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Contextualization in the New Testament

Reviewed by Alun Brookfield.

Dean Flemming teaches New Testament at the European Nazarene College in Switzerland, so he is well qualified to address the question of how the early church contextualized the gospel. This book argues that, if we want to learn how to contextualize the gospel in our present cultural setting, we should start by seeing how the early church did it. And, he insists, there are plenty of examples recorded for us in the New Testament.

According to Flemming, “Contextualization has to do with how the gospel revealed in Scripture authentically comes to life in each new cultural, social, religious and historical setting” (p.14). If that is so, then every church - local, national and international - must be constantly engaged in the task of contextualization. The danger is that this contextualization will slip into mere pragmatism, where we are willing to do whatever it takes to make the gospel ‘relevant’.

So Flemming wants to call us back to the New Testament to see how the early Church made relevant a gospel which was conceived and constituted in a Jewish environment in the other environments of the Roman Empire. His stated aim is “to help provide a stronger biblical foundation for the church’s efforts to contextualize the gospel (and) contribute to the reader’s understanding of the New Testament as a collection of books that have the Church’s mission to all sorts of people at their very heart”. (p.16).

He begins with Acts and shows how, even in the earliest days of the Church, the believers were adapting the message to different situations. He then moves on to show (in five chapters) how Paul regarded certain things as non-negotiable and others as almost limitlessly flexible.

Chapter 8 explores the gospels, focussing on the fact that they are four different tellings of essentially the same story. Why are they different? Because the writers were ‘tailoring’ their material for different audiences.

The penultimate chapter is a foray into the world of the Revelation, before he finally draws the lessons for “contextualizing the gospel today” in chapter 10.

So how well does he achieve his aim? At one level, for many of us out in pastoral ministry, this book tells us nothing that we did not already know. What it does however is to give us a language with which to help others to join us in the task. As a parish priest, I often find it difficult to get my regular worshippers to understand why we need to change the way we do things. Flemming has provided me with an excellent tool for managing that most delicate of tasks and for that I am grateful.

What’s more, you will get a lot of book for your £14.99. There are extensive footnotes, an equally extensive bibliography, a subject index and a Scripture index. An excellent book and excellent value for money.