Preaching with Cultural Intelligence: Understanding the People Who Hear Our Sermons by Matthew D. Kim

Author:Matthew D. Kim [Kim, Matthew D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Preaching, REL074000, REL080000, Christianity and culture
ISBN: 9781493411429
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2017-10-17T07:00:00+00:00

Author’s Cultural Context

Especially in this early part of the movement of Christianity, Jesus needed to lay a firm groundwork for what it means to be a disciple. Following Jesus requires an all-or-nothing type of commitment, especially in light of the challenging cultural environment in which the disciples would preach their salvific message. Michael Wilkins explains, “Against the backdrop of a world increasingly hostile to Christianity, the author solidifies his church’s identity as the true people of God, who transcend ethnic, economic, and religious barriers to find oneness in their adherence to Jesus Messiah. His Gospel becomes a manual on discipleship, as Jew and Gentile are made disciples of Jesus Messiah and learn to obey all that he commanded his original disciples.”26 Although we do not possess a complete manuscript of all that Jesus taught his disciples, the Gospels present more than sufficient description of what a disciple looks like and what a follower is to reproduce in making other disciples (Matt. 28:18–20). At this juncture it will be helpful to investigate more thoroughly the nature of discipleship in Matthew’s context to better understand how modern notions of Christian discipleship have gone astray.27

As we know from reading Matthew and the other Gospel writers, Jesus literally required his disciples to leave their families and their nets (occupations) to follow him (e.g., Matt. 4:20, 22). In Jewish culture, the family unit was paramount in daily life. We observe the magnitude of the family in God’s eyes in incorporating one’s display of honor to parents as the primary human relationship in the fifth of the Ten Commandments. Craig Keener informs us that in Matthew 10:35, “Jesus selects these specific examples of in-laws (mother-in-law and daughter-in-law) because young couples generally lived with the man’s family.”28 In many ways, Jesus’s teaching here contradicts the social and family norms of Jewish culture, where “many viewed honoring one’s parents as the highest social obligation.”29 For this reason, a natural connection point between the author’s cultural context and our own would be to emphasize the importance of the family in the ancient Jewish world and our modern culture. Since family relationships were so valuable in Jesus’s eyes, in Matthew 10 he strategically places the family as perhaps the ultimate hurdle for disciples to separate themselves from to substantiate one’s wholehearted commitment to his mission.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.