Lewis or Tolkien, that we can draw on to illustrate our points. Second, contextualization should “employ respected authorities to strengthen your theses.” There are Christians whom non-Christians would know, like C. One of the effects of today’s biblical illiteracy is that your average American may not know what terms like “sanctification” or “eschatological” means, so we must explain them as we use them. We all struggle to understand people communicating in a field we aren’t conversant in, whether it’s an IT expert, a military official, or a doctor who uses unclear medical terms. They can understand the Bible, they may just need to be shown what some religious terms mean. The first principle is to “use accessible or well-explained vocabulary.” People are not dumb. It means expressing the gospel in a way that is not only comprehensible but also convincing.” Keller gives six principles for this. He adds, “It means to antagonize a society’s idols while showing respect for its peoples and many of its hopes and aspirations. Tim Keller explains that to contextualize the gospel means “to resonate with yet defy the culture around you.” Both of those things-resonate and defy-matter. God’s authority is not necessarily a “given” even in our congregations as in the past, so we must reveal the Bible’s scope and purpose before some people can trust God’s authority. For example, explaining that we should do something solely on account of God’s authority is increasingly ineffective for today’s audiences, churched and unchurched.

We’re often communicating in traditional ways to traditional mindsets, which means the group of people we are effective at reaching is shrinking, while groups like the religious ‘nones’ continue to grow. Yet fewer and fewer people find the messages comprehensive, much less persuasive.

Even the most outwardly focused, evangelistic churches continue to reach mainly people with traditional mind-sets because their communication expects hearers to carry the historical imprint of Christendom. Through centuries of habit most Christian preaching and teaching still assumes that listeners have the fundamental understandings of reality that they had in the past. He explains the challenge we face as pastors: He has faithfully proclaimed the Bible in the secularized context of New York City for decades. Tim Keller has been a helpful voice in effective preaching in our contemporary world.

Tim keller fews