In his book Transforming Mission, David Bosch recalls John Stott’s observation that
the Bible does not just contain the gospel; it is the gospel. Through the Bible God is himself actually evangelizing, that is, communicating the good news to the world.
The gospel proclaims the dynamic rule of God (“the kingdom of God”; Matthew 4:23; 13:19; 24:14; Mark 1:15; Luke 4:43; 9:2; Acts 1:3; 8:12; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31), which is what we are doing when we preach Christ as Lord (2 Corinthians 4:5; cf. Mark 1:1; Romans 15:19-20; 2 Corinthians 2:12; 1 Thessalonians 3:2; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; 2 Timothy 1:10; 2:8). Paul speaks of being set apart for “the gospel of God” (cf. Romans 15:16; 1 Thessalonians 2:8) and, given strong inter-relationships between Romans 1:1-5 and Romans 1:14-17, there are strong grounds for thinking that he means the gospel reveals God. For in Romans 1:17 he speaks of “the righteousness of God” being revealed in the gospel and I take Paul to be referring to God as a righteous God. At any rate, the gospel is not something to be confused with the tools we might use to proclaim the gospel – The Bridge Illustration, Two Ways to Live, Steps to Peace with God, etc. The entirety of biblical revelation provides the raw materials for proclaiming the gospel, because all of Scripture contributes to understanding God’s dynamic rule and why it has its locus in Christ.
There are myriad definitions of culture but essential to most is the idea that culture is something transmitted from generation to generation, something learned. If this is so then we can’t really speak intelligibly about divine culture. God is not a cultural being. God does not learn. God is not in process. But it is precisely because God transcends culture that his dynamic rule is relevant to all cultures.
In Galatians 3:8 Paul points out,
The Scriptures foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham, “All nations will be blessed through you.”
Notably this gospel concerning the blessings of God’s rule for all peoples was announced to Abraham before he was circumcised (Romans 4:10-11), that is, before he was in any sense the father of the Jewish nation. The Old Testament Scriptures do involve God revealing himself to a specific people in particular cultural settings. But the Abrahamic promise, as gospel, makes it clear that the the revelation of the sovereign God and the blessings of his rule is something that needs to be made known to all peoples. It is this we are doing as we preach Christ in a way that does justice to the full sweep of biblical revelation.
Further, though this Word is rooted in human cultures (the very use of human words in communication locks us in here!) it is the God, who transcends all cultures, whom people encounter in all their diverse cultures.
Posted June 7, 2008
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