Most of us recognize that there are forces at work in our world that make communicating the gospel more akin to communicating across cultures—even within our home countries.  Often the unique message of the gospel sounds more and more like speaking a foreign language.  We speak the words of Christ into a cacophony of spiritual and cultural languages and wonder if anyone recognizes its unique vocabulary.  And yet, we, too, are informed and shaped by our own cultures.  Our speech embodies a whole world of language, experience, and ways of understanding that experience, which in turn shapes the way in which we speak about and live out the gospel. 

There are, therefore, particular difficulties inherent in translating the gospel 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 this culture.  We are, in the words of the proverb, like fish trying to define water. 

Of course, the heart of the gospel message transcends culture and language, just as surely as it originally came within a particular culture and language.  After all, 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?'" (Acts 26:14).  Paul then asked who was speaking to him, and the voice answered, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting" (Acts 26:15).  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 our own 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.   

However, if we are truly communicating the gospel, 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 we must do our diligent work in clear translation and communication of 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 we can depend on the supernatural work of the Holy 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, we can sound as if we are babbling in a foreign tongue.  On the other hand, we may immerse ourselves so much in cultural study and experience that we only seek "relevance" and lose the prophetic power of gospel proclamation.  Indeed, as culture-bound people, there is always a risk that we are guilty of proclaiming a version of the gospel that is more cultural than Christian.  We must always be willing to hear the radical call to conversion in our own proclamations, just as Saul came to understand that what he believed to be religious devotion was instead a form of persecution against the one he claimed to serve.  Yet, as we make room in our proclamation for the transformational work of the Spirit, we have the hope that the unique message of God's deliverance in Christ will not be lost 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.