Winner of a Christianity Today Book Award
Honored as one of the "Fifteen Outstanding Books 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.
Show moreWinner of a Christianity Today Book Award
Honored as one of the "Fifteen Outstanding Books 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.
Show moreDean Flemming (Ph.D., Aberdeen) teaches New Testament at European Nazarene College, Büsingen, Germany. He formerly taught at Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary in the Republic of the Philippines.
. . . a fresh, timely and much needed resource. . . . a must-read
for those who desire to reach persons--in their own contexts--with
the gospel.
"An outstanding and needed book in which Flemming wrestles with New
Testament contextualization from the position of deep engagement
with New Testament scholarship. He brings to the table the right
instinct for missiological issues together with the depth of New
Testament study that missiologists are often lacking. This is a
must read!"
"The past generation of biblical scholarship has served us well in
providing an abundance of volumes rooting the source of the
theological convictions of the various New Testament writers in the
Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism. In the process, however,
many have neglected to grapple with how the New Testament writers
shaped their messages in a sensitive and relevant way to their
specific cultural contexts. Dean Flemming has taken up this
question and has produced an exceedingly helpful and convincing
volume. This book is a must read for anyone who teaches the
Bible."
Active mission practitioners, missiologists, and theologians will
benefit from and enjoy this excellent volume.
"This is the mature work of a careful and caring teacher who has
worked in the Philippines as well as in Europe and is
well-qualified to handle the questions of how to set the Bible free
to speak to different audiences and how we can follow the example
of the first missionaries in the settings in which we find
ourselves. This is a fine example of biblical scholarship serving
the church in its task of holding fast to the apostolic gospel
while presenting it in a sensitive, contextualized manner to our
contemporaries."
Flemming has provided an excellent resource which will prove useful
to both those preparing to work in other cultures and those engaged
in gospel work in today's "postmodern" and increasingly globalized
societies.
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