Crossing Cultural Barriers

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Crossing Cultural Barriers

• or
• How to eat chicken feet with a smile on your face

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What is Culture?

• Shared beliefs, behaviors, and practices that
  characterize a society

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The Challenge

• Making the Gospel relevant to a given people
  group without compromising the biblical truth.
• Flexible without compromise.
• Is true incarnational ministry possible?

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The Law of Buy-In

• People must first buy into the man before they
  can buy into the message Dr. John Maxwell, 21
  Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

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Jesus the First Cross-Cultural Missionary

• And whoever of you desires to become first, he
  shall be servant of all. For even the Son of Man
  did not come to be served, but to serve, and to
  give His life as a ransom for many. - Mark
  1044-45

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Paul

• For though I am free from all, yet I have made
  myself servant to all, so that I might gain the
  more. And to the Jews I became as a Jew, so that
  I might gain the Jews. To those who are under the
  Law, I became as under the Law, so that I might
  gain those who are under the Law. To those who
  are outside Law, I became as outside Law (not
  being outside law to God, but under the Law to
  Christ), so that I might gain those who are
  outside Law. To the weak I became as the weak, so
  that I might gain the weak. I am made all things
  to all men, so that I might by all means save
  some. - 1 Corinthians 919-22

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Timothy

• Paul wanted him to go with him, and taking him he
  circumcised him, because of the Jews who were in
  those places for they all knew that his father
  was a Greek. - Acts 163

Titus

• And I went up by revelation. And I put before
  them the gospel which I proclaim in the nations,
  but privately to those seeming to be pillars,
  lest I run, or I ran, into vanity. (But not even
  Titus, the one with me, a Greek, was compelled to
  be circumcised.) But because of those false
  brothers stealing in, who stole in to spy out our
  liberty which we have in Christ Jesus they
  desiring to enslave us to whom not even for an
  hour did we yield in subjection, that the truth
  of the gospel might continue with you.
  Galatians 22-5

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Hudson Taylor
He took the step he had been prayerfully
consideringcalled in a barber, and had himself
so transformed in appearance that his own mother
could hardly have known him. To put on Chinese
dress without shaving the head is comparatively a
simple matter but Hudson Taylor went all
lengths, leaving only enough of the fair, curly
hair to grow into the queue of the Chinaman. He
had prepared a dye, moreover, with which he
darkened this remaining hair, to match the long,
black braid that at first must do duty for his
own. Then in the morning he put on as best he
might the loose, unaccustomed garments, and
appeared for the first time in the gown and satin
shoes of a Teacher," or man of the scholarly
class. Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson
Taylor in Early Years The Growth of a Soul, Vol.
1 (London China Inland Mission, 1911), Chap. 24.
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Evangelism and Discipleship

• Evangelism without relationship is difficult.
• Discipleship without relationship is impossible.

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Making Christians or Americans

• By 2025, 50 percent of the Christian population
  will be in Africa and Latin America, and another
  17 percent will be in Asia.
• Are we presenting universal norms?

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Turned to God from among the nations

• Therefore my judgment is that we do not trouble
  those who have turned to God from among the
  nations, but that we write to them that they
  should abstain from pollutions of idols, and from
  fornication, and from things strangled, and from
  blood. Acts 1519-20

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The Bible - Principle and Tradition

• Traditions are expendable
• Principle is not
• To the degree that we fail to comprehend the
  difference between our Christianity and our
  culture, we shackle the gospel.
• Jesus in the hall

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Church Traditions That Almost Werent

• Sunday School 1784 Gloucester, England
• Altar Calls c. 1830 Charles Finney
• Worship style ever changing

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The Bible is Multi-Cultural

• Any culture can use the Bible to relate to God
  and man.
• The principles of Scripture are intended to be
  used by persons of any culture in relation to
  other persons of any other culture or subculture.
• Otherwise, it would be good for only Near Eastern
  and Greco-Roman cultures.

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The Bible is Above Culture

• It stands to judge any culture.
• Whenever culture and Scripture conflict, culture
  must be judged.
• Polygamy
• Labola
• Ancestor worship
• Are we preaching a Gospel free of cultural bias?