The awareness of the need to conduct this study has arisen from the conviction that good Christian communication is not just a matter of language. Good hermeneutics is often a powerful means for clear and influential communication. Here we need to distinguish our approach from those approaches that simply employs the tools of systematic theology.
Systematic theology tends to provide more a prepositional statement of doctrine.
A systematic theologian does not have to ask the question in a context. But for us, we ask the same question in a context in a biblical context, in a contemporary context, and in a ministry context. Following Anthony C. Thiselton s work, there exist two hermeneutic horizons for Bible interpretation the horizon of the original writer and that of the contemporary interpreters. But when we understand the goal of biblical hermeneutics as missionary proclamation, the interpreter as a missionary preacher still finds one more cross-cultural horizon ahead him or her namely, the horizon of the audience, who also have their own field of vision in which they respond to what they read. Whether he intended it or not, Osborne s hermeneutical work is a breakthrough toward a missiological understanding of preaching.