The Christian scriptures hold the key to the understanding and the praxis of God’s mission. This course examines the historical context of the biblical text, the role of the interpreter’s social context, and the location of mission in understanding the Bible and participating in the mission of God in today’s multi-cultural and multi-religious context.
This bachelor level course is an introduction to the hermeneutics of the biblical text and helps students learn the role of historical context and the readers’ own context in interpreting the scriptures while being governed by the mission of God. The course will help students learn how the Christian faith and the mission of God is still relevant in any culture of the world and how they can acquire skills to interpret not only the scriptures but also signs of the times and contexts in which they are engaged in missions.
Incarnational ministry in diverse cultural situations modeled after Jesus Christ is the need of the hour in our multi-cultural context of the 21st century. For such missional engagement, it is vital to gain insights from the scriptures which provide us examples of how the text communicates to its context. Since the scriptures were written with the purpose of fulfilling Missio Dei, this course in missional hermeneutics will help students read and understand the biblical text from a missional perspective and discover that scripture is concerned with shaping communities of God’s people as centers of demonstrating Kingdom living on earth.
This course will examine the context of the biblical text and how it plays a vital role in understanding and interpreting the scriptures to people of a different time and context.
Theology informs and is informed by missions; therefore, the task of interpreting the scriptures cannot be done without the missional perspective. This course will help students acquire knowledge as well as skills to read the scriptures from a missional perspective and apply it in their own cultural context as they seek ways to serve God.
Theology is always done in context. The context of the majority church is no longer Europe or North America. The multifaceted situations mandate examining our faith and the scriptures from within our own context. This course will examine how the trends and themes in missions are influenced by their particular cultures and how the gospel be made relevant for any culture.
The Bible is present today in almost all cultures, however, its interpretation is mostly governed by North American hermeneutics. This course provides opportunities and skills to take different cultures in to account in understanding the Bible which itself has its own distinct culture.
Sufficient opportunities will be created for students to see how their particular context has shaped their own understanding of the text and how they could relate with other people who see and interpret the Bible differently in their culture.
This course will incorporate issues of persecution, suffering, and poverty and how the Bible speaks to these issues in different cultural context today to help students gain experiential knowledge.
