The Contextualisation of Leadership in Paul

Roger Senior

• Publisher: Regnum
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781911372288
• eBook ISBN: 9781912343607
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Leadership, especially Christian leadership, is a subject that needs clear, biblical, theological and contextual thinking. There is no 'one size fits all' model of leadership that will work in every context. Roger's effort in working out the Apostle Paul's leadership principles in Malaysia with its multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious contexts, is commendable. As a Malaysian, it is my prayer that Roger's book will also serve as a stimulating catalyst towards more research and critical thinking on issues faced by the church in Malaysia.

Rev Dr Tony Lim, Vice-Principal & Dean of the English department, Malaysia Bible Seminary

Chapter 1

Contextualisation in the New Testament

What is Contextualisation?

The church has been sent into a world marked by a plurality of cultures, which may be delineated on many grounds, including ethnic, social, religious and generational. Whether sharing the Christian faith or engaging in theological thinking, the church needs to relate that faith or theology to each context. Dean Flemming wisely remarks: ‘All theology is contextual theology’, and ‘all theologizing is done from a particular location and perspective whether we are conscious of it or not’.¹

The word ‘contextualisation’ was first used in a theological context by the WCC in 1972.² There is much confusion about the meaning of ‘contextualisation’ and many different definitions of it. This study follows Dean Flemming’s approach:

I take contextualization… to refer to the dynamic and comprehensive process by which the gospel is incarnated within a concrete historical or cultural situation. This happens in such a way that the gospel both comes to authentic expression in the local context and at the same time prophetically transforms the context. Contextualization seeks to enable the people of God to live out the gospel in obedience to Christ within their own cultures and circumstances.³

Flemming here helpfully refers to this process as being one of incarnation, and indeed the best example of contextualisation is the incarnation of Christ.⁴ Since God revealed himself in Christ in a context with all its particularities, it is likewise necessary for the good news of Jesus to be reincarnated to make it intelligible in every context.⁵ However, just as Jesus in his incarnation is still ‘the exact representation of [God’s] being’ (Heb. 1:3), right contextualisation also has to be both ‘culturally authentic and authentically Christian’.⁶ This incarnation applies not only to the gospel but also to all its outworkings, including the structure and leadership of the church.

In this work, the term ‘contextualisation’ is used with the understanding that the gospel should not only be communicated in a given context, but also be rooted in it with the aim of transforming it. In other words, it should include both evangelistic and prophetic elements.⁷ If the process of contextualization does not result in a transformation of the church and wider society, it cannot be said to have been truly effective. However, some scholars, such as the world-renowned missiologist David Hesselgrave, are unhappy with this approach and see contextualisation primarily as cross-cultural communication of supracultural divine revelation by the removal of unnecessary cultural obstacles.⁸ Evangelical anthropologist Charles Kraft’s emphasis too is on communication, although he does allow the importance of cultural transformation.⁹ If however an incarnational model of contextualisation is followed, not only are obstacles to communication removed, but the gospel and its outworkings also take on a new shape according to the cultural context.

The fact that contextualisation is prophetic implies that something about the cultural context needs to be challenged and transformed, and further, that there is an external (divine) authority which demands that the prophetic voice receive a hearing. Wilbert Shenk maintains that in contextualising, the church should not ‘be slavishly or uncritically identified with a culture. On the contrary, it means that the church must be culturally valid precisely in order to bring a radical critique to bear on culture’.¹⁰ This is seen even in Jesus’ incarnation. Although he followed many of the conventions of Jewish society, where necessary he was not reluctant to offer a prophetic critique of the culture with the aim of transforming it.¹¹ This prophetic element will be evident later in this study when examining the contextualisation of leadership.

There are many different approaches to demarking the ways of contextualising and undertaking contextual theology.¹² Stephen Bevans argues that the models which may be followed¹³ reflect two basic theological orientations:¹⁴

i) The first is redemption-centred and is distinguished by the belief that although a culture may not be totally corrupt, it needs ‘radical transformation’, with some proponents arguing that Christ must be brought to it ‘for that culture to have any saving meaning whatsoever’.¹⁵ The Word of God has to be adapted to the context, but that context cannot reveal God’s Word.

ii) The second orientation is creation-centred. It has a weaker view of sin,¹⁶ and a generally positive assessment of human experience and culture since God is already at work and this can be used as a foundation for theology.¹⁷ In models following this orientation, Christ does not need to be brought into a particular culture; it is necessary rather to find him there.¹⁸

In this study, a broadly redemption-centred approach is followed, since it is more consistent with a belief in the authority of Scripture which is accepted by the Malaysian target audience.

Some scholars, e.g. Kraft, believe that it possible to discover a supracultural core (or kernel) of truths which may then be re-clothed for a variety of contexts,¹⁹ but it is doubtful whether this is possible since such core truths are inaccessible.²⁰ It is my contention that the Bible does not provide us with a single master blueprint for leadership which can readily be applied to all cultures, and it is not the aim of this work to draw up such a blueprint. However, the task of discovering principles of leadership is not hopeless. Paul Hiebert, the former Professor of Mission and Anthropology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, applies the concept of ‘centred sets’ to the membership of a believing community.²¹ Traditionally, the model of ‘bounded sets’ has been used to define those who belong to the church by insisting that they meet certain fixed requirements, such as baptism, confession of faith. Those who meet the requirements are in the set; those who don’t are out. However, centred sets are defined on a basis of a given member’s relationship to the centre, i.e. Jesus Christ when referring to Christians. In a similar way, I contend that this concept can be applied to contextualisation. For example, when considering leadership, although it may not be possible to define the ‘centre’ of acceptable Christian leaderships, an examination of how leadership changes under the influence of the gospel gives a sense of direction which may be applied to new contexts. This is consistent with Hiebert’s description of some centred sets being defined ‘in terms of elements moving in a field’.²² Just as the character of God can be discovered by the way in which he deals with a variety of people in different contexts, so the task in this research is to discover the changes brought about by contextualisation which will lead us to underlying theological principles of leadership.

Factors Affecting Contextualisation

In the remainder of this chapter, the major factors which affect contextualisation in the New Testament are drawn out. Dean Flemming, Professor of New Testament and Missions at the MidAmerica Nazarene University, is recognised for his in-depth study of New Testament contextualisation, and his analysis will form the main basis for this section of study.

One of the first times the early church had to face the question of how or whether to contextualise its practices occurs in Acts 15. John Davis describes this as ‘the prime example of contextualisation in the Christian church’.²³ Although the presenting problem was to do with circumcision and law-keeping (Acts 15:1-2), a more fundamental issue was whether Gentiles needed to become culturally Jewish in order to be accepted as members of the people of God.²⁴ To suggest that such cultural change was not required was very difficult for people from a Jewish background who believed that their culture with its rules and regulations was not only of central importance to them, but was also ordained by God.

To deal with this problem, the Antioch church sent Paul and Barnabas down to Jerusalem to meet with the church leaders there. After much discussion, it was decided that they ‘should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God’ (Acts 15:19) by demanding that they keep the law of Moses. The council’s decision ‘liberated the gospel from its Jewish swaddling clothes into being God’s message for all humankind’.²⁵ However, the Gentiles were told to ‘abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood’ (Acts 15:20). The reason for these regulations was to ensure that Jewish Christians could continue to relate to Gentile believers without making themselves unclean, and thus hindering the Jewish mission.²⁶

Flemming argues that Luke sees the story of the Jerusalem Council as a paradigmatic narrative which may be applied to churches in any context.²⁷ In particular, there is much to learn about the theological process ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Contextualisation in the New Testament. Contextualisation in the New Testament
• 2. Background to Leadership in Paul’s Ministry and Writings
• 3. Pauline Contextualisation of Leadership: God’s Activity and Word, and the Use of Titles
• 4. Pauline Contextualisation of Leadership: Leadership in Practice
• 5. Theological Analysis of the Contextualisation of Leadership in Paul’s Ministry and Writings
• 6. Leadership in English-Speaking Methodist Churches in Peninsular Malaysia
• 7. The Stimulation of Contextualised Leadership Today
• Bibliography
• Appendix
• Back Cover