I am taking a course with led by Tom Steffen. Tom shared a quote from John MacArthur. I don't know the exact source, but I assume it is pretty accurate. The apostles went out with an absolute disdain for contextualizaation. The modern drive for cultural contextualization is a curse, because people are wasting their time …
Category: Quotes
Good (hopefully) mission quotes
Melba P. Maggay Quote on Communicating our Faith
The Truth we communicate is a Person, not a system of thought. ... While we know this very well, it is often our practice to speak as if we were engaged primarily in an intellectual combat. We waste a lot of gunpowder shooting down people's ideas, but spend very little time in understanding why they …
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Subversion of the Symbol of the Cross Quote
The planting of the first cross on Philippine soil is depicted in a painting by Vicente Manansala. Here the artist clearly shows the link between "mission" and "imperialism." A priest blesses a large cross which has just been planted by indigenous laborers while Spanish soldiers carrying spears bark orders at them. We are forced to …
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Purified, Strenthened, Permeated, Concretized and Actualized Cultural Values
My daughters attended a Catholic University here in the Philippines, and Religious education was part of the curriculum. My daughters found some of the classes interesting and valuable... others drab and dull. It seems like the interest and investment of the instructors in their topic tended to rub off on the students. Anyway, they gave …
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Contextual Biblical Theology Quote
I have been reading Grenz and Olson's book, "Who Needs Theology?" and found that they have a nice section of contextual theology. The following is a quote addressing the question of whether contextualization of theology should start from the Bible, as opposed to starting from culture. (I am reading the Kindle version, so I don't …
Disobedient Christians Hanging Out Together Quote
The church exists for mission. As Christopher Wright says, 'Jesus did not give a mission to his church; he formed a church for his mission.' Without the mission, a church is not a church; it's just a group of disobedient Christians hanging out. The church is a movement before it is an institution. And the …
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A Better Soteriology?
Here is a quote from Dorothy Sayers, No language, however strong, violent, or emphatic will expunge from the mind of the average anti-Christian the picture he has formed of Christian Soteriology, viz: that Jehovah (the old man with the beard) made the world and made it so badly that it all went wrong and he …
Considered Quote on Missionaries
As I have noted before, I don't have problems not being called a missionary. The term most definitely has baggage. In fact, although the best Biblical term for missionary is "apostle," I strongly recommend avoiding that term as the 2nd century church reinterpreted the term as a closed role associated with the Twelve--- still a …
“Three Als” Quote (Mission-Al, Attraction-Al, Incarnation-Al)
"(Michael) Frost and (Alan) Hirsch who are great proponents of the missional church, make a clear distinction between incarnational and attractional churches. They see incarnational churches as the opposite of attractional churches. The attractional church, as they see it, does everything possible within the church to get more people flocking to the church, often ignoring …
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Quote… As it is Supposed to Be
These impious Galileans give themselves to this kind of humanity: as men allure children with a cake, so they… bring converts to their impiety. … Now we can see what it is that makes these Christians such powerful enemies of our gods; it is the brotherly love which they manifest toward strangers and toward the …