Occasionally, you will hear some well-meaning Christian or church leader quip that times have changed. Therefore, the church must become relevant by contextualizing. The question is, do we contextualize the message or our approach? Contextualization is a missiological term referring to the structure, medium, or form through which the message of scripture can travel. On the other hand, Bible exegetes, or hermeneuticians teach that to understand the context of scripture as the author intended, one must read the passages within its context. These ideas are two different things. The former has to do with how to reach a contemporary people group; the latter has to do with maintaining the truth of scripture across cultures without diluting it.

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Because the word of God is forever settled in heaven (Psalm 119:89), its content must not be doctored or modified. Contextualization in the missiological sense affects the medium, form, or structures by which the gospel travels. These will change from generation to generation until the second coming of Christ. For example, because Christianity is primarily a message and not a culture, when it reaches any new culture, it does not conform to it, but instead lifts the culture to the plane of scripture because the scripture is the canon.

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All cultures everywhere are to be challenged with the standards of the Bible because “In the beginning, God....” Meaning all cultures came out of God. Today, some are of the view that God is separate from culture, on the contrary, they are of the view that humans cannot be separated from their culture, this is unfortunate. The opposite is true instead. God is the culture; we came out of God, except that we have all gone astray (Isa 53:6). You will hear comments like “God works through all cultures” as if God was outside the culture begging his way in.

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No culture in the world today is free of demonic practice. Christians must not proudly exalt cultures and seek to explain the Bible to fit the current culture; instead, we must interpret the culture to fit the Bible. Nobody came into the world with their own set of values and truths. God is the foundation of every culture; we have deviated. God should not work with or through cultures; instead, our cultures must work with God to get us back to our former condition – Eden.

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When Paul reflected on his use of freedom, he used the word "I" twelve times in five verses when referring to his approach to winning souls (1 Cor 9:19-23). Paul did not change the gospel because the Jews had a different cultural practice than the Gentiles. He did not change the gospel because the weak had to hear something different from the strong. Paul became "all things to all people," not the gospel. Contextual reading has to do with the content of scripture; applying contextually has to do with the form or structures we erect to allow scripture to reach people.
These are two different things; mixing them up will be catastrophic.

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Contextual reading is proper and helps to bring meaning to the reader. On the other hand, contextualizing the Bible makes its message fit the current culture. That is dangerous, liberal, rebellious, and demonic. It is a postmodern reader-response approach where the reader in the receptive culture recreates meaning from what is already settled in heaven. Reading the Bible contextually will help identify what is applicable today and what is not. To read contextually in a hermeneutical sense, one must consider issues such as but not limited to

· historical background
· the genre
· the writer
· the testament the passage or verse falls under
· the actual passage being read
· its grammar and syntax
· its immediate context, etc.

Applying scripture contextually is to make the receptor culture authoritative instead of the author. If we contextualize the message of the Bible, we will not see a difference between the church and the culture around it. The following are examples of contextualization in a missiological sense.

· Moving services from in-person to online due to the pandemic
· Changing seating arrangements of church leaders from the stage to elsewhere in the auditorium.
· Using electronic giving over cash or check.
· Preachers using PowerPoints, pro-presenter, and other illustrations compared to what Peter did when he delivered his sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2:14-42).
· Ethically incorporating artificial intelligence to benefit the church.
· Using phrases such as “the study of end times events” instead of eschatology, “the study of the Holy Spirit” instead of pneumatology, “the study of the church” instead of ecclesiology, depending on the audience.
· Rebranding a church, changing its name, changing its evangelistic methods such as knocking on doors against showing placards by the wayside

Reading the Bible contextually is hermeneutical; being contextual is missiological. The result of the former is unchanging regardless of the culture; that of the latter will always change regardless of belief because it is contingent on the receptive culture. In other words, missiological contextualization is an application methodology that has nothing to do with modifying scripture. We read contextually to determine what the author is communicating. After that, we must look for appropriate methods to reach a people group.

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In a nutshell, we are to read the Bible contextually to get the right message to feed the souls of men. We must not apply its content contextually; if we do, the Bible will lose its authority because the truth will change from generation to generation. Contextualization for soul-winning purpose does not include the content of scripture; it only focuses on structures and channels of communicating the message.

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