6. The Crisis of Isolation Separatism or Contextualization?
 Alliance Witness, 1980.04.02, P. 23-24.

Twice apostles were faced with the crisis of isolation and twice they made the right choice.

1. In regard to the method of evangelism.

When the apostles began to evangelize, they had at least two methods to choose from: (1) they could centralize their activities, build a kind of head- quarters and operate everything, including preaching, from there or (2) they could decentralize their ministry and work wherever the masses of people were.

It was of great consequence that they chose the latter and preached “in the temple, and in every house” (5:42). Had they decided on the former, they would have been isolated from the people and would have found themselves in very much the same situation as our churches today, operating within the four walls of a church building.

The Temple was the center of Jerusalem, where Jewish people of all classes went for news, for religious teaching, for business, for worship, for receiving alms, for a holiday, for watching executions of offenders of the Law, and even for fun. It may not be too much to say that the Temple was like Hyde Park in London, where people hear the airing of all kinds of opinions and theories and enjoy all kinds of unexpected excitements. That was the place where a person could get the greatest exposure and gain the most attention. It was there that the apostles placed their pulpit, it was there that the Christians “gossiped the gospel” and it was there that the leaders performed their miracles (3:1-8).

But the apostles and disciples also conducted meetings in “every house.” These house meetings gradually became “house churches,” where both evangelism and training were carried on most effectively. Thus the masses of people were reached and taught, and they formed a powerful, unified yet decentralized church.

Temple evangelism provided the visibility for the church that was important for outreach because it created a psychological link between the church and the people. But house evangelism provided the personal contact that was the most fruitful for both evangelism and training.

House evangelism and house fellowship are still a great challenge to our churches today. They were the secret of the success of the Pietistic movement, they were the secret of the success of the missionary movement in England in the eighteenth century, and they were the secret of the success of the more recent Little Flock movement in the Chinese church.

Almost all of the more than five hundred missionaries of the Swedish Missionary Society have come from the missionary prayer meetings that are held in approximately five hundred homes in Sweden.

2. In regard to the first apostolic decree.

The early church faced a great crisis, which was the cause of the convening of the first church council, recorded in Acts 15. After much discussion and debate, they came to a unanimous conclusion under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This conclusion meant at once a decisive rejection of compromise and a wise move for contextualization.

The Judaistic group among the leaders and members of the Jerusalem church pressed and even agitated for apostolic legislation to enforce circumcision on all Christians. This was vigorously opposed by Paul and his followers on the grounds that it was incompatible with the basic gospel truth that we are justified by faith alone and that any step backward into the bondage of the Law would be fatal to Christian liberty. The apostle Peter also argued against it from the two basic premises of pure grace and of God’s act of pouring out the Holy Spirit on uncircumcised Gentiles.

It was James who made the final decision and proposed a draft resolution against circumcision, which was approved by the apostles and elders of the church (15:19 ff). This was a decision of tremendous consequence for church history. The decree gladdened and strengthened the hearts of disciples everywhere (15:31).

There are five points in this apostolic decree:

(1) freedom from circumcision,

(2) abstention from fornication,

(3) abstention from blood,

(4) abstention from things strangled and

(5) abstention from eating meat offered to idols.

The significance of these can be analyzed in this way:

1. Freedom from circumcision meant the rejection of compromise on gospel truth, as mentioned above.

2. The injunction to abstain from fornication was of a moral nature and was and is binding on all Christians of all times. Fornication was singled out of all sins because of its prominence in the apostolic age, owing to the prevailing background of prostitution in connection with idol worship in temples at religious festivals in Asia Minor. Many Christians faced this tremendous temptation.

3-4. Abstaining from blood and abstaining from strangled things, injunctions of a different category, were Old Testament prohibitions that foreshadowed a New Testament spiritual reality, namely, the atoning blood of Christ.

These injunctions, made by the Holy Spirit and the apostles (15:28), evidently removed hindrances in the way of evangelism. In other words, they were given for the sake of contextualization, to build a bridge between the Christians and the Jews.

This intention was clearly revealed in the remark made by the apostle James, “We write unto them, that they abstain. . . For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day” (15:20- 21). Since all Jews abstained from blood and strangled things, it would create a psychological and cultural barrier between the Christians and the Jews if converted Jews broke all these time-honored customs.

5. In regard to abstaining from meat offered to idols, the apostle Paul spoke from three perspectives in First Corinthians 10:

When the eating of meat offered to idols takes place in connection with idol worship in a temple, Christians must not partake in it (10:14-21).

Christians can buy anything from the market and eat it in good con- science (10:25).

When it might affect weak brothers, Christians should be careful not to cause any stumbling by eating meat offered to idols (10:28-33).

At first glance Paul seems to be self-contradictory in saying three different things about the same matter. But in reality he is presenting a living truth in life situations. When living truths are taken out of their life contexts, they are no longer meaningful.

In summary, the apostolic decree in Acts 15 had a double edge: rejection of compromise concerning gospel truths on the one hand, and bridge-building for evangelism on the other. These two aspects, when put together, form the balanced Biblical teaching on contextualization—contextualization without compromise.

Churches today should be greatly exercised in their efforts to find concrete ways for the implementation of this principle of contextualization that will considerably strengthen the force of evangelism throughout the world.