The Message of Paul's Angry Email

New Years Eve at midnight, we were flying over the International date line. I’m fairly certain that we were some of first folks in the world to see in 2014. (Our flight was made up pretty much of Renee’ and I and a small Vietnamese village. Lot’s of kids. But not as bad as it could have been…) We arrived in Ulaanbaatar on New Years Day, and I dove back into the preaching waters at our international church this past Sunday.

I’m heartened with Cornerstone Church of All Nations. It’s becoming a truly solid church, I believe. I’m personally encouraged with it becoming stable and now that it’s registered with the local government, we are moving forward with calling a full time time pastoral couple. One of our team members from the Philippines will be taking on the job beginning in March, and I am confident that this church will continue to be salt and light and strength in this city.

I preached a message from the book of Galatians. A mentor and homiletics teacher once told me to “preach what you most smartingly do feel” and I will say that the message of Galatians has been “smarting” with me lately. Of course the main message is that being a Christian means following Jesus by faith, trusting in His grace and it’s not about keeping someone’s code of conduct. Grace. Not works.

Simple. Seminal. Foundational. Critical. Truth. Gospel.

However, while working through this little epistle for last week’s message (and again for this week’s, as well), I’m finding an important missiological principle rising out of these pages. One that I and every other person who desires the transference of the Gospel to every culture in the world needs to be keenly attuned.

Galatians, at least from an historical angle, is indeed a book about missions - in that the Gospel is being tranfered from one people group to another people group: in this case from those who had been culturally Jewish to those who were culturally Greek or possibly Roman. The false teachers in the Galatian churches were essentially requiring those Roman or Greek believers to become culturally Jewish in order to be followers of Jesus (or, as in some cases, to be “true” and “better” followers of Jesus). That’s what sets Paul off to writing what I think is “the angry email” that is the book of Galatians, with all of it’s crudness and cursing. Paul was “smarting”, as well.

The Gospel is meant for every nation. A quick Google search will reveal pages of blog posts and articles about the Christian missionary endevour having “Western Imperialism” as it’s center motivation. While the propigation of the Gospel has faced many days of unbiblical and nationalistic incentive, I don’t think it’s quite fair to paint everyone with the same harsh lines, and many of these voices are historically and biblically uninformed. However, Paul’s “rant” that today we call the “Book of Galatians” is a loud warning to all who are involved with the modern missionary endeavor, which includes myself.

It’s so easy to assume that the Christian church will have the same caviats all over the world, everywhere. This is not the case. We kind of know that. But Americanism (and Englishism and Koreanism and whatever-country-you-may-be-from-ism) is deeply entrenched and not easly navigated around. In fact, nationalistic bias will always be … well … a bias. Biases are not wrong unless they are ignored.

Jesus is not a tribal deity. He is for all peoples. When the Gospel is allowed to move without addition from one culture to the next, truth takes on various cultural forms and thus the church in Zambia looks and feels very different from the church in Krakow which also looks and feels very different than the church in Xi’an, China. The Gospel is the same. Jesus is our righteousness and everything depends on Him. The forms of the church will take on the million variations of the world’s cultures. That’s beautiful.

And, for many, disconcerting.

Here’s the thing: those who are doing what I’m doing around the world, need to be really careful to let the Gospel be the Gospel - and make no other requirements of people beyond that. The day that I require people to become culturally American in order to be a Jesus follower, is the day I should banned as a false teacher.

I think this includes things like making people follow our forms of discipleship, church, prayer meetings and Bible studies. It may work for Americans to sit around in a coffee shop and share our feelings, or to have a “12-week-small-group-study on how to pray for your spouse” (although, I’m not entirely convinced of the virality of these things in America anymore, either). If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past eight years, it’s that cross cultural work involves WAY more lstening and learning than it does teaching. Results in our reports back home must never become more important than understanding the simplicity of the Gospel and the complexity of the way a culture will embrace the Gospel. It’s going to look different from me and mine, and I need to get over it.

We have to let the Gospel happen as it will happen, which leaves us (the foreigners) out. But really, the less control I have on these things the better for everyone involved.

If we spent more time listening to, learning from and loving people and less time worrying about whether they are meeting our standards - I’m fairly certain we will see a greater transference of the real Kingdom of Jesus (which is invisible and subversive) and the values which go with that Kingdom … and face less accusations of missionary imperialism.

Preaching again this Sunday on spiritual fruit (Galatians 5) … which again comes from the same principle. The same root. Gospel.

My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness

Comments

[unurei erdene]

Hi. Mr Anderson,
As always, your blog is very interesting to read and I liked how you pointed out culture differences should not be a barrier to the gospel. Sadly, it is true for some extend but God speaks through bible to anyone who listens, regardless of their background and social status. Frankly, I used to think that Christianity was some type of western religion. However, I came to know Jesus through people from totally different culture than mine. Thinking back, there was certainly a culture and language barriers to communicate but I always eye-witnessed God's love from them. So I guess my point, As long as we stay true to the gospel and bible, God will work through us no matter how peculiar it may seem, they will see it. God may abundantly bless your ministries.
Oh, cool picture of you btw :)

Unro,

[Bernie Anderson]

Unrei ... well stated, my friend.

Miss having you around but I do hope you are enjoying your time away. I look forward to seeing you again, though!

"Stay true to the Gospel" ... I think that's states things most simple and succinctly.

Баярлалаа!

Bernie