Winner of a 2006 Christianity Today Book Award! Honored as one of the "Fifteen Outstanding Books of 2005 for Mission Studies" by International Bulletin of Missionary Research From Cairo to Calcutta, from Cochabamba to Columbus, Christians are engaged in a conversation about how to speak and live the gospel in today's traditional, modern and emergent cultures. The technical term for their efforts is contextualization. Missionary theorists have pondered and written on it at length. More and more, those who do theology in the West are also trying to discover new ways of communicating and embodying the gospel for an emerging postmodern culture. But few have considered in depth how the early church contextualized the gospel. And yet the New Testament provides numerous examples. As both a crosscultural missionary and a New Testament scholar, Dean Flemming is well equipped to examine how the early church contextualized the gospel and to draw out lessons for today. By carefully sifting the New Testament evidence, Flemming uncovers the patterns and parameters of a Paul or Mark or John as they spoke the Word on target, and he brings these to bear on our contemporary missiological task. Rich in insights and conversant with frontline thinking, this is a book that will revitalize the conversation and refresh our speaking and living the gospel in today's cultures, whether in traditional, modern or emergent contexts.

Christianity is often viewed in Asia as a Western imposition. Challenging this, Dr. Jerry Hwang examines the Old Testament’s cultural engagement of its ancient Near Eastern context, arguing that Scripture itself provides the ultimate model for contextualizing theology in Asia. While it is common for missiological studies to ignore the Old Testament in their discussion of contextualization, truly biblical contextualization must include the whole Bible, not simply the New Testament. This study provides insightful discourse between the Old Testament and various Asian contexts, while demonstrating how Asian perspectives can help overcome the Eurocentrism prevalent in Old Testament scholarship. This is an ideal resource for scholars and practitioners interested in a biblical perspective of contextualization, especially as related to constructing theology that honors the truth of Scripture in the context of Asia.

The Bible tells us what to believe––the gospel. Did you know it also shows how to contextualize the gospel? In One Gospel for All Nations, Jackson Wu does more than talk about principles. He gets practical. When the biblical writers explain the gospel, they consistently use a pattern that is both firm and flexible. Wu builds on this insight to demonstrate a model of contextualization that starts with interpretation and can be applied in any culture. In the process, he explains practically why we must not choose between the Bible and culture. Wu highlights various implications for both missionaries and theologians. Contextualization should be practical, not pragmatic; theological, not theoretical.

The discipline of Old Testament theology seeks to provide us with a picture of YHWH and his relationship to the world as described in the Old Testament. But within this discipline, there are many disagreements about the key issues and methodologies: Is the Old Testament unified in some way? Should the context of the theologian play a role in interpretation? Should Old Testament theology merely describe what ancient Israel believed, or should it offer guidance for the church today? What is the relationship between history and theology? All these considerations and more result in so many different kinds of Old Testament theologies (and so many publications), that it's difficult for students, pastors, and laity to productively study this already complex field. In Understanding Old Testament Theology, professors Brittany Kim and Charlie Trimm provide an overview of the contemporary approaches to Old Testament theology. In three main sections, they explore various approaches: Part I examines approaches that ground Old Testament theology in history. Part II surveys approaches that foreground Old Testament theme(s). Part III considers approaches that highlight different contexts for doing Old Testament theology. Each main chapter describes both common features of the approach and points of tension and then offers a test case illuminating how it has been applied to the book of Exodus. Through reading this book, you’ll hopefully come to see the Old Testament in a fresh light—as something that’s alive and active, continually drawing us into deeper encounters with the living God.

The Old Testament was written for us, but not to us. Inviting us to leave our modern Christian preconceptions behind, John Walton contends that we will only grasp the Old Testament’s theology when we are immersed in its Ancient Near Eastern context, being guided by what the ancient authors intended as they wrote within their cognitive environment.

An Honorific Gospel: Biblically Faithful & Culturally Relevant Christians engaged in communicating the gospel navigate a challenging tension: faithfulness to God’s ancient, revealed Word—and relevance to the local, current social context. What if there was a lens or paradigm offering both? Understanding the Bible—particularly the gospel—through the ancient cultural “language” of honor-shame offers believers this double blessing. In Honor, Shame, and the Gospel, over a dozen practitioners and scholars from diverse contexts and fields add to the ongoing conversation around the theological and missiological implications of an honorific gospel. Eight illuminating case studies explore ways to make disciples in a diversity of social contexts—for example, East Asian rural, Middle Eastern refugee, African tribal, and Western secular urban. Honor, Shame, and the Gospel provides valuable resources to impact the ministry efforts of the church, locally and globally. Linked with its ancient honor-shame cultural roots, the gospel, paradoxically, is ever new—offering fresh wisdom to Christian leaders and optimism to the church for our quest to expand Christ’s kingdom and serve the worldwide mission of God.

Contextualization is the art of translating ideas into a particular situation, place or culture. It is fundamental to communication, which makes contextualization essential in missions. This textbook pulls together and maps the variety of evangelical approaches to contextualization. Introductory classes on contextualization and missionary preparation institutes will appreciate this valuable textbook. Contextualization in Missions will guide mission-minded Christians to an informed plan for spreading the gospel effectively. While written with a theoretical perspective, Contextualization in Missions also provides real-world examples to provoke both thought and action.

Years ago, the author had a startling realization. Theologians and pastors have long taught on the glory of God and its central importance in the Bible. However, because he was living in East Asia, it also dawned on the author that this sort of talk about God's glory, praising Him, and magnifying His name was simply another way of talking about honor and shame. When the author looked at most theology and ministry-related books, he found that honor and shame seemed to be treated differently. Anthropologists talked about honor-shame, but theologians largely focused more on legal metaphors. The author could see both themes in Scripture but couldn't find help as to how to bring them together. This study was developed in order to address this gap and bring those themes together. Sign up for the WCIU Press newsletter to be notified about new books from this author and more! http: //eepurl.com/rB15L

"To pursue the matter of "revelation in context," I will address an exceedingly difficult text in the Old Testament, Joshua 11. The reason for taking up this text is to deal with the often asked and troublesome question: What shall we do with all the violence and bloody war that is done in the Old Testament in the name of Yahweh? The question reflects a sense that these texts of violence are at least an embarrassment, are morally repulsive, and are theologically problematic in the Bible, not because they are violent, but because this is violence either in the name of or at the hand of Yahweh." -from chapter 2

Targeted to thoughtful readers, this book addresses a cluster of issues often troubling for the person who seeks to understand the Old Testament. Who's Afraid of the Old Testament God? speaks very frankly about some of these "problems," things like sin and the fall, Satan, "moral blemish" passages, strange laws, etc.