Andrew F. Walls

The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Andrew F. Walls (New York: Orbis Books, 1996)

 Chapter 1: The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture

Theological triage: tier 1 (things that make us Christian); tier 2 (things that make us protestant or evangelical); tier 3 (important but interpretative). Tier 1 should be issues that we die over; Tier 2 are closed hand for the local church; Tier 3 are open handed things.

The "Indigenizing" Principle & The "Pilgrim" Principle

We ought to be able to speak to our culture and we begin to work with and over one another.

Chapter 2: Culture and Coherence in Christian History

"Each phase of Christian history has seen a transformation of Christianity as it has entered and penetrated another culture. There is no such thing as "Christian culture" or "Christian civilization" in the sense that there is an Islamic culture, and an Islamic civilization. There have been several different Christian civilization already; there may yet be many more" (22)

Chapter 3: The Translation Principle in Christian History

"In the other great faiths of the world, salvation does not depend on translation in this way...Christ is Word Translated...Incarnation is translation" (26-27). As Christians we need to do better than just interpreting, we need to do better at translating. Expositing the text is crucial and our illustrations must be completely clear and translate the main idea. Now the fun part is that our culture isn't static and we get to translate the Gospel into different cultures. Yes, sharing the Gospel is about us "living it out" but that doesn't stop there...it need to be the spoken word.

Chapter 4: Culture and Conversion in Christian History

Culture begins with the individual and then we begin to move toward establishing relationships with the culture at large. We don't pick and choose which nations we are to disciple rather "the task of the disciples of Christ is to disciple the nations, to make the nations disciples" (48). But if we are to make disciples of all nations, we must begin to disciple the individual. Discipleship, however, is a long process and it is a working of the personality.