If there are signposts to the Gospel in every culture, how do we discover them? We have to do what Jesus did in Samaria (John 4:1-43)[ii]. We have to be prepared to wait (4:6). This is particularly difficult for busy Westerners. We also have to sit with them, listen to them and ask them questions (4:6-7; see also Luke 2:46). And we have to be prepared to use terminology and images from within their life and culture rather than insisting on the terms and images you are used to using. The Jews of his day refused to 'use dishes Samaritans have used' (an alternate rendition of John 4:9 according to the English NIV footnote). Yet Jesus was willing not only to use a Samaritan drinking cup, but to turn their well into an image of the gift God wanted to give the Samaritans (4:10-14). By listening to his neighbors and observing their life, Don Richardson discovered the image of the Peace Child within Sawi culture, which resulted in the Gospel making sense to them.

As we sat with our Moroccan friends and listened to them, we also began to ask questions. Was there no sin in the cultural context of our Moroccan friends that was worthy of death? We heard that a daughter could be killed for sexual relations outside of marriage because it brought shame and dishonor to the family name. The responsibility for redeeming the family honor in this way usually fell to the eldest son in the family. What about sons? Could they also bring shame and dishonor to the family name? I once heard a young Moroccan man tell how in anger he had struck his father in the face, and I had noticed the shocked response of all the other young Moroccans present. Some sins, it seemed, were not just treated as human weakness.

To check this out further I asked another young Moroccan man: What would happen if you were to become so angry with your father that you struck him in the face in public? His eyes grew larger and he replied: In the old days I could have been killed for that. Though that would not likely happen today, I would have to be sent away. If I remained in my father's house—even in the same town, the shame would be on him and the family. To protect the honor of the family name, I would have to be sent away.

As I listened, I thought of Adam and Eve being sent away from the presence of God in the Garden of Eden. Then I asked him: Could your father ever forgive you and bring you back? His answer surprised me: Yes, but he would have to love me a great deal, for it would mean that he would be taking the shame and dishonor of my deed back on himself. The penny was beginning to drop, so I asked again: Would he be able to do anything to gain back the family honor? Or would the family be stuck with the shame forever? He was silent for a moment then replied: He would have to die. If he died, the shame and dishonor would die with him.

As my Moroccan friend said these words, I remembered what I had learned about the responsibility of the eldest son to guard the honor of the family name. Was this an image within Moroccan culture, perhaps familiar to other Muslim cultures as well, that could be used—like Jesus used the well of Sychar—to present the Gospel? Would I be changing the essence of the Gospel if I used such an image? Would Moroccans be able to relate to the image of God as Father and us as his sons and daughters?

The Samaritan woman was not immediately open to seeing Jesus as the Messiah the Samaritans were expecting (John 4:25-29). She was expecting that Jesus, like other Jews, would tell her she had to change her religion (4:20-21). However, Jesus surprised her by saying that the Gospel was not about a change of religion, but about the advent of a New Time in God's purposes for all peoples (4:21,23). Instead of religious correction, Jesus brought a revelation of the Mystery that had been hidden in God since the creation of the world (Eph.3:4-5,9).

What was this Mystery? That through the Gospel the nations[iii] are 'heirs together' (Eph.3:6). There are four dimensions to the Mystery of the Gospel. First, before the Messiah came the nations were not yet heirs of God. Second, the nations did not know that this was their created destiny. Though the Jews had a vague idea that they had been chosen for this destiny (Ex.5:22; Eph.1:11), they were still no better off than slaves themselves because they were living under the guardianship of the Law and couldn't touch the promised inheritance (Gal.4:1-3). Thirdly, this inheritance was not just for Israel, nor only for individuals. It is for ethnic groups: all nations. And finally, it is to be received together.

It is not just repentance and forgiveness of sins that needs to be declared to all ethnic groups (Luke 24:47), but the full 'Mystery of the Gospel' needs to be made known as well (Eph.6:19). How did Jesus share the Mystery of the Gospel with the Samaritans? He told the Samaritan woman that 'the Time had come' when she and her whole ethnic group[iv] would know and worship God as their Father, implying that this was new revelation and that it would happen together with believing Jewish brothers and sisters (John 4:21-24). Did Jesus tell them he was the Lamb of God come to take away their sin? If so, John did not record it.

What I learned from Jesus and from my Moroccan friends is that some cultures may need to have a revelation of the Father before the cross can make sense to them. In a Moroccan cultural context, the sin of a servant or slave does not affect the master's name. But the sin of a son or daughter does. God as the supreme Master may forgive-or not forgive—us because we are like slaves to him. But if God is our Father, then our sin has brought shame and dishonor to his name, and God's Word coming as the Eldest Brother to die for us would make sense.

[i] Don Richardson, Peace Child, Regal Press, 1976.

[ii] Members can click here and scroll down to the title 'Biblical Contextualization' to watch a two-part video lecture based on the Samaritan story. 

[iii] The Greek word ta ethne in this verse is usually translated ‘the Gentiles’. But it is the same word that is elsewhere translated ‘the nations’ (Gentiles is simply the Latin word for ‘nations’). From this Greek word we get the idea of ‘ethnic group’.

[iv] The Greek word ethnos (singular of ta ethne) is used both to describe the Jewish ‘nation’ (John 11:51) and the Samaritan ‘people’ (Acts 8:9). Hence Jews and Samaritans were considered separate ethnic groups.

In the first part of this article we saw that bringing dishonor to the family name was a theme within Moroccan culture (and many other Muslim cultures) that enabled us to talk about sin and the cross. A Moroccan daughter who brings dishonor to her father’s name (to the family name), may be killed by her eldest brother. A son who brings dishonor to his father’s name might no longer be killed, but he must be sent away if the family honor is to be preserved. Sin against God is not usually thought of in these terms because Muslim teaching emphasizes God as Lord and Master, and human beings as servants or slaves. The sin of a slave or servant against his or her master does not affect the Master’s name. Because the Master is so much greater than the slave, he merely forgives the slave’s sin if he is so inclined. Or he does not. A mediating sacrifice seems unnecessary. BUT if human beings were created to be God’s sons and daughters, then the consequences of human sin to a Moroccan would appear more serious. And Adam and Eve’s banishment from Eden would have been the result of bringing shame and dishonor to their Father’s name.

Before exploring how to use this in sharing the Gospel, we need to first take a look at the nature of the Gospel. What is the Good News that we have to share with Muslims--in fact, with people of all ethnic groups including our own? When I re-examined the Good News that Jesus shared with the Samaritan woman, I discovered that he emphasized two aspects of the Gospel that had been overlooked in my training. And the aspect of the Gospel I had been taught to emphasize Jesus actually de-emphasized in his initial proclamation of the Gospel.

Jesus did not begin by talking about sin and the need for the redemption he had come to bring on the cross. Even when he shared a ‘word of knowledge’ about the woman’s past failures and current sinful relationship (John 4:17-18), he did not use this word to emphasize her sinfulness and need to repent. At least not at first. Instead he used this word to affirm the truth she was telling, not to emphasize where she was wrong. By contrast, his presentation of the Gospel emphasized that he had a ‘gift of God’ for her (4:10) because a New Time had come in which all peoples, including Samaritans, might know the Father and worship him together in Spirit and truth (4:21-24). The Samaritans did come to understand Jesus as ‘the savior of the world’ (4:42), but this was not the theme of the Gospel Jesus used first.

Why did Jesus not begin with the ‘salvation from sin’ theme? Perhaps it was because Samaritans would have only heard this as one more attempt by Jews to correct the religion of the Samaritans. This is certainly what the woman expected to hear (4:20). But there is another reason, which becomes clear in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. The Gospel has three themes, not one. And two of these themes had been kept hidden by God from the creation of the world to the coming of Jesus and the Spirit: the theme that people of all nations are heirs, and that all nations are heirs-together (Eph.3:2-6,9) where in one body they make known together in their worship the multi-faceted wisdom of God (3:10). Paul refers to these two themes as ‘the Mystery of the Gospel’ (Eph.3:2-6; 6:19) because these cannot be know apart from revelation.

In speaking of this mystery Paul refers back to what he has already written (3:3) that the spiritual blessings of the Gospel which we have received involve three themes, not just one. And he treats the ‘redemption through his blood’ as the second of these three themes (1:7-8), not the first or only theme of the Gospel. The first theme is that God chose human beings to be his sons and daughters, with a destiny of one day being ‘placed as sons’ (huio-thesia) through Jesus Christ (1:4-6). The third theme involves God bringing all things, including all nations in one Body, together under Christ as head (1:9-10). A close examination of how Paul uses the Greek word huio-thesia in Gal.4:5 shows that he is not talking about adoption (even though other contemporary Greek writers of his day used this word in that way), but that he--out of his Hebrew world view—was using this word to indicate the ‘time set by the Father’ for minor children to come of age and become ‘heirs of God’ (Gal.4:1-7; Rom.8:14-17)—our destiny since the creation of the world.

Because the first and third themes of the Gospel (people of all nations becoming heirs and heirs-together) were purposely kept hidden by God, we cannot expect our Muslim friends to automatically recognize that God is their Father and that people from all ethnic groups (whether they have a Muslim or a Christian upbringing) have a destiny to worship the Father together in Spirit and Truth. These themes need to be proclaimed so that the Spirit can reveal that the New Time of inheritance and multi-cultural worship in Jesus has come.

Like Jesus in Samaria we too can begin our presentation of the Gospel to our Muslim friends by speaking of the ‘gift of God’ (dorean ton Theo) which is like living water inside the believer ‘welling up to eternal life’ (Jn.4:10,14). Jesus was referring to the Holy Spirit (Jn.7:38-39; Acts 8:21): who both enables us to know the Father, and who is the ‘first-fruits’ of our inheritance as adult sons and daughters. Or we can speak of a place for Moroccans in the Father’s household. In sharing these themes first, Jesus made clear that the Gospel was not about Jews correcting the religious beliefs and practices of Samaritans.

Rather than trying to correct Muslim beliefs and practices we too can cooperate with the Spirit in a proclamation that helps our Muslim friends get a revelation of the Mystery of the Gospel--their destiny in the Father. With my Moroccan and Turkish friends, I would quote from the prophet Isaiah that God’s Word was like the rain and the snow coming down from heaven, because it only returned to heaven after accomplishing its purpose. Sometimes God had accomplished his purpose in history by causing his Word to be spoken on the lips of his prophets. When God’s Word needed to be recited and remembered from generation to generation to accomplish his purpose, he had caused it to be written down in a Book. But when the Time came for him to accomplish his greatest purpose, to bring human beings from all nations into their created destiny, he caused his Word to be born of a woman as the Eldest Brother, the ‘kinsman-redeemer’ (Hebrew: goël).[v]

This is why we call Jesus ‘Son of God’. Not because we have elevated a human being to be equal with God, but because the Mystery of God’s hundredth name has been revealed to us in Jesus. God chose us—not angels or any other creature—to be in his ‘likeness and image’ as sons and daughters, with a destiny that those who proved faithful in worldly things might be brought into a relationship with their true Father as ‘adult’ sons and daughters (Luke 16:10-12). God’s Word came in the person of Jesus, son of Mary, to reveal that God is our real Father and to show us what our true destiny looks like. This is the first theme of the Gospel. And there is a place for Moroccans as well as Dutch, Turks as well as Americans in this destiny. This is the third theme of the Gospel.

But there is an obstacle to our coming into this destiny, even though the Time has come. This is the other reason the Word of God became the ‘Son of God’ or ‘Eldest Brother’. He came with the responsibility to redeem the Father’s name, which Adam and Eve had dishonored, as has every one of their descendants—whether we grew up in a Muslim, Christian, or other human culture. However, this Eldest Brother came, not first to kill, but to take on himself all the shame and dishonor every human being has ever brought to the Father’s name. This is why he died. No one killed him by crucifixion; he gave up his life freely on the cross (Jn.10:18; 19:30-33) for all brothers and sisters. This second theme of the Gospel only makes sense to people from Muslim cultures if they have already understood the first theme of the Gospel.

When we presented the Gospel in this way to our Moroccan friends, their response was either a deep silence or the comment: ‘I have never heard it explained that way before.’ Like the Samaritans, they were beginning to consider that perhaps Jesus ‘could be’ their Messiah as well (Jn.4:29). Before Muslims can accept the Gospel, they must first have a revelation that it is also for them.

Christians who wish to share the Gospel with their Muslim friends and neighbors need a bigger vision of the Gospel. They need to follow the example of Jesus more, even if it means re-evaluating the normal presentations they have learned in our own cultures. If we skip the first theme, our Gospel will likely only come across as religious correction. But even if we get the words right, we may also need to adapt the style of our presentation and our life style.

In Western cultures we have been trained to present our gospel in concepts, through a well reasoned, linear process. We are not so well trained in using stories and parables to communicate it in a more holistic manner. Nor are we comfortable with learning to rely on supernatural experiences to communicate the Gospel. Among the Samaritans, Jesus used parables and a ‘word of knowledge’ to begin his presentation of the Gospel. In trying to share the Gospel with my Moroccan friends, I discovered that they were much more attentive to what I prayed—or recited from the Word—than to all manner of reasoned approaches. And a video of the ‘prodigal son’ story was much more successful than the usual Gospel concepts. The stories I created to communicate the Gospel to my Moroccan friends have been published and are available from WCN Books.[vi]

Finally, I had to learn that my Moroccan and Turkish neighbors were always watching me. I discovered that people who don’t read much literature are often very good at reading people. If my life style did not back up my verbal presentation of all three themes of the Gospel, my words would not be believed. Did my life demonstrate that I believed myself to be forgiven by God, because I was forgiving towards them and others? Did my behavior towards my Muslim neighbors reflect my belief that there was a place for them and their ethnic group to worship the Father with me in Spirit and truth? Did my attitude toward them communicate acceptance or rejection? Was I, myself, living in the Holy Spirit as an ‘adult’ son or daughter of my heavenly Father? Or did I still relate to God as a servant, still anxious to please the guardians of my religious denomination and culture.

How about you? Your Muslim neighbors will also be watching you to see if your life matches your words.

[v] Paul saw Jesus as the Eldest Brother in God’s family (Rom.8:29; Gal.4:4-6; see also Heb.1:6; 2:10-11, Med.#7). That a close relative would act as ‘kinsman-redeemer’ [Heb. goël] for his brothers was a practice that was also known in ancient Jewish culture (Lev.25:25; Ruth 2:20) and was used by the prophets in texts that not only refer to God himself but also point to Jesus (Isa.63:16; Job 19:25, Med.#E).

[vi] Such a presentation of the Gospel in story form for Muslim peoples can be found in: J.K.Mellis, Abu Sharif: The Mystery of the Hundredth Name, Goël Publishing, Geldermalsen, the Netherlands (2000,2003), ISBN 90-805855-1-3. It is also available at many bookstores. Just Google the title. A new book of stories written to answer the questions of Muslim immigrant youth in the Netherlands is due to be published in 2008 in Dutch: J.K.Mellis, Rode Dromer. (A second edition in Dutch, and a Norwegian translation, Mostafa's Drom were both released in 2011. The Dutch publisher hopes to release English, French and Arabic editions soon).