Be a missionary - step outside your door

In the first century AD, when the apostle John was exiled to the rocky and treacherous island of Patmos, the Lord gave him the privilege of beholding one of the most beautiful visions of humanity ever revealed. He writes of his vision in the book of Revelation:

 After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” (Rev. 7:9–12)

What an awe-inspiring vision it must have been for the apostle! And what a sight it will be when the day finally arrives and all of us, representing our native cultures, our mother tongues, and tribes, will assemble before the throne to worship the Lord with one voice bearing testimony to the faithfulness of the Lamb. Yet as we await that glorious day, the task is still at hand for us to go in the authority and power of Christ to proclaim the good news and make disciples of all nations with their distinct cultures and worldviews.

Today, most of us need not go far to fulfill that calling. Our world and each of our communities are becoming increasingly pluralistic in its culture and ethnicity. Many of us have friends and colleagues of different ethnic origins and of varying religious commitments who share our public space and life. Indeed, for some of us, carrying out the Great Commission among people of all nations no longer requires us even to go beyond the next office cubicle or house on our street!

However, along with these accessible opportunities for cross-cultural evangelism comes the challenge of communicating the truth of the gospel in ways that are meaningful and relevant to someone who is foreign to what is familiar to us.

Thus we may find ourselves being either misunderstood as intolerant of other belief systems or drawn into a web of other issues when we attempt to give an objective justification of the Christian faith.

Harold A. Netland, a professor of philosophy who lived many years in an Asian country, maintains that the Christian faith should be communicated and defended according to the related cultural context. Namely, we must both respect the nature of the questions addressed and the manner in which they are engaged if we want to persuade someone to consider the truth of Christianity against his or her existing belief system in a cross-cultural and multicultural setting. 1

The issues and the questions concerned will, of course, vary from culture to culture. For example, among Muslims in most contexts, the existence of God is not a critical issue. On the other hand, this is a significant question for adherents of other nontheistic or naturalistic worldviews.

However, we should be careful to note that the category of worldview, used to describe the various ideological systems or religious commitments, is still a very broad classification. That is, within each worldview, there are subschemes and different ways of perceiving life and reality. Additionally, one’s culture, ethnicity, history, and temperament all factor into the complexity of a person’s Weltanschauung (conception of life).2

It is very difficult for one person to persuade another to consider changing his worldview even when both have the same cultural background. This is not surprising, given the fact that such discussions focus on the deepest and most meaningful questions of life. Thus, when the participants also come from a different culture, the barriers to effective, meaningful communication and dialogue are raised even higher.


Zacharias, R. (2010). Beyond opinion: living the faith that we defend. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.