Jerome Neyrey clarifies what praise, honor, and glory meant to Matthew and his audience. He examines the traditional literary forms for bestowing such praise and the conventional grounds for awarding honor and praise in Matthew's world.
An Honorific Gospel: Biblically Faithful & Culturally Relevant Christians engaged in communicating the gospel navigate a challenging tension: faithfulness to God’s ancient, revealed Word—and relevance to the local, current social context. What if there was a lens or paradigm offering both? Understanding the Bible—particularly the gospel—through the ancient cultural “language” of honor-shame offers believers this double blessing. In Honor, Shame, and the Gospel, over a dozen practitioners and scholars from diverse contexts and fields add to the ongoing conversation around the theological and missiological implications of an honorific gospel. Eight illuminating case studies explore ways to make disciples in a diversity of social contexts—for example, East Asian rural, Middle Eastern refugee, African tribal, and Western secular urban. Honor, Shame, and the Gospel provides valuable resources to impact the ministry efforts of the church, locally and globally. Linked with its ancient honor-shame cultural roots, the gospel, paradoxically, is ever new—offering fresh wisdom to Christian leaders and optimism to the church for our quest to expand Christ’s kingdom and serve the worldwide mission of God.
"Is your gospel 3D? Western theology emphasizes legal forgiveness of sins, but people in the Majority World seek honor or spiritual power. In today's globalized world, Christians need a three-dimensional gospel. Learn how the Bible speaks to cultures of guilt, shame, and fear, and enhance your cross-cultural ministry among the nations! The 3D Gospel is a concise book explaining the world's three primary culture types and how Christians can fruitfully minister cross-culturally. To equip believers with a dynamic view of gospel, The 3D Gospel explains the following aspects of guilt, shame, and fear cultures: The main cultural characteristics; How people function in everyday life; The biblical narrative of salvation; Doctrines of original sin and the atonement of Jesus; Definitions of 40+ theological categories; Key verses from scripture; Two separate evangelistic approaches; A contextualized form of Christian witness; Practical tips for relationships and communication."--HonorShame.com
Years ago, the author had a startling realization. Theologians and pastors have long taught on the glory of God and its central importance in the Bible. However, because he was living in East Asia, it also dawned on the author that this sort of talk about God's glory, praising Him, and magnifying His name was simply another way of talking about honor and shame. When the author looked at most theology and ministry-related books, he found that honor and shame seemed to be treated differently. Anthropologists talked about honor-shame, but theologians largely focused more on legal metaphors. The author could see both themes in Scripture but couldn't find help as to how to bring them together. This study was developed in order to address this gap and bring those themes together. Sign up for the WCIU Press newsletter to be notified about new books from this author and more! http: //eepurl.com/rB15L
According to Brad Vaughn, some traditional East Asian cultural values are closer to those of the first-century biblical world than common Western cultural values. In this work Vaughn demonstrates how paying attention to East Asian culture provides a helpful lens for interpreting Paul's most complex letter, and we see how honor and shame shape so much of Paul's message and mission.
Version three of Roland Muller's ground breaking book on worldview. Intended for an evangelical audience this book present the three common-ancestral worldviews from a Biblical basis and examines how they influence our understanding of the gospel. This book comes highly recommended and is essential reading for those wishing to work cross culturally.Roland Muller introduces the concepts of guilt, fear and shame based cultures, showing their development over the years, and their influence on our understanding of the gospel message. Muller examines the way we traditionally present the gospel, and the difficulties this poses for those from a shame/honor background. A case study based on the Muslim cultures of the Middle East follows, where he examines Islam in the light of shame and honor. In conclusion Roland Muller presents us with the three-fold message of the gospel which is understandable in whatever cultural setting we may work in.
The singular issue which this book addresses may be defined by posing this question: How can the honor/shame dynamics common to the Bible and many Majority World societies be used to contextualize the Christian faith in order to make it more widely understood and accepted?
David F. Watson brings a new perspective to the "messianic secret," relying not on the Christological concerns of 19th- and 20th-century theologians, but on recent insights into the role of honor and shame in ancient Mediterranean culture on the part of social scientists. Mark's portrayal of Jesus simultaneously shows his ability to provide favors and benefits to others and his refusal to put himself forward or draw attention to himself as a benefactor, thereby teaching that in God's kingdom it is not the great and powerful who are most highly regarded, but the humble.
Johns Gospel has been studied and evaluated and interpreted constantly by theologians throughout the ages. Can anything more possibly be said? Jerome Neyrey says it can, indeed, by interpreting it in two fresh ways by means of ancient rhetoric and by viewing it in its cultural context. / In order to find patterns and concepts that have a bearing on how to read John Neyrey examines the rhetoric of praise and blame described in the ancient encomium, the Greek commonplace on noble death, rules for rhetorical conclusions, and Jewish background materials. He then uses materials from cultural anthropology, such as the effects of limited good and envy, secrecy, and brokerage. Even innocent topics such as time and space have much to say about interpreting the figure of Jesus. / In viewing John through these two lenses, The Gospel of John in Cultural and Rhetorical Perspective brings the book into clear focus as a truly maverick gospel