I have come across an article by my friend, H.L. Richard. I am posting below a link to the article and strongly encourage any of you that are interested in contextualization issues to take a look. H.L. and I have spoken in my home about the concept of possessio as distinct from the earlier missiological concept of accomodatio. He was the first one to tell me about the Dutch missiologistJohan Herman Bavinck(although I already had 1 Cor. 3:21 bookmarked on my phone’s Bible app with just such an application in mind). Anyway, I really love the article that H.L. has written and find myself heartily agreeing with it. Please do check it out. In case you don’t have time just now, here is the Bavinck quote that H.L. provides:  

Here note that the term “accommodation” is really not appropriate as a description of what actually ought to take place. It points to an adaptation to customs and practices essentially foreign to the gospel. Such an adaptation can scarcely lead to anything other than a syncretistic entity, a conglomeration of customs that can never form an essential unity....We would, therefore prefer to use the term possessio, to take in possession. The Christian life does not accommodate or adapt itself to heathen forms of life, but it takes the latter in possession and thereby makes them new....Within the framework of the non-Christian life, customs and practices serve idolatrous tendencies and drive a person away from God. The Christian life takes them in hand and turns them in an entirely different direction; they acquire an entirely different content. Even though in external form there is much that resembles past practices, in reality everything has become new. The old has in essence passed away and the new has come. Christ takes the life of a people in his hands, he renews and re-establishes the distorted and deteriorated; he fills each thing, each word, and each practice with a new meaning and gives it a new direction. Such is neither “adaptation,” nor accommodation; it is in essence the legitimate taking possession of something by him to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth. (Bavinck, Johan H., An Introduction to the Science of Missions, 1960.)

Anyway, terms like accommodation and adaptation are certainly related to the concept of contextualization (particularly the latter). However, they must not be understood as synonyms for it. Rather, contextualization for the Christ-follower is an intentional imitation of Christ’s incarnation and, as Bavink and Richard has pointed out, is aimed at possessio -- of taking possession of all things under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and for His glory. I was reading from an old (non-missiological) book by Alan Redpath and find there a helpful insight. Redpath speaks of the "hallowing of God’s name" in all things. He said that as a Christian worker "this concern will be uppermost in everything I do in my Master’s name. Whatever service you or I may undertake, our first thought in it all will be, ’Is this for His glory?’ Can I write ’Hallowed be Thy name’ over that?" (Redpath, Alan, Victorious Praying, 1957.) While it wasn’t in Redpath’s mind, I believe that this ought to be a kind of operational question for the missionary and Christ-follower who examines some form, ritual, tradition, festival or other element from a given religio-cultural context. "Can I write ’Hallowed be Thy name’ over that?" Not as it is perhaps, but as it could beonce taken possession of and made to submit to Christ’s Lordship. And it should certainly be our aim to write "Hallowed be Thy name" over as much as we possibly can!