Sensitivity in Communication

At Iconium Paul and Barnabas contextualized the Gospel with considerable effectiveness. Engel says: 

At Lystra the team encountered a large number who worshipped the Greek  Pantheon and thought Paul and Barnabas were gods incarnate. Paul and  Barnabas sought to contextualize the Gospel (Acts 14:15), so instead of appealing to Israel’s history, they appealed to cosmology, world history, and common grace in the Bible. They were sensitive to the aspect of the biblical
message most suitable for leading up to the Gospel. 

Erickson points out that the early Jerusalem church was comprised of the Jewish Christians who continued to follow the customs of Moses and that the second context was a mixture of Jews and Gentiles. He goes on to say, “This is a model for crossing cultural barriers so that the message can be contextualized.” The decision the church made at the Jerusalem council was one that demonstrated the church’s effort at contextualization. The decision was applicable to both Jewish and Gentile members of the church.

Nida points out that the introduction of functional substitutes have been "almost wholly unsuccessful" because of the highly integrated character of the non-Christian rites to be modified, because the changes have been imposed from the outside, and because they have not aimed at solving the basic psychological
needs. There are three alternatives for dealing with this problem. First, advocating functional substitutes from outside, by the missionary. This is generally least effective because the missionary is usually unqualified to make judgments about the nature of the culture and its deeply entrenched belief system. Second, encouraging the new community to use old forms and reinvest them with new meaning and value. Third, giving space for the culturally sensitive new believers to decide which old forms to adjust and which ones to
eliminate. There could be a combination of these three possibilities.