You might want to go read the release notes for React 16.3 ( https://reactjs.org/blog/2018/03/29/react-v-16-3.html ), which discuss the history of the old context API, and its new replacement.

Old context will continue to exist through React 16.x, but will be removed in 17.0. Meanwhile, we've got a proof-of-concept PR open for React-Redux to switch it to use the new context API instead ( https://github.com/reactjs/react-redux/pull/898 ). Given the other changes related to React 16.3+, we're likely to put out a React-Redux 6.0 that includes the context usage changes, and make it 16.3+ only.

All that said: you really _should_ stop using the old context API, upgrade to React 16.3, and switch to the new context API instead. It solves the issues inherent to the old APIs design, and is the supported approach going forward.