GroshLink

For the past several months, Jim (check out Pilgrim Musings with some of my thoughts expressed on Sunday, February 11) and I have been leading an adult elective based on Randy Newman's Questioning Evangelism.  As we prepare to wrap-up the class over the course of the next two Sundays, I have not been able to put down several pieces by Kenneth Bailey [Presbyterian author and lecturer in Middle Eastern New Testament Studies New Wilmington, PA, USA; Canon Theologian of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh; Research Professor of New Testament at the Ecumenical Institute (Tantur) Jerusalem (Emeritus)] regarding Luke 15.  

Among many helpful explorations and applications of the text, which I'll get to at a later time, below is an extended quote from Jacob and the Prodigal regarding evangelism (Note:  If you have to chose one of Bailey's InterVarsity Press Pieces over another, the production and commentary upon "Two Sons Have I Not" in The Cross & the Prodigal is one of a kind and shares a lot of the same material with his other IVP work).  Having heard both Bailey (and it's hard not to mention that his son is the musician Dave Bailey) and Walls in person several times, they have much to offer not only to the academic, but also to anyone who seeks to be a follower of Christ as presented in the New Testament:

Andrew Walls, a Scottish church historian and specialist in non-Western Christianity, has described the relationship between translation and evangelism, which begins with the incarnation.  He writes:

"In the Incarnation, the Word becomes flesh, not simply flesh; Christian faith is not about a theophany or an avatar, the appearance of divinity on the human scene.  The Word was made "human" . . . . Christ was not simply a loan-word adopted into the vocabulary of humanity; he was fully translated, taken into the functional system of the language, into the fullest reaches of personality, experience, and social relationship.  The proper human response to the divine act of translation is conversion; the opening up of the functioning system of personality, intellect, emotions, relationship to the new meaning, to the expression of Christ" (A.F. Walls, "The Missionary Movement in Christian History, p. 28).

The divine translation from heaven to earth becomes the starting point and model for evangelism.  The Word has come to us from God, and that same Word is then taken to other peoples and cultures.  Incarnation is the model for a new "translation" from one culture and system of understanding of the world to another.  Again Walls writes:

"Similarly, conversion implies the use of existing structures, the "turning" of those structures to new directions, the application of new material and standards to a system of thought and conduct already in place and functioning.  It is not about substitution, the replacement of something old by something new, but about transformation, the turning of the already existing to new account" (A.F. Walls, "The Missionary Movement in Christian History, p. 28).

Putting the two ideas together, Walls says, "Following on the original act of translation in Jesus of Nazareth are countless retranslations into the thought forms and cultures of the different societies into which Christ is brought as conversion takes place" (A.F. Walls, "The Missionary Movement in Christian History, p. 28).

Thus Walls sees a two-stage process:

-(Stage one) the word of God becomes flesh
-(Stage two) the resulting Gospel is "translated" into other cultures

Yet doesn't the New Testament present us with a three stage process?  Between the word becoming flesh (stage one) and Paul's work among the Gentiles (stage two), we can observe Jesus' "translation" of who he was and what he came to do into the imagination and theological culture of first-century Judaism.  This did not occur automatically.  The new reality of God having visited and redeemed his people in the person of Jesus had to be presented in understandable forms within his own theological culture.  Yes, the divine word of God was translated into "flesh" in Jesus of Nazareth.  But that Word necessitated a further translation into the intellectual and theological world of which he was a part (note:  In a public lecture Andrew Walls has discussed what he calls "the conversion of the memory."  New Christians, argues Walls, should not erase their past but allow it to be converted to Christ.  This is what Jesus is doing:  "converting" the community's memory of the Jacob saga as he creates the new story of the compassionate father and the two lost sons).  And in the three parables of Luke 15 it is possible to see that Jesus himself was the theologian who made the initial translation for "Israel according to the flesh" (I Cor 10:18, literal translation; cf KJV).  Paul's efforts with the Greco-Roman (and the efforts of the author of Hebrews) then become the third (rather than the second) such translation.  This "second translation," accomplished by Jesus, is often overlooked.  These three can be summarized as follows:

1.  The Word of God is translated into flesh in the person of Jesus.
2.  Jesus "translates" the reality of who he is and what he has come to accomplish by reshaping the Old Testament stories of the Good Shepherd and the saga of Jacob into new forms with himself at the centers.
3a.  Paul translates the resulting Gospel into concepts and metaphors that the Greco-Roman world can understand.
3b.  The book of Hebrews does the same thing for that branch of Judaism that focused on the temple and its rituals.

Christian reflection in the New Testament generally moves from the first of these directly to the third.  Granted, Christian witnesses across history have started with the "resulting Gospel" and labored to present the Gospel in understandable forms to new cultures.  But is the Gospel itself not better understood if the "second translation" is understood as well?

Yes, the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, was at work presenting the Gospel in the theological thought forms of first-century Judaism.  But it is my conviction that in the parable of the prodigal son, at the earliest point of the formation of the Gospel, "Jesus himself was at work on the same problem!"

This earlier, second stage is a profound, important and compelling as the first and the third.  The community of which Jesus was a part took its name from the Jacob story.  It was known as, "Israel," the name given to Jacob in the great saga of his journey into exile and return, recorded in Genesis 27-35.  His story was an important part of the community's story . . .

Note:  Other posts related to the class are:
Questioning Evangelism
Christ of Christmas
Graphic Violence
Evil and the Justice of God, note:  materials introduced in two classes related to this piece are the basis of my next adult elective

In the Shadow of the Cross
Reflections on daily life through the window of Lent, the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Kingdom of God.  In addition to walking through the Lenten guide provided by our local congreation, we will meditate upon and discuss several pieces by Evil and Resurrection, based on Tom's book Evil and the Justice of God.

On a related note:  Thank-you to Kevin for bringing Resurrecting Old Arguments: Responding to Four Essays to my attention.