Luke 15:11-24

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the younger brother asked to receive his inheritance early so he might live as he chose. Once the father gave him his share, he made many unwise choices that led to hunger and destitution. What happened next illustrates the principles of godly repentance.

After squandering all his money, the young man found work feeding pigs, a bottom-of-the-barrel kind of job. One day he came to his senses and recognized his terrible plight. His repentance began with an awareness of his wrong choices and the fact that his bad situation was due to them.

Knowing that his difficulties came from his sinful behavior, the prodigal grieved over his mistakes and acknowledged that he had sinned against the Lord (v. 18). He declared he was no longer worthy to be his father’s son. Godly sorrow and confession led the young man to leave that place and go home. His repentance was made complete when he turned away from his old ways and returned to his father. The Lord likewise calls us to repent and return to Him.

What a welcome the prodigal son received. Upon seeing him, the father was filled with compassion and ran to embrace him. Forgiveness and acceptance were extended to the son. Both are blessings that God freely offers to whoever asks Him.

The prodigal son did not clean himself up before returning home. He simply left his old life, turned toward home, and trusted in his father’s mercy. The heavenly Father calls us to repent and offers us forgiveness when we turn away from our self-centered ways and move toward godliness (1 John 1:9).

Most of us recognize that there are forces at work in our world that make communicating more akin to communicating across cultures—even within our home countries. Twitter, texting and other forms of modern short-hand must be learned just as one would learn a new language. TTYL, LOL, and other combinations of letters are indiscernible to the tweeting and texting uninitiated.

In a similar way, trying to find ways to talk about matters of faith often feels like trying to cross a broken bridge. Even more than that, anyone who claims to present a clear language of faith speaks into a cacophony of spiritual and cultural languages. Is it any wonder, then, that blank stares are the all too often response to the particulars of the unique vocabulary of faith?

And yet, those who speak what seems to them a clear message are also informed and shaped by their own cultures. Speech embodies a whole world of language, experience, and ways of understanding that experience, which in turn shapes the way in which individuals speak about their faith.

here are, therefore, particular difficulties inherent in translation from within one’s own culture. An ancient Chinese proverb highlights this difficult task: “If you want a definition of water, don’t ask a fish.”(1) In other words, on what platform does one stand in order to speak into one’s own culture? We are products of the very culture into which we seek to communicate, and we can never completely stand outside our own culture. We are, in the words of the proverb, like fish trying to define water.

Notably, Christians affirm that the heart of the gospel message transcends culture and language, just as surely as it was originally proclaimed within a particular culture and language. After all, the good news of the gospel is about “the Word made flesh.” Missiologist Lesslie Newbigin explains the dialogical nature of the gospel as a product of culture and yet as a trans-cultural communication when he suggests: “Every statement of the gospel in words is conditioned by the culture of which those words are part, and every style of life that claims to embody the truth of the gospel is a culturally conditioned style of life. There can never be a culture-free gospel. Yet the gospel, which is from the beginning to the end embodied in culturally conditioned forms, calls into question all cultures, including the one in which it was originally embodied.”(2)

Newbigin uses the conversion and transformation of Saul into the apostle Paul as a case in point. His trial before King Agrippa, as recorded in Acts 26, illuminates this cultural dialogue. As Paul shares the story of his conversion with King Agrippa, he speaks the language of the Empire, Greek, and not his native Hebrew. Yet earlier, when he was blinded by “a light from heaven, brighter than the sun” and he heard a voice from heaven, it was not in the predominant Greek language. Paul tells Agrippa: “I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’” Paul then asked who was speaking to him, and the voice answered, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” Newbigin suggests that this passage provides a means by which we can understand the challenges and the opportunities for gospel communication and translation from within a given culture.(3)

First, just as Paul hears the as yet unnamed voice from heaven in his native tongue, the “voice” of the gospel must be offered in the language of the culture into which it is spoken. The gospel must be communicated in a way in which it can truly be heard, and we must accept that the way in which we present it will on some level embody that which is understood and experienced in a particular culture.

Truly communicating the gospel, however, means it will also call into question the way of understanding that is inherent in our own culture. Saul truly believed his actions against the Christians were in keeping with the God-ordained desire to preserve and protect Jewish identity and purity of belief. Yet, the voice from heaven revealed that this devotion of Saul was a form of persecution against the very God he claimed to serve.

Finally, while Christians must be diligent to clearly translate and communicate the gospel, ultimately conversion is the work of God. No human persuasion, no lofty speculation ever accomplishes the work of conversion. This is God’s work alone accomplished by the Holy Spirit, and those who bear witness in multiple cultural contexts can depend on the work of the Spirit to accomplish what God desires. “[I]n the mysterious providence of God, a word spoken comes with the kind of power of the word that was spoken to Saul on the road to Damascus…it causes the hearer to stop, turn around, and go in a new direction, to accept Jesus as Lord, Guide, and Savior.”(4)

The communication of the gospel into every culture is filled with challenges and opportunities. Without the work of careful translation, Christians can sound as if they are babbling in a foreign tongue. On the other hand, they may immerse themselves so much in cultural study and experience that they only seek “relevance” and lose the prophetic power of gospel proclamation. Indeed, as culture-bound people, there is always a risk of proclaiming a version of the gospel that is more cultural than Christian. Christians must always be willing to hear the radical call to conversion in their own proclamations. Yet, making room in these proclamations for the transformational work of the Spirit, there is hope that the unique message of God’s deliverance in Christ will not be lost either on the one who hears or the one who speaks.

Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

(1) Cited in Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 21

(2) Ibid., 4.

(3) Ibid., 5.

(4) Ibid., 7-8.

 Morning “Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine.” / John 21:12

 In these words the believer is invited to a holy nearness to Jesus. “Come and

dine,” implies the same table, the same meat; aye, and sometimes it means to

sit side by side, and lean our head upon the Saviour’s bosom. It is being

brought into the banqueting-house, where waves the banner of redeeming love.

“Come and dine,” gives us a vision of union with Jesus, because the only food

that we can feast upon when we dine with Jesus is himself. Oh, what union is

this! It is a depth which reason cannot fathom, that we thus feed upon Jesus.

“He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in

him.” It is also an invitation to enjoy fellowship with the saints. Christians

may differ on a variety of points, but they have all one spiritual appetite;

and if we cannot all feel alike, we can all feed alike on the bread of life

sent down from heaven. At the table of fellowship with Jesus we are one bread

and one cup. As the loving cup goes round we pledge one another heartily

therein. Get nearer to Jesus, and you will find yourself linked more and more

in spirit to all who are like yourself, supported by the same heavenly manna.

If we were more near to Jesus we should be more near to one another. We

likewise see in these words the source of strength for every Christian. To

look at Christ is to live, but for strength to serve him you must “come and

dine.” We labour under much unnecessary weakness on account of neglecting this

precept of the Master. We none of us need to put ourselves on low diet; on the

contrary, we should fatten on the marrow and fatness of the gospel that we may

accumulate strength therein, and urge every power to its full tension in the

Master’s service. Thus, then, if you would realize nearness to Jesus, union

with Jesus, love to his people and strength from Jesus, “come and dine” with

him by faith.

 

Evening “With thee is the fountain of life.” / Psalm 36:9

 There are times in our spiritual experience when human counsel or sympathy, or

religious ordinances, fail to comfort or help us. Why does our gracious God

permit this? Perhaps it is because we have been living too much without him,

and he therefore takes away everything upon which we have been in the habit of

depending, that he may drive us to himself. It is a blessed thing to live at

the fountain head. While our skin- bottles are full, we are content, like

Hagar and Ishmael, to go into the wilderness; but when those are dry, nothing

will serve us but “Thou God seest me.” We are like the prodigal, we love the

swine-troughs and forget our Father’s house. Remember, we can make

swine-troughs and husks even out of the forms of religion; they are blessed

things, but we may put them in God’s place, and then they are of no value.

Anything becomes an idol when it keeps us away from God: even the brazen

serpent is to be despised as “Nehushtan,” if we worship it instead of God. The

prodigal was never safer than when he was driven to his father’s bosom,

because he could find sustenance nowhere else. Our Lord favours us with a

famine in the land that it may make us seek after himself the more. The best

position for a Christian is living wholly and directly on God’s grace–still

abiding where he stood at first–“Having nothing, and yet possessing all

things.” Let us never for a moment think that our standing is in our

sanctification, our mortification, our graces, or our feelings, but know that

because Christ offered a full atonement, therefore we are saved; for we are

complete in him. Having nothing of our own to trust to, but resting upon the

merits of Jesus–his passion and holy life furnish us with the only sure

ground of confidence. Beloved, when we are brought to a thirsting condition,

we are sure to turn to the fountain of life with eagerness.