What’s really odd about the incarnation and Christology is how much the form it takes in Scripture does not provide a basis for “contextualization.” One is much better off going to Acts and the epistles to ground the need for and duty to contextualize.

As N. T. Wright has reminded us, Jesus did not come as “everyman.” He came as a first century Jew. Not a chinaman. Not a native American. He incarnated himself among a people who had been called and chosen by God thousands of years earlier and continually nurtured and challenged by God’s covenantal administration.

In other words, Jesus did not “find” and “join with” an alien culture. He came to a culture he had started and developed at the right moment in that culture’s history.

And even Acts isn’t as “contextualizing” as one might hope for. The Christians go and bear witness in the synagogues which have been planted all over the world. The preach to Jews and god-fearing Gentiles. There has been generations of work done in many (not all) locations where Paul preached.

I’m not against contextualization. I’m just saying…