Elijah and Moira Hall TRIBAL MISSIONS - Reaching the unreached _img.jpg)
In the past, missionaries from New Tribes Mission have spent years of their lives teaching topically and seeing little true harvest of souls.
“Syncretism” is one of the deadly enemies of the missionary. It happens when people incorporate parts of the Gospel or other Scriptural truth into their existing belief system. Syncretism makes it possible for tribal people to pray, sing and meet in churches while still practicing voodoo, for example.
Then along came the chronological teaching style (teaching through the Bible from the beginning so the audience would have an understanding of the need and method of salvation). This cleared up a lot of misunderstanding and churches were being born and growing, but many tribal people still did not understand fully and the separation was still not clear in their minds between the old beliefs and this new way. What to do?
This brought NTM to realize the need for culture study. The Bible contains all the truth necessary for life and godliness, but clearly communicating and applying this in many cultural backgrounds is challenging.
For example, a Westerner might spend a good bit of time in foundational teaching establishing that God is real. That may be teaching geared to what is lacking in Western culture, though! Perhaps the audience he is speaking to already knows God is real…they just think that ancestral spirits are the direct contact between us and God or Jesus. Without knowledge of this fact, Biblical truth is not applied directly to the need of that culture.
This last week we analyzed the “themes” of the culture we studied during our Practicum and discussed how these themes could potentially affect our presentation of the Word. Later we will be developing actual Bible lessons with these conclusions and themes in mind, practicing what we hope to one day do in a real tribal setting.
The Truth is there. The Scripture doesn’t lack! Praise God for that.
