I recently had the privilege of visiting Singapore Bible College to give a series of talks about the cultural contextualisation of the gospel. I want to express my deep gratitude for the incredibly warm welcome I received; it was a joy to minister alongside the faculty and students there and to experience the vibrancy of the church in such a unique cultural hub.
During my time there, I gave three lectures exploring how the gospel relates to our cultural moment, specifically how we can navigate the pressures of “Westernisation” without simply reacting against them. If you are interested in how we can preach and live a gospel that refuses to be shrink-wrapped by any single culture, I invite you to watch the recordings below.
Talk 1: Diagnosing Westernisation through Luke 15 (With translation into Mandarin) We often think of “Westernisation” in the church as a matter of musical styles or branding, but it is actually something far deeper: a set of cultural filters that shape what we notice in the Bible and what we ignore. In this first lecture, I introduce a diagnostic tool to help us see where we might be “flattening” the rich, multidimensional reality of Scripture into thin, manageable cultural grids. Using the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) as our test case, we explore how Jesus “diagonalises” our neat cultural partitions—shattering our binaries of guilt vs. shame, sacred vs. secular, and individual vs. community. If you’ve ever felt that the gospel is being reduced to a courtroom verdict or a self-help strategy, this talk explores how Jesus subverts our expectations to offer something far richer.
Talk 2: Subversive Fulfilment: Bridging the Cultural Divide How should local Christianities relate to the global church? We often drift into one of three inadequate options: Domination (where one culture imposes its style as “the truth”), Disjunction (where we stop talking to each other), or Drift (a spiritual buffet where we pick and choose what we like from different cultures). In this second session, I propose a fourth way: Subversive Fulfilment. Anchoring our reflection in 1 Corinthians 1, we look at how the Cross both scandalises our cultural search for power and wisdom and ultimately fulfils it in ways we could never anticipate. This model moves us beyond a mere “exchange” of cultural goods into a shared mutuality, where we are not just learning from each other, but uniquely repenting together under the Word of God.
Talk 3: Incarnation & Identity: The View from Somewhere Modern Western secularism seduces us with the “view from nowhere”: the fantasy that we can hover above history and culture in a helicopter of objectivity. But the Gospel of John tells us that the Word did not remain an abstract principle; the Word became flesh. In this final talk, we look at the “scandals” of the incarnation—the scandal of history, the particular, the material, and the personal—and how they train us for ministry. I offer a practical method for “incarnational discernment” to help pastors and leaders navigate the complexities of digital identity, family obligations, and modern meritocracy. If you are looking for a way to ground your ministry in the “thick” reality of your local context without losing the global truth of the gospel, this session is for you.