze, frame it in history and bring it forward to every culture around the world the gospel goes to in every future generation. And these churches in Ghana in the evangelical Presbyterian Church were started by German pietyists later added to that Scottish Presbyterians. And basically as they became Christians, they had to also become northern Europeans in their dress and manner and ordering of worship and songs in worship. They basically had to deny their cultural expressions and become like northern Europeans. And obviously I don't think that is consistent with biblical teaching. They should be able to be Ghanaians. They should be able to be of the eva tribe of people within Ghana. And utilizing those things that are not inherently evil about their cultural way of life and incorporate them into the way that they honor and glorify and express love and adoration to God in worship. And so a generation or two ago the Christians in the evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ghana began to incorporate some of their own expressions, their cultural expressions and dress and so on into their worship experience. But even within as we found out as we worked with worship leaders and pastors and musicians in the workshop that we taught while we were there is that there are struggles even within that. For them it's not a struggle of whether or not there should be drums in worship. That's true in their traditional services and in their more contemporary services. But there are tensions even, there are generational tensions. There are other kinds of issues for them in terms of what is the best expression of worship even from their own cultural context just as we have here within places and churches say within the PCA. Just visit all the PCA churches in the St. Louis area and you'll find a variety of expressions of worship all incorporating those biblically commanded elements but in a variety of ways in varying context that doesn't really cross much of a culture. Though new city fellowship obviously would would be more specific in that than some others. One of the things that I like to emphasize and was one of the most I think insightful things that I learned as I was preparing to write my dissertation was what John Calvin did in Geneva, Switzerland in the early 1500s. One of the reasons that he had to leave Geneva and go to Strasbourg was because he wanted to have singing in worship. As the Reformation went to Switzerland in Zurich guy by the name of Zwingli didn't allow there to be singing in the worship service. He felt that and I think it was an overreaction to the abuses of song in the Roman Catholic Mass but he read Ephesians 5 in Colossians 3 when it says making melody in your heart he thought it meant only in your heart and not with your lips okay. Well Calvin said that's not the right exegesis of that passage and there must be song and worship is one of the biblically commanded elements and part of the reason he had to leave Switzerland was because he was insisting on that. Well when they invited him back he made part of the agreement of his return to have the singing of songs in the worship services of Geneva, Switzerland. Now how is he going to do that? Well the meter of the songs in Hebrew didn't fit the French speaking Swiss people and so the first thing he had to have done was have them kind of metered into western meter so they could be sung so he hired some French poets to kind of rearrange the words in the meter and the sound of the words so they could be put to music that would make sense in that context of worship. As part of what I'm getting at here is Calvin was an innovator he was bringing freshness to worship even though he's drawing on the richness of the past the biblical Psalter. Now what are we seeing? Well at first Calvin thought he could write some music and he discovered soon that was not his gift to the body. He had plenty of other gifts to the body and so he hired some French musicians to put these western metered specified songs to music and he said to them captured the emotion of the song in the expression of the music and he very much felt he was fulfilling Psalm 98 that a new song would be sung in his point in the history of what God was doing and so you have richness of the past the Psalter freshness of the present western meter new songs being written that were sung in such lively ways for some of them in Geneva Switzerland that the critics of song and worship called them Geneva Jigs. We don't think of songs without musical instruments as being all that lively but apparently the worship services in Geneva with those songs were quite lively in their day so I think it's important to understand that whether it's in your own local church or a church you may be called to in North America or to another culture around the world to understand the distinction between biblically commanded elements of worship and the appropriate application of that to a particular context so that the cultural ethnic socioeconomic expression diversity is able to be expressed in the manner in which people worship so it connects to people what's the hard expression of a particular people worshiping in a particular place at a particular time to be able to distinguish between principle and application of principle is a very important thing that we sometimes miss. I think that one of the passages that captures heavenly worship is found in Revelation chapter five and then again in chapter seven in Hebrew I'm sorry Revelation chapter seven verse nine after this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation tried people and language standing before the throne in front of the lamb they were wearing white robes were holding palm branches in their hands and they cried out in a loud voice salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb then earlier in chapter five verses nine to 14 you see verse 12 in a loud voice they sang and the people who sang from verse nine were those who had been purchased by the blood of Christ from every tribe and language and people and nation they're singing both the song of Moses and the song of the lamb as you read through the passage one thing that we can say for sure about worship in heaven that we all will participate in is that there is recognizable ethnic diversity being expressed in heavenly worship and so to say that we don't need to be aware of that and understanding of that in the way we do worship in this first fruits period of what will be the fullness to come I think robs ourselves of something that is very much part of God's design of this anticipation of the new song is something that we need to stretch toward outside of comfort zones whether they're cultural or even theological to some degree to be able to stretch toward heavenly worship in the way we're willing to embrace and incorporate the diversity of worship and particularly strong song in worship now I'd like to close before we have a little time for question and answer with those two passages listed at the end Hebrews chapter two and Psalm 22 I won't read the Psalm 22 but I do want to read Hebrews two this particular passage revolutionized my understanding of what goes on in a worship service Hebrews chapter two beginning of verse 10 in bringing many sons to glory it was fitting that God for whom and through whom everything exists should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering and who's the author of their salvation who's being spoken about here it's Jesus okay both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family so Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers he says Jesus says I will declare your name to my brothers in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises what this passage tells us is that Jesus is the worship leader standing in our presence as the ascended one who's gone to glory now present through the Holy Spirit leading his people in worship and somehow in the mystery of the incarnation one of the present benefits of Jesus continuing to be fully man without sin but still the God man is that he God the Son fully man worships God the Father and he leaves us in worship if you look at Psalm 22 which we normally think of with the opening song of lament my god my god why do you forsaken me if you keep reading you see that the song of lament in the first half turns into a song of victory in verses 22 and following at the end where he takes the song of the nations of the poor of the rich and he incorporates it into his song that he presents to the Father you see worship is fundamentally about the gospel the only acceptable worship to God the Father is that which is presented to God the Father by God the Son and our worship is only acceptable to the Father no matter how much it conforms to biblical truth it's only acceptable to God the Father if it's received and perfected by our older brother mediator Jesus who presents it to the Father and his ears are pleased to hear it because the song of Jesus is mixed the perfecting song of Jesus is mixed with our imperfect expressions of worship and made perfect by him there's a story told of a concert pianist who was my name a potter eski who was doing a concert it hadn't come out yet to begin and a young boy slipped away from his mother went up to the stage where this concert grand piano was and started playing twinkle twinkle little star and the crowd was pretty upset you know what mother would bring a child to this you know very formal highbrow event let alone let him slip away and go up and ruin the evening by playing twinkle twinkle little star well this great concert pianist comes out from behind the curtain and motions like this to the crowd and he comes up puts his arms around the little boy and says keep playing and he plays this grand and beautiful counter melody to twinkle twinkle little star to the standing ovation of the crowd i'm sure when they went home they didn't talk about the other songs that he played that night now most of us think that our approach to worship is like the concert pianist well i got news for you our worship is like the twinkle twinkle little star now play twinkle twinkle little star with all your might with as much excellence as you can but recognize the only reason that the equivalent of twinkle twinkle little star in our praise to god is acceptable to the father is because our older brother comes and wraps his arms around us and plays the grand and beautiful melody and counter melody that perfects it and enriches it and makes it pleasing to our father's ears and so as we think about what god is doing around the world in worship and one of the benefits of living in the time we do is a song to be written in west africa which next monday and chapel we're going to be singing a song that one of our students at the workshop wrote called we need you about our need for god for the lord and and we brought that song back with us and henry says play it sing it teach it to others and so we'll be experiencing the blessing of a west african song written this summer in chapel a covenant theological seminar and just that the enrichment of what will be representative of heavenly worship that we're able to enjoy and experience now so i'll quit there i think i'm fairly close to time that we should be on and see if you have some questions or comments that you want to make sure okay the question is are instruments appropriate to use in worship and if so how do you decide which ones i think that it's very important to understand the fullness of what's expressed in scripture i think that there are some people it was a majority view in the presbyterian tradition to not use instruments because the argument goes that there's no place in the new testament that instruments are explicitly commanded to be used in worship and so if the regular principle says we only do what's commanded then there's no command in the new covenant for instruments therefore we shouldn't do it well i think that's a that's a a cutting off of the continuity and the flow of the whole of scripture because in the old testament particularly in the time of david you have the introduction of musicians and instrumentalists and almost every time instruments are mentioned in the old testament it's a combination of winds strings and percussion to the three major musical instrumental groups also if you look to heavenly worship you see that harps are used seems to me that if it's part of temple worship that's fulfilled in christ the sacrificial system but is the musical expression cut off because christ's come i don't think so i think a biblical theological argument rooted in a right understanding of the temple and ending in a right understanding of heavenly worship would say that musical instruments are appropriate and are part of the expressed and commanded worship of god and i think you know just as there is a variety of musical expression in melody and song there are a whole host of kinds of instruments that can be used and i think that within those those three categories of wind strings and percussion i like to tell people that we use percussion if you use a piano in worship you're willing to use percussion because you got that hammer going on that string thing you know so it's a combination of percussion and string but i think you have to say what fits this worshiping congregation what is an appropriate expression of this people and as you go from one part of the world to another as you go from one socio economic group of people to another they're going to be and sometimes just matter convenience who can play you right now we don't use the organ very much in chapel not because we're against using the organ we don't have anybody who's come forward to play the organ okay we have lots of other musicians playing lots of other instruments if you come to chapel doll you you you're beginning to see that so i think what fits but also i don't think there's any musical instrument that is inherently evil and people one of the big things in our culture in our context seems to be the use of drums okay but that's a bad thing that somehow it's a it's an evil thing i know we have a percussionist in here and a wife of a percussionist in here and all that sort of thing so anyway um to me i think you the important thing about instrumentation is does it aid and enhance the expression of the content in musical form and praise and i like to tell people that with these huge big organs we have around many of our pca churches any organists can drown out any drummer by playing the organ to the full extent of what it can be played and i've had the same troubling experience in worship when the drums are too loud i've also had when the organ has been too loud and i can't hear myself saying so it's a matter of bringing the instruments based on the giftedness of a local congregation and using them to aid the song in worship and i think for someone's being willing to stretch beyond what we're comfortable with and most like and allow there to be fuller expression yes i think there's a lot of freedom that we have within the form of what it means to worship in spirit and in truth according to the elements that the scripture commands to creatively and in fresh ways make use of forms and expressions that fit the worshiping context that we're in which is going to vary from place to place even within the pca one of the things that's happening right now it in within that's had a big impact in covenant seminary is a number of people exposed to the writing of new tunes to old hymns it's done a lot in r u f the reform university fellowship circles christ community church other places it's spreading and happening all over place one of the greatest things i think we as presbyterians bring to the wider body of christ is the richness of biblical content that's captured a lot a lot of our himnady but a lot of the greatest hymns of the church have been lost to the church because they're attached to unsingable tunes they were unsingable when they were first written okay and they still are so people are creatively with fresh expressions saying i can't write any better than these words but i can write a tune that will carry those words more effectively or the way we arrange even old tunes that we still use in africa the way they and you may have seen this in a black church here one of the ways they the element of the offering is a very interesting and wonderful they all come forward and they all seem to figure out when to come forward and put their offering in and their songs about i have joy my heart deep deep joy in my heart for example and it's kind of a half dance half bringing of my offering and singing with joy my heart now i found that very exciting now do i come back and you know go to perk of the hills and say this is where we're going to do the offering this week well probably not probably wouldn't fit real well okay you have a lot of opposition it wouldn't be worth trying to make them do that but you might what's the prints what's the element is the offering but what's the what should be our heart attitude as we're offering there should be joy in our heart should be cheerful givers how do we do it in most presbyterian circles quietly you know the only movement is to my wallet or my purse whilst often somber music is being played on the organ of the piano well maybe we should sing a song of joy while we're still in our seats and not dancing around bringing our offerings up front so i can learn from another culture and say maybe they've captured something of the essence of the element of giving of offering that i can bring some adjustments that are appropriate to my context i don't have to do worship african style but i can learn from my african brothers and sisters and maybe make worship here more faithful to the scripture and more expressive in a way that fits would it be a stretch for some yeah calvin had the singing of songs during the passing of the elements in the lord's supper that's very disturbing to many north american presbyterians okay but is it wrong okay can we not sing while we're partaking of do we ever sing at the dinner table if we don't maybe we should sing more you know so i think it's it's trying to understand what are the biblical principles is that a valid expression in that context and what can we gain from that other culture that will actually enable us to worship in a way that's more faithful to scripture and pleasing to god as we carried over that question is how do you keep worship from being a truncated model that's only focusing on corporate worship on the lord's day well i think that i'm glad you asked that question because that's something that i wanted to say and didn't and i think that we need to start with what is worship it's a response of my all that i am 24 hours a day seven days a week to the goodness and the greatness and the grace of god it's living my life as a living sacrifice before god and so that's what enters into the corporate expression of worship and what should grow out of the corporate expression of worship so it's not that i start to worship and then stop it's from a life of worship i enter into corporate worship and then go back to that life of worship and that should bless the corporate experience and the corporate experience should bless my week long expression of worship to god in that regard yes Rob first question has to do with drama is it appropriate in worship and the second one is the generational tensions over expressions of worship particularly around the issue of drums drama i don't see a biblical command for an element called drama i think that worship is intended to be dramatic i think preaching has elements of dramatic presentation i think the lord's supper and baptism are dramatic sacraments in that sense and so i think and i guess i would argue to some degree the fact that we don't have the lord's supper every week which again is something that Calvin argued for but didn't get means we're taking out of what should be a typical worship service from my perspective elements that are like that in some ways i think drama can be used and the arts can be used very effectively to communicate the gospel and instruct in the gospel the question is should it be done in a corporate worship service i personally have reservations about it the time the way it's used that i'm most comfortable with or least uncomfortable with is when it is attached to the element of preaching where it may be the equivalent of an opening illustration to a sermon that's directly tied in with it kind of set it's it's what you know when dr. chapel does that you don't need actors you know you kind of enter into it or if you heard Jeremy huggins reading yesterday from one of the songs of lament you know you you didn't need actors doing dramatic things you entered into a very dramatic presentation of a story in that way so i think that there are there are limitations there's some freedoms that i i think that those who would argue what's often called the Lutheran view of worship is if the bible doesn't forbid it it's okay to do it they would say well drama is okay we need to find a place rooted in the scripture where drama is commanded as an element and i don't think we find it though i think some forms of it can be attached to the element of preaching without going to places that that are inappropriate i think the issue of drumming and generational things i think it's very important we're called not only to worship the father in spirit and in truth richness of past freshness of the present but we're to worship in a way that holds the unity of the body together i'm personally not in favor of having a separate contemporary traditional service because it basically creates two congregations within one i would much rather have the tensions present because people are trying to worship god in unity together and stretching toward each other in their expressions of worship i think there are ways that in some settings that you as a drummer would be cut loose to play and and everybody present would love it again in a way that it doesn't drown out the biblical content that's being sung but there are other ways in other settings that you would do a lot less you're not revealing how gifted you are as a drummer but the drum is supporting other instruments in a way that's minimizing the likelihood of a fence to certain people who are present and so i think we have to be sensitive to the weaker brother but ask the weaker brothers to grow stronger in the process and it can be a wonderful way for people to learn how to get along with each other and love each other in the context of worship one more Vanessa basically if you ask the question again i would argue a regular to principle of life first just like worship is all of life first the question is how do we come up with a regular principle of worship rather than a Lutheran view regarding if it's unless it's commander we don't do it as compared to if it's not forbidden it's okay i think that if we say we want to live our lives according to god's command okay it talks about not adding two or taking away from the law and that's repeated in terms of the whole scripture i think in view at the end of revelation you have very specific commands regarding worship in the old testament sacrificial system and whenever there were priest who added to that or did more than was commanded sometimes they the earth you know opened up and they got swallowed they got burned up by the strange fires that they were trying to do at the particular time so it seems to be saying that god doesn't like us to do things different than the way he's prescribed i think you can make that argument pretty clearly in the old covenant around the sacrificial system the question is how much does that carry forward into the present and i think i'm arguing that it carries forward with much more freedom and latitude of application but the part that's commanded that carries forward is around the elements in worship so lots of different musical expressions lots of different styles of preaching lots of different ways of communing at the Lord's table but to add elements beyond what the scripture seems to indicate or what god asks of us and once of us in worship i think is going outside of that broader principle of staying within god's commands so and a lot of times it's more a matter of creative expressions of elements is really all that people i think we do have a lot of freedom we need to take more freedom in the areas we have without adding to what god commands by way of elements in scripture that's my short version okay thank you well in many ways the previous topic on worship involves matters of contextualization and how is it that expressions of worship of biblical principles of worship become appropriate in particular situations relative to ethnic socioeconomic generational settings cross my mind recently on continuing on that subject a minute about comparing church bells and traditional drums largely associated with many African settings and because of associations and many of our hearts and minds of the histories behind those two means of communication there seems to be an instinctive again for some of us due to heritage and instinctive sense of the purity of the bells and something questionable about the drums but if you think of those two means of communication simply as means of communication of conveying messages before you have telephones and everything else what's the difference for example and so how to see those sorts of matters as just somewhat coincidental or practical I think is part of part of the the picture for us now we move to Christology we're in a similar world but maybe a different world as well for something about theologically proper topics and Christology in particular which make us maybe a little bit more leery of diversity if you will in comparison to say a topic like worship and so our next topic on Christology and contextualization follows in line with what we've just talked about about worship it has us on unique features as well I brought just a few of the many books from our library here in written in very recent years these would pretty much all be with a few exceptions have been written in the past decade on Christology and various developments and there's a virtual explosion of writings from various vantage points on Christology and these would be people that would fall on various points on various theological spectra depending on how you would draw your scale at the most recent meeting of the International Association of Mission Studies we met back in 2000 near Pretoria, South Africa we had various study groups I was able to attend that meeting one of which was on Christology contextual dialogue contextual theologies in dialogue and variety of perspectives through art through analysis of different sorts of contextual theologies those that focus more on socioeconomic and political situations those that focus more on cultural religious matters how we interact with each other across settings as the Lord's people how the text of scripture and tradition interact with our contexts and vice versa one of the many study groups that was carried out at that important meeting contextualization I've mentioned to you before is a huge topic trying to define it is like trying to define the word culture it's next to impossible and when you start to look at the literature you see thousands of different attempts at defining something to me the simplest place at least to begin is to see contextualization as particularization if I'm in Britain I use an S basically the same remembering that particular universal dynamic it's always with us and just as God comes to rest with us to be with us to be intimate with us the us who in concrete situations who are always being approached by and loved by and cared for by God we are particular people in particular settings and contextualization is just simply that coming close of God you can stretch contextualization outside of religious matters of course I mean you you look at you go visit McDonald's worldwide for example in Japan it's Makodonado that's the Japanese contextualization of big Donald's and so you don't order a chocolate shake you order a chocolate shake not a big mac but a big gumaku whatever and you would have more of a teriyaki burger chicken in Japan that wouldn't fit here that's just a contextualization of McDonald's KFC is Kentucky I mean whatever and so it's not just theology but in Christian theological matters it's going to take place as well I think one reason that we might have trouble accepting I'll put it this way accepting a diversity of crystal logical understandings might be because of the necessary and proper commitment we have to orthodox traditional formulations of Christology realizing that those developments took place in the midst of controversy and needing to define if you will the limits of orthodoxy and having the notion that that is set if you somehow allow for some diversity of any sense you're shaking the foundations that have already been established I'm not sure though that has to be the case one you can realize the particular setting within which those formulations took place and when you think about Christology in particular just think about the very word Christology the Greek term and issues and problems were rising in those Greco-Roman settings that demanded answers and qualifications in the Aryan controversy the questions about who Jesus was about as being God and being man or only being one those questions had to be answered in particular ways in that setting now just because that was particular doesn't mean that it's not relevant to other settings it is that was right that was orthodox that was the way that the that the issues had to be met but to think that therefore that is the only and final definitive understanding of Jesus Christ that all of the Lord's people throughout the ages and throughout the world can and should have is open to question I would suggest to you another reason why some of us might have trouble is that the nature of the Christian faith that many of us embrace and experience doesn't incorporate in its essence the essential element of ethnicity and language somehow we have inherited the notion that that the Christian faith is all cultural not relative to language relatives not the word that I want to use not involving particular languages and Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the dead is for human beings but we need to remember that an essential part of the Christian gospel is that this is for all people all sorts of people Jews Gentiles all sorts of Gentiles and multiple languages in the original Bible itself Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek is built into the Christian faith it's a part of the Christian faith particular languages and diversities of languages and it's not just as an cultural religious soul that I and everybody else is a follower of Jesus Christ I am a particular whole person we all a particular whole people which involves our particular and various ethnic linguistic identities and characters yes am I saying that cultures other than the Greco-Roman culture within which the Christological controversies were far and resolved because those other cultures might not because they're different they wouldn't face the same issues and those Christological formulations shouldn't be forced on them no not really I'm wanting to suggest that the particularity of those settings of the Greco-Roman settings within which the controversies develop need to be remembered but the particular universal tension involves keeping these together and those controversies while in a particular setting we're dealing with the universal God man Jesus Christ therefore they are going to be certainly relevant and I will go ahead and say definitive but to say that that alone is all that can ever be said about who Jesus Christ is is squeezing this out yes what else can be said about Jesus Christ all right one let me put it this way Jesus Christ as developed in the Christological controversies and the ecumenical councils was both God and man he was both God and man truly God truly man the two natures one person of Jesus Christ were the basic formulations that we gained from Kauston Ephesus etc much of what many peoples in recent years in places outside the West have had to deal with is okay this man Jesus was a first century Palestinian Jew but we are not Palestinian Jews so how is it that we relate to this man this God man culturally and so one other thing that therefore you can say about Jesus Christ is that as the God man he somehow embodies in himself the capacity to relate linguistically and ethnically to all of his people don't want to imply in any sense and this is what can happen and this is where we have to be careful some glad you're asking about the importance of our ecumenical councils and traditional Orthodox Christian formulations and Christological formulations don't mean to imply that they should not be important and definitive for all Christian people but what I do want to suggest that to say that those have therefore said everything to be said about Jesus Christ is not taking into account to some of the other questions that people have had to ask and that demand answers as well again just because those settings were particular settings doesn't mean that they did not have universal significance they did and they do but the matter of his ethnicity for example the matter of his capacity and interest in being compassionate towards that is suffering alongside those who are poor in destitute specifically incorporating that into your Christological formulations and understandings that becomes acutely important for numbers of people that's what I'm wanting to suggest that there's there I would suggest needs to be an openness and a flexibility to allowing all of the people of God together to add to our more full understanding of the greatness of who Jesus Christ is yes if you only are we saying that to understand Jesus Christ in a Greco-Roman context is that to particularize him and if you restrict to that context that is a way of particularizing yes I would say that but I would clarify that again by saying not wanting to it all diminish the universal significance of the ecumenical councils okay so a testimony from a non-western setting that insofar as teachings in Jesus Christ came through western channels and were restricted to that seemed to have a limiting factor on how Jesus Christ was understood by people to be relevant and involved in their lives in that particular setting okay all right on the outline first have an introductory remark from Andrew Walls speaking of the incarnation in terms of being a translation I think that's one helpful rubric not the only one but one helpful rubric for understanding what new and fresh understandings of Jesus involved in new settings namely a translation a re-entanglement an expression of an understanding of Jesus showing his way into a new setting that takes place when you look at the incarnation as the divine word being for all humanity he has translated again and again in terms of every culture where he finds acceptance among his people he's translated from being the eternal Son of God second person of the Trinity into being a particular expression as a Palestinian Jew and he that's part of the nature of the Christian to be particular and concrete among us that's what it means for God to dwell among us that's what it means to for the particular unique character of old covenant Israel but that doesn't mean just because God was working in a particular unique salvific way in old covenant Israel the God wasn't it worked among all peoples in the world at that time but in a particular significant way in a unique way he was working in old covenant Israel and he came uniquely as a son of God in Jesus of Nazareth Jesus of Nazareth alone is the Savior of the world but that was a particular concrete man and for people who are in different settings he comes to us in our setting not in the same way that he came in the first setting but he comes in ways to us that we can understand him as well if he were to be to me only an aromatic speaking country carpenter if that's the only Jesus Christ I knew he wouldn't be my Savior how could he be but as the Savior of the world he is the one who comes to us in our particular ways in his magnificence in the full glory of who he is different attempts let me give you a few examples of trying to understand Jesus as relevant to us in our particularity include a book such as this there have been many of these written in recent years this is just one of several Asian faces of Jesus written by a variety of Asian scholars most of whom would not embrace views of scripture that we would embrace and these sorts of theologians while having some insightful comments to make would be ones say that Vinah from Akhandra whom you've read would take issue with they would not focus on the unique particularity of Jesus of Nazareth in terms of his universal significance as the Savior alone among human beings for example many of them Ramakhandra as an evangelical would insist on that while being able to listen to some of the significant points they raise you read in your writings about the different Hispanic American Christ in Latin America and this was a chapter in a book written by Emilio Nunez who is an evangelical Latin American scholar and kind of summarizing the Spanish Christ that was brought in through the conquistadors the images that people create of Jesus as the one who suffers and comes among people the Christ of the minorities and many peoples the Christ of Protestantism which has a particular focus on the text but he points out some limitations of that of being individualistic for example the Christ of what he calls the new theology was emphasizes the Christ of social justice that's just a summary of different understandings of Jesus in Latin America that he gives he mentions in that text in that readings those readings about the Christ needing to be understood biblically and he points out that oftentimes with Protestantisms and evangelicalism particular focus on the biblical Christ a problem that they can have is not being contextualized enough one again there's a whole course on contextualization which we in which we just begin to come to grips with it so there's only so much we can do but when you think about the universal particular dynamic you can almost see an equivalent dynamic in that one is more familiar to you probably the interaction between text and context okay where we as evangelicals are committed to the primacy of the text of scripture this is what is normative but the situation become a little bit more queasy if you will when you accept the reality that the text of scripture by a Protestant understanding is going to be translated into this context and so the connection becomes closer the text becomes more immeshed in the context if you will that's a risk of the Protestant understanding of the translation of the faith even to the very word of God itself and so as that text becomes to put it this way a part of the context it brings change it remains normative but it at the same time becomes entangled with the context and so how is it that you understand the Jesus Christ described in that text within that context you remember the diagrams of mission theology we encounter right at the beginning of the course where you say you look at the text you look at the context you look at the family of faith that is again say you look at Christology as text context and faith interact we hold to the primacy of the text yes but the text of scripture is speaking the language of this context and so this dynamic of the universal particular the text in the context becomes queasy as one word it strikes me as appropriate for some of us maybe only we have to be all that worry just recognize that that's part of the glory and beauty of the Christian faith that come that close to us yes text to context and translate into the context we talk about the the original cultural locations of the scriptures or we talking about the new context into which the scriptures are translated both yes you really don't have a text that is that is outside the context but here's where understanding of scripture being the very word of God who himself as the creator standing above while in being involved in but being the transcendent and imminent God this is where this is going to help inform us to know that he is not simply a meshed in all cultures and go that postmodern route if you will he is our unifying yes that primacy of scripture and again while you the particularity and diversity while affirming that there is the universal character you know languages are different but there are similarities with language among languages as well just like dr. Chapman was speaking to us in those terms you know human beings we're caught were all human beings by virtue of speaking human language there's also a universality there there's a particularity as well yes dumb questions are usually the best ones the danger that some of us can feel is that it begins to threaten so the feeling could be the settled orthodoxy that is there and new heretical notions can arise if left unchecked because of theological controversies of the past and because of deviant groups in the present and because of the duty to guard the faith all of those things that could be one danger of being concerned about new translations producing new heretical ideas but then the question is okay who decides that who takes the initiative who as the final say so and what's heretical and what's not we talk the cross cultures and it becomes a more fluid situation and that's where some of the uneasiness can come in yes it was a lot easier when we knew everything that's right okay we'll continue this a bit don't want to make you unnecessarily unnerved that's not the point it's to open us up to the full glory of our great goddess thank you