Contents





Prior Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1 Theoretical Foundations

1. Changing Views

2. Missional Theology

Part 2 Exegeting Humans

3. Changing Images

4. Early Anthropology

5. Recent Anthropology

6. A Systems Approach

7. Research Methods

Part 3 Mission as Intercultural Mediation

8. Missions as Glocal Mediation

9. Missionaries as Global Mediators

References Cited

While the gospel is timeless truth, it enters into ever-changing and widely varied human contexts. In order to meaningfully communicate the gospel to particular humans, those involved in cross-cultural ministry need to understand people and the particular influences--social, cultural, psychological, and ecological--that shape them. Further, we must understand ourselves and the influences that have shaped us, since our own contexts influence how we understand and transmit the gospel message. Therefore, we must master not only the skill of biblical interpretation but also the skill of human interpretation. That task is the topic of this book, the summation of a lifetime of experience and thinking by a world-renowned missiologist and anthropologist, the late Paul Hiebert.