1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:17,640 Welcome to the second session of Teaching Tuesday at Hub City Vineyard. 2 00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:22,940 This is February 2025 and today's session is called Bible Blinders. 3 00:00:22,940 --> 00:00:27,500 We're exploring nine cultural differences between our culture and the biblical cultures 4 00:00:27,500 --> 00:00:31,000 to help us better understand what we read in the Bible. 5 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:34,720 Think of today as a continuation of the previous session. 6 00:00:34,720 --> 00:00:38,680 Last time we looked at the five-step interpretive journey which is a tool to help us go from 7 00:00:38,680 --> 00:00:42,020 the original text to a modern application. 8 00:00:42,020 --> 00:00:47,160 The first three steps of this process were step one, grasping the text in their town, 9 00:00:47,160 --> 00:00:50,800 which is where we're going to understand what the passage meant to the original audience. 10 00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:54,840 Step two, measuring the width of the river to cross, which is where we're going to understand 11 00:00:54,840 --> 00:00:57,600 the differences between us and the original audience. 12 00:00:57,600 --> 00:01:02,080 And step three, of crossing the principlizing bridge, which is when we identify the timeless 13 00:01:02,080 --> 00:01:04,720 theological principles in the passage. 14 00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:08,320 All three of these steps are made a lot easier the more we understand about the biblical 15 00:01:08,320 --> 00:01:10,400 cultures. 16 00:01:10,400 --> 00:01:14,840 Today's resource is called Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes by E. Randolph Richards 17 00:01:14,840 --> 00:01:16,560 and Brandon J. O'Brien. 18 00:01:16,560 --> 00:01:17,960 I highly recommend this book. 19 00:01:17,960 --> 00:01:21,600 It's easily one of the most interesting and informative books I've read since I've been 20 00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:22,600 at seminary. 21 00:01:22,600 --> 00:01:25,640 However, I do have to give two disclaimers about it. 22 00:01:25,640 --> 00:01:28,960 The first is this, I can't do this book justice. 23 00:01:28,960 --> 00:01:32,240 You really need to read about the author's personal experiences. 24 00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:36,120 These guys went out, they did mission work, they've helped to plant and lead churches 25 00:01:36,120 --> 00:01:37,720 all around the world. 26 00:01:37,720 --> 00:01:41,680 You're going to read things in this book that I just can't capture in this class, like experiences 27 00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:47,060 they've had in other cultures and other cultures that you really need to read from their perspective. 28 00:01:47,060 --> 00:01:51,360 The second disclaimer is that different doesn't necessarily mean better or worse. 29 00:01:51,360 --> 00:01:54,680 The one thing I don't like about this book is that the authors spend quite a bit of time 30 00:01:54,680 --> 00:01:57,880 apologizing for the circumstances of their lives. 31 00:01:57,880 --> 00:02:02,520 They apologize for being male or for being white or for being American, and I don't think 32 00:02:02,520 --> 00:02:03,520 that that's biblical. 33 00:02:03,520 --> 00:02:11,200 In Acts 17, 26 to 27 in the NLT it says, from one man he created all the nations throughout 34 00:02:11,200 --> 00:02:12,200 the whole earth. 35 00:02:12,200 --> 00:02:16,060 He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall and he determined their boundaries. 36 00:02:16,060 --> 00:02:20,040 His purpose for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him 37 00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:23,700 and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 38 00:02:23,700 --> 00:02:28,560 What this means is that God has determined the time, location, and circumstances of our 39 00:02:28,560 --> 00:02:29,720 lives. 40 00:02:29,720 --> 00:02:31,640 If you're white, he made you white. 41 00:02:31,640 --> 00:02:33,320 If you're black, he made you black. 42 00:02:33,320 --> 00:02:35,920 If you're a man or a woman, that's how he made you. 43 00:02:35,920 --> 00:02:40,480 If you were born in 2003, he decided that you were going to be born in 2003. 44 00:02:40,480 --> 00:02:45,700 And if you were born in America, that's because God decided you were going to be born in America. 45 00:02:45,700 --> 00:02:51,100 So we shouldn't be apologizing or feeling bad about the circumstances of the life that 46 00:02:51,100 --> 00:02:52,360 God has given us. 47 00:02:52,360 --> 00:02:56,080 Instead, we should take advantage of all the resources and the different perspectives that 48 00:02:56,080 --> 00:02:59,820 we have access to, to learn as much about the world as possible. 49 00:02:59,820 --> 00:03:05,760 So in that sense, what the authors are doing is laudable, but you may be a little bit frustrated 50 00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:09,800 like I was when you read this and you see them apologizing so much. 51 00:03:09,800 --> 00:03:13,680 That said, the author's experiences in other countries and other cultures has given them 52 00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:18,160 a really neat perspective and a great tool for analyzing the differences between our 53 00:03:18,160 --> 00:03:20,560 culture and the biblical cultures. 54 00:03:20,560 --> 00:03:23,960 Think of all the aspects of a culture like an iceberg. 55 00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:27,840 You know, we have things that are immediately visible as you're sailing along on the ocean, 56 00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:30,740 and you can see that these are above the surface. 57 00:03:30,740 --> 00:03:34,360 And then if you happen to dip your head below the freezing cold water, you would see some 58 00:03:34,360 --> 00:03:36,240 things that are just below the surface. 59 00:03:36,240 --> 00:03:40,800 They're not quite as obvious, but once we investigate them, they're pretty apparent. 60 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:45,360 But then if you go way deep down in the ocean where the bulk of the iceberg is, there are 61 00:03:45,360 --> 00:03:49,600 things that are deep below the surface that are fundamental to a culture that may be almost 62 00:03:49,600 --> 00:03:53,680 impossible for people outside that culture to understand, and they determine many of 63 00:03:53,680 --> 00:03:58,400 the important things about that culture, and therefore they determine many important things 64 00:03:58,400 --> 00:04:01,080 about what we read in the Bible. 65 00:04:01,080 --> 00:04:04,440 So we're going to start with the above the surface category, and the first item in this 66 00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:07,160 category is cultural morays. 67 00:04:07,160 --> 00:04:10,560 Now one way to think of cultural morays is it's just the way things are. 68 00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:11,780 It's really obvious. 69 00:04:11,780 --> 00:04:15,840 You know, if you're driving down the road, our stoplights are red, yellow, and green. 70 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:18,880 And if you went to another country where they use different color stoplights, that would 71 00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:19,880 be immediately obvious. 72 00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:25,920 But it goes a little bit beyond that too, because there's often a moral value placed 73 00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:28,500 on these aspects. 74 00:04:28,500 --> 00:04:32,420 So for instance, we expect somebody to stop at a red light. 75 00:04:32,420 --> 00:04:36,920 And if we are stopped at a red light and the light turns green, but other people keep going 76 00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:42,280 through their red light, we have a moral complaint against the people who are running a red light 77 00:04:42,280 --> 00:04:45,840 and not letting us go on our green light. 78 00:04:45,840 --> 00:04:51,240 Another real world example of this might be this adorable dog on the screen. 79 00:04:51,240 --> 00:04:52,900 Is this man's best friend? 80 00:04:52,900 --> 00:04:55,880 Is it the main course, or is it a disgusting pest? 81 00:04:55,880 --> 00:05:00,920 Well, if you're in America, your answer is probably man's best friend. 82 00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:04,200 But the authors tell this great story about a mission trip in Indonesia where they were 83 00:05:04,200 --> 00:05:07,920 welcoming a new pastor and there was a dinner in his honor. 84 00:05:07,920 --> 00:05:13,240 And the best dish that they could recommend this guy was stir fried dog. 85 00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:16,080 It's hard for us to imagine being in a situation like that. 86 00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:19,800 But if you are out experiencing different cultures, especially on mission work, it's 87 00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:21,840 probably something you're going to run into. 88 00:05:21,840 --> 00:05:24,440 But there's a third option beyond friend or food. 89 00:05:24,440 --> 00:05:25,960 There's also disgusting pest. 90 00:05:25,960 --> 00:05:30,920 You see in some cultures like Islam right now, or in the ancient Hebrews that we read 91 00:05:30,920 --> 00:05:34,120 about in the Bible, dogs were considered unclean. 92 00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:37,320 They were routinely exterminated or chased out of towns. 93 00:05:37,320 --> 00:05:42,520 And when we read stories like the beggar Lazarus, and he's laying there, the dogs are licking 94 00:05:42,520 --> 00:05:49,200 his wounds, it's considered a grave insult and an indignity that like a harmful scavenger 95 00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:51,920 or a pest would be licking his wounds. 96 00:05:51,920 --> 00:05:55,440 And so the reason that cultural mores are so important when we're talking about the 97 00:05:55,440 --> 00:05:59,820 biblical cultures and how they affect our understanding of what we read in the Bible 98 00:05:59,820 --> 00:06:02,000 is that moral aspect to it. 99 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:07,020 So for instance, what if we apply our morals to what we read in the Bible instead of having 100 00:06:07,020 --> 00:06:09,120 the Bible dictate our morals? 101 00:06:09,120 --> 00:06:12,760 Think about the different perspectives on alcohol that you might find in different American 102 00:06:12,760 --> 00:06:13,760 churches. 103 00:06:13,760 --> 00:06:17,080 There are some churches that teach that drinking in moderation is okay. 104 00:06:17,080 --> 00:06:21,880 There are some churches that teach that no drinking is allowed under any circumstances 105 00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:25,980 and that when we read about things like wine in the Bible, that they were talking about 106 00:06:25,980 --> 00:06:27,760 grape juice. 107 00:06:27,760 --> 00:06:32,360 So if we look at what the Bible actually says about alcohol and drinking, I picked out four 108 00:06:32,360 --> 00:06:33,440 scripture verses. 109 00:06:33,440 --> 00:06:39,760 The first is John 2, 1 to 11, where Jesus turns water into wine for his first miracle. 110 00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:43,920 There's 1 Timothy 5, 23, where Paul says, don't drink only water. 111 00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:48,260 You ought to drink a little wine for the sake of your stomach because you were sick so often. 112 00:06:48,260 --> 00:06:53,860 There's Proverbs 21 that says wine produces markers, alcohol leads to brawls. 113 00:06:53,860 --> 00:06:56,320 Those led astray by drink cannot be wise. 114 00:06:56,320 --> 00:07:01,440 And finally, Romans 14, 21, where Paul says it is better not to eat meat or drink wine 115 00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:04,960 or do anything else if it might cause another believer to stumble. 116 00:07:04,960 --> 00:07:09,680 And so regardless of our cultural morays, the biblical teaching on alcohol is that in 117 00:07:09,680 --> 00:07:14,040 moderation alcohol is certainly not required, but it is okay. 118 00:07:14,040 --> 00:07:19,400 As long as we're not acting or speaking violently, we're causing another person to stumble. 119 00:07:19,400 --> 00:07:23,680 And when we read the Bible, we want to make sure that we are interpreting it and understanding 120 00:07:23,680 --> 00:07:28,360 what the Bible says and not what our culture says and then applying that backwards to the 121 00:07:28,360 --> 00:07:29,560 Bible. 122 00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:33,560 And so our next above the surface aspect is race and ethnicity. 123 00:07:33,560 --> 00:07:38,640 And so it makes sense that this is considered one of the very obvious things. 124 00:07:38,640 --> 00:07:41,640 It's easy to look at someone and see that they're a different race. 125 00:07:41,640 --> 00:07:46,160 And when you're in a culture, the relationships and the dynamics between different races and 126 00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:49,360 ethnicities is pretty obvious. 127 00:07:49,360 --> 00:07:50,360 America is no exception. 128 00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:57,280 And I think it's fair to say that race in America in 2025 is pretty complicated. 129 00:07:57,280 --> 00:08:01,800 When I was growing up in elementary school with these things called heritage days, and 130 00:08:01,800 --> 00:08:05,040 our class was a good mix of different races and ethnicities. 131 00:08:05,040 --> 00:08:09,280 And so the teacher would have everybody bring in a dish of food related to their heritage. 132 00:08:09,280 --> 00:08:12,600 And you'd present it to the class, you'd explain a little bit about your family's 133 00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:16,360 heritage, and then everybody would get to try and learn about a bunch of different cultures. 134 00:08:16,360 --> 00:08:17,840 It was a wonderful experience. 135 00:08:17,840 --> 00:08:24,480 It was part of the idea of the melting pot in America, where we didn't divide based on 136 00:08:24,480 --> 00:08:29,560 racial and ethnic differences, but we came together as Americans, but we also learned 137 00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:31,960 about and celebrated each other's differences. 138 00:08:31,960 --> 00:08:36,200 And so it was a big shock to me when I was in college and what you might call contemporary 139 00:08:36,200 --> 00:08:39,200 race politics in America started emerging. 140 00:08:39,200 --> 00:08:43,920 I remember telling people about those heritage days, and I was shocked to hear people tell 141 00:08:43,920 --> 00:08:45,920 me that that was racist. 142 00:08:45,920 --> 00:08:50,080 I actually had a professor give a lecture in class about how Martin Luther King was 143 00:08:50,080 --> 00:08:54,080 racist because he didn't want people focusing on racial differences. 144 00:08:54,080 --> 00:09:00,320 They thought that Martin Luther King's views were outdated and that it was racist to not 145 00:09:00,320 --> 00:09:04,640 focus on racial differences and said we should be focusing on racial differences. 146 00:09:04,640 --> 00:09:07,840 And they started pushing for things like segregated dorms again. 147 00:09:07,840 --> 00:09:10,040 It really made no sense to me. 148 00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:12,960 And I imagine it was just as confusing to a lot of other people. 149 00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:17,620 And if it's as confusing to us, the people that live in this culture, imagine how much 150 00:09:17,620 --> 00:09:23,120 we would get wrong about the biblical stories and narratives if we take American race relations 151 00:09:23,120 --> 00:09:28,160 in 2025 and we apply those to stories about the Middle East thousands of years ago. 152 00:09:28,160 --> 00:09:34,040 For instance, what would we get wrong if we looked at numbers 12, 1 to 2 from the American 153 00:09:34,040 --> 00:09:35,040 perspective? 154 00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:40,100 In the NLT version, it says, while they were at Hazaroth, Mary Manerian criticized Moses 155 00:09:40,100 --> 00:09:42,040 because he had married a Cushite woman. 156 00:09:42,040 --> 00:09:46,120 They said as the Lord spoke only through Moses, hasn't he spoken through us too? 157 00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:47,560 But the Lord heard them. 158 00:09:47,560 --> 00:09:51,800 Now Mary Manerian were Moses's brother and sister. 159 00:09:51,800 --> 00:09:55,400 And so the story goes on that God gets upset with them and punishes them for criticizing 160 00:09:55,400 --> 00:09:56,400 Moses's wife. 161 00:09:56,400 --> 00:10:00,040 If we do a little bit of digging, we find out that the Cushites were very dark skinned 162 00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:01,240 Africans. 163 00:10:01,240 --> 00:10:05,920 And so if we apply an American perspective to this story, we might understand it as Mary 164 00:10:05,920 --> 00:10:10,960 Manerian are criticizing Moses for bringing someone lesser than them into their family. 165 00:10:10,960 --> 00:10:13,120 But is that what's actually going on? 166 00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:17,280 Well, no, if we do a little more digging, we find out that the Cushites were revered 167 00:10:17,280 --> 00:10:19,260 as these amazing warriors. 168 00:10:19,260 --> 00:10:23,880 So Mary Manerian, they're not criticizing Moses for marrying down or bringing someone 169 00:10:23,880 --> 00:10:25,600 unworthy into their family. 170 00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:28,580 They're actually saying to Moses, who do you think you are? 171 00:10:28,580 --> 00:10:30,200 God has spoken through us as well. 172 00:10:30,200 --> 00:10:35,940 We're also prophets, but you you're marrying way up to somebody you definitely don't deserve. 173 00:10:35,940 --> 00:10:40,720 It's still not great that they're criticizing Moses based on the race of his wife, but it's 174 00:10:40,720 --> 00:10:43,600 the exact opposite of the impression that we have initially. 175 00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:47,520 And so if we really want to understand the dynamics of this story, we have to make sure 176 00:10:47,520 --> 00:10:52,440 that we understand all the circumstances and that we're not just applying an American lands 177 00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:55,400 or a Western lands to this story. 178 00:10:55,400 --> 00:10:59,120 The last item in the above the surface category is language. 179 00:10:59,120 --> 00:11:03,120 And in one sense, this is very obvious because, yes, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew 180 00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:05,200 and the New Testament was written in Greek. 181 00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:09,460 But it's not just the fact that these were written in different languages and we're now 182 00:11:09,460 --> 00:11:12,360 reading them in English. 183 00:11:12,360 --> 00:11:17,080 Most significant thing is that there is meaning, there are words and concepts in other languages 184 00:11:17,080 --> 00:11:18,920 that are not in English and vice versa. 185 00:11:18,920 --> 00:11:23,000 And so we read stories in the Bible, there may be entire concepts that those cultures 186 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:28,040 have that we don't have or concepts that we do have that they didn't have. 187 00:11:28,040 --> 00:11:30,080 Let me give you an example from my life. 188 00:11:30,080 --> 00:11:31,080 I am colorblind. 189 00:11:31,080 --> 00:11:35,880 And so when I look at this rainbow, I know because I've been taught in school that there 190 00:11:35,880 --> 00:11:36,880 are seven colors. 191 00:11:36,880 --> 00:11:39,800 There's red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. 192 00:11:39,800 --> 00:11:43,400 But if I'm being honest with you, I don't really know what indigo looks like and I'm 193 00:11:43,400 --> 00:11:48,200 not sure I know what violet looks like either because I only see five colors here. 194 00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:55,240 If I had to name the colors, I would say, well, there's definitely red, there's yellow, 195 00:11:55,240 --> 00:11:57,880 there's green, there might be blue. 196 00:11:57,880 --> 00:12:01,040 I don't know if I actually see blue and then I see black. 197 00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:03,400 At most, I see four or five colors here. 198 00:12:03,400 --> 00:12:06,580 But I know that there are seven colors and I know that most of you looking at this see 199 00:12:06,580 --> 00:12:08,040 seven colors. 200 00:12:08,040 --> 00:12:12,400 So if I was in charge of naming colors in the English language, we would have been missing 201 00:12:12,400 --> 00:12:16,000 words for colors that you guys can see that I can't see. 202 00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:18,440 And so we've been missing out on a lot of information. 203 00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:21,760 And let me give you a similar example from the Bible. 204 00:12:21,760 --> 00:12:24,920 For instance, in English, we have one word for love. 205 00:12:24,920 --> 00:12:28,000 But in Greek, there are four words that represent love. 206 00:12:28,000 --> 00:12:31,000 There's eros, which is passionate, romantic love. 207 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:32,820 That's where we get the word erotic. 208 00:12:32,820 --> 00:12:35,560 There's philia, which is friendship type of love. 209 00:12:35,560 --> 00:12:39,200 There's stoge, which is familial love, like a parent and a child. 210 00:12:39,200 --> 00:12:43,320 And then there's agape, which is unconditional, sacrificial love, like God. 211 00:12:43,320 --> 00:12:48,180 You know, agape is often used to describe when Jesus died on the cross. 212 00:12:48,180 --> 00:12:52,900 And so when we are reading a translation in English, we don't know which of these four 213 00:12:52,900 --> 00:12:54,760 words is being used. 214 00:12:54,760 --> 00:13:00,240 And there are people who either through ignorance or for certain agendas will try to claim one 215 00:13:00,240 --> 00:13:02,960 of the words is there and not one of the other words. 216 00:13:02,960 --> 00:13:06,880 Two of the most common examples would be David and Jonathan, and then the disciple John and 217 00:13:06,880 --> 00:13:07,880 Jesus. 218 00:13:07,880 --> 00:13:10,880 The Bible clearly says that David and Jonathan loved each other. 219 00:13:10,880 --> 00:13:14,200 And it describes John as the disciple that Jesus loved. 220 00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:18,640 And people will look at this and they will claim that these were same sex relationships, 221 00:13:18,640 --> 00:13:21,280 that it was a romantic love or an erotic love. 222 00:13:21,280 --> 00:13:25,120 But if we look at the Greek word used, it's not eros. 223 00:13:25,120 --> 00:13:26,120 It's agape. 224 00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:31,040 We were describing unconditional, sacrificial love, not erotic love. 225 00:13:31,040 --> 00:13:35,080 And so if we truly want to understand these biblical passages, sometimes we have to dig 226 00:13:35,080 --> 00:13:39,860 into the languages that they were written in and look at the differences between English 227 00:13:39,860 --> 00:13:43,360 and those languages to understand the context of what is being said. 228 00:13:43,360 --> 00:13:45,640 Well, now we get to go just below the surface. 229 00:13:45,640 --> 00:13:49,760 We're going to start to see some things that are massive differences between our culture 230 00:13:49,760 --> 00:13:51,540 and the biblical cultures. 231 00:13:51,540 --> 00:13:56,440 And the first one is an example of a huge one, which is individualism versus collectivism. 232 00:13:56,440 --> 00:13:58,760 We are an individualist culture. 233 00:13:58,760 --> 00:14:01,280 Our culture is centered around the individual. 234 00:14:01,280 --> 00:14:03,140 You decide what you want to be when you grow up. 235 00:14:03,140 --> 00:14:06,460 You decide the goals for your life, whether you want to get married and have a family, 236 00:14:06,460 --> 00:14:08,040 the type of job you want to have. 237 00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:12,240 We may value input from our family, and on occasion we may value input from our culture 238 00:14:12,240 --> 00:14:16,080 or our country, but they don't get to determine the direction of our lives. 239 00:14:16,080 --> 00:14:19,560 However, that is not the case for the biblical cultures. 240 00:14:19,560 --> 00:14:22,520 We can see a contemporary example of this in Japan. 241 00:14:22,520 --> 00:14:26,540 You know, when the first Christian missionaries went to Japan, they ran into a really strange 242 00:14:26,540 --> 00:14:28,480 problem that they weren't expecting. 243 00:14:28,480 --> 00:14:31,320 And Christian missionaries in Japan still run into this problem today. 244 00:14:31,320 --> 00:14:35,400 You see, Japan is a collectivist culture, and they place a lot of weight on what their 245 00:14:35,400 --> 00:14:36,400 ancestors did. 246 00:14:36,400 --> 00:14:39,920 They do things like praying to their ancestors at shrines. 247 00:14:39,920 --> 00:14:42,640 And so when the Christian missionaries went over there and they would tell people about 248 00:14:42,640 --> 00:14:45,280 Jesus, the people were very receptive. 249 00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:48,400 They would say, well, yeah, what you're saying sounds great. 250 00:14:48,400 --> 00:14:51,600 I believe, I think it's true, but I can't be a Christian. 251 00:14:51,600 --> 00:14:54,360 And the missionaries would be shocked, and they would say, well, why not? 252 00:14:54,360 --> 00:14:56,240 If you think it's true, what's stopping you? 253 00:14:56,240 --> 00:15:01,440 And they would say, well, my ancestors weren't Christian, which means they aren't saved. 254 00:15:01,440 --> 00:15:02,440 They're in hell right now. 255 00:15:02,440 --> 00:15:06,960 And so if my ancestors weren't saved, it wouldn't be right for me to be saved now. 256 00:15:06,960 --> 00:15:11,040 And so even though I agree with you, I'm sorry, I just can't be a Christian. 257 00:15:11,040 --> 00:15:15,240 This is completely foreign to us, but it's an essential part of their culture. 258 00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:19,240 And these types of collective decisions about faith are something that we see in the biblical 259 00:15:19,240 --> 00:15:20,960 cultures as well. 260 00:15:20,960 --> 00:15:25,480 For instance, let's look at the story of the jailor's family from Acts 16. 261 00:15:25,480 --> 00:15:29,920 To set the stage for you, Paul and Silas are out walking and they encounter a slave girl 262 00:15:29,920 --> 00:15:31,520 who's possessed by a demon. 263 00:15:31,520 --> 00:15:36,000 Now this demon gives the slave girl the ability to predict the future, and she's using this 264 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:38,800 ability to make her masters a lot of money. 265 00:15:38,800 --> 00:15:41,400 Well, she's driving Paul crazy. 266 00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:44,480 Day after day, she bothers him shouting crazy things out. 267 00:15:44,480 --> 00:15:48,400 And eventually he loses his patience and he turns around and he casts the demon out of 268 00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:49,400 her. 269 00:15:49,400 --> 00:15:52,240 And her masters are furious because now they're out a ton of money. 270 00:15:52,240 --> 00:15:55,880 They have Paul and Silas arrested and thrown in jail. 271 00:15:55,880 --> 00:16:01,440 Now after this happens, Paul and Silas turn the jail into like a worship service. 272 00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:04,760 They're praying and singing hymns and the other prisoners are listening in. 273 00:16:04,760 --> 00:16:06,920 And all of a sudden there's a massive earthquake. 274 00:16:06,920 --> 00:16:10,240 The prison shakes and all the doors fly open. 275 00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:13,800 Now the jailer who's in charge of this prison wakes up because of the earthquake. 276 00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:19,440 He sees all the prison doors open and because it was commonplace in their culture to take 277 00:16:19,440 --> 00:16:24,040 responsibility by taking your life, he pulls out his sword and he's getting ready to kill 278 00:16:24,040 --> 00:16:25,040 himself. 279 00:16:25,040 --> 00:16:28,480 Well, Paul runs over and stops and he says, no, stop, don't kill yourself. 280 00:16:28,480 --> 00:16:30,200 We're all here. 281 00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:35,320 So the jailer runs down and he sees what's going on and he sees Paul and Silas and he 282 00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:38,540 says, you know, sirs, what must I do to be saved? 283 00:16:38,540 --> 00:16:42,200 And they tell him, believe in the Lord Jesus and you'll be saved along with everyone in 284 00:16:42,200 --> 00:16:43,200 your household. 285 00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:47,160 And then it goes on to say that they, they told him all about Jesus and they told everybody 286 00:16:47,160 --> 00:16:48,600 in his household about Jesus. 287 00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:54,080 The jailer cared for his wounds and then he and everyone in his household were immediately 288 00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:55,080 baptized. 289 00:16:55,080 --> 00:16:59,860 Well, this sounds really strange to us because it sounds like this household made a collective 290 00:16:59,860 --> 00:17:02,720 decision to start following Jesus. 291 00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:06,520 The collective decisions like this were acceptable in biblical cultures and they continue to 292 00:17:06,520 --> 00:17:10,180 be acceptable in collectivist cultures today. 293 00:17:10,180 --> 00:17:14,100 If you imagine an American family sitting at home at dinner one night and the dad comes 294 00:17:14,100 --> 00:17:17,240 running through the door and he says, Hey, everybody have great news. 295 00:17:17,240 --> 00:17:19,160 I heard about this guy named Jesus. 296 00:17:19,160 --> 00:17:21,800 And from now on, we're going to be a Christian family. 297 00:17:21,800 --> 00:17:25,720 We would all probably think, well, that's great for the dad, but that doesn't mean anything 298 00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:27,680 for the mother or the kids. 299 00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:31,360 But in the collectivist culture, the family would sit down, the father would share the 300 00:17:31,360 --> 00:17:35,520 information, they would discuss it as a family and they would ultimately decide as a family 301 00:17:35,520 --> 00:17:39,520 whether or not the family is going to be following Jesus. 302 00:17:39,520 --> 00:17:43,920 And the next item in the just below the surface category, honor and shame is very closely 303 00:17:43,920 --> 00:17:46,200 related to collectivism as well. 304 00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:52,160 You see, in an individualist culture like ours, we could say that the center of morality 305 00:17:52,160 --> 00:17:53,760 is the individual. 306 00:17:53,760 --> 00:17:59,080 If I tell a lie or if I steal something, even if nobody knows, I know that I have done something 307 00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:00,080 wrong. 308 00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:04,140 Furthermore, it allows individual morality to be different than society's morality. 309 00:18:04,140 --> 00:18:09,500 For instance, in our society, pornography is rampant and almost everybody uses pornography. 310 00:18:09,500 --> 00:18:12,200 But the Bible warns us to guard our hearts against lust. 311 00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:16,880 And so just because society says the pornography is okay, doesn't make it something that's 312 00:18:16,880 --> 00:18:19,760 okay on the individual level for the Christian. 313 00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:24,140 In the collectivist society, society becomes the ultimate arbiter of morality. 314 00:18:24,140 --> 00:18:26,440 Whatever it says is okay, is okay. 315 00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:31,360 If there's a situation where society says it's okay to lie or kill or steal, regardless 316 00:18:31,360 --> 00:18:34,220 of what your personal beliefs are, that's okay. 317 00:18:34,220 --> 00:18:38,440 If you do something in private and you never get caught, such as looking at pornography 318 00:18:38,440 --> 00:18:43,360 or lying or stealing, if nobody ever finds out about it, did you actually do anything 319 00:18:43,360 --> 00:18:44,920 wrong? 320 00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:48,520 The way society enforces these norms is through honor and shame. 321 00:18:48,520 --> 00:18:52,520 By doing things that society says are positive, you gain honor. 322 00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:56,920 By doing things that society says are negative or failing to fulfill your duties, you lose 323 00:18:56,920 --> 00:18:58,600 honor or become shamed. 324 00:18:58,600 --> 00:19:03,080 And we can see an example of this from a news conference in Japan. 325 00:19:03,080 --> 00:19:07,360 These are executives who are responsible for building a giant residential building that 326 00:19:07,360 --> 00:19:09,080 is now in disrepair. 327 00:19:09,080 --> 00:19:14,240 It turns out that the construction was substandard, data was falsified, there was bogus accounting 328 00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:18,840 so that people could pocket money, and now the building is collapsing. 329 00:19:18,840 --> 00:19:23,340 In America, they would be fined financially, they might get some jail time, they might 330 00:19:23,340 --> 00:19:24,340 lose their company. 331 00:19:24,340 --> 00:19:26,000 But in Japan, it goes beyond that. 332 00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:31,840 They would get those same penalties, but because they have done something dishonorable that's 333 00:19:31,840 --> 00:19:38,520 gone against society, they also expected to get up, bow, and apologize on live TV to their 334 00:19:38,520 --> 00:19:43,280 families, to their companies, to their countries, to the entire culture for the shame they have 335 00:19:43,280 --> 00:19:44,280 brought upon them. 336 00:19:44,280 --> 00:19:46,080 And this is just the first step. 337 00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:50,000 Until they are able to take enough honorable actions to restore their honor in society's 338 00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:53,320 eyes, they're going to be barred from a lot of business opportunities and they're going 339 00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:56,520 to have a very difficult time living their lives in that culture. 340 00:19:56,520 --> 00:20:01,160 But had the building not started to collapse and none of this had ever been found out, 341 00:20:01,160 --> 00:20:05,400 none of these men would have felt guilty because in their culture, they hadn't done anything 342 00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:07,480 wrong until it was exposed. 343 00:20:07,480 --> 00:20:11,960 We can see that same honor and shame system all throughout the Gospels, and especially 344 00:20:11,960 --> 00:20:14,360 in the story of Jesus and Nicodemus. 345 00:20:14,360 --> 00:20:17,640 Whenever we read the Gospels, we see a ton of different encounters between Jesus and 346 00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:18,640 the Pharisees. 347 00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:23,080 The Pharisees are constantly calling Jesus out, asking him questions in public. 348 00:20:23,080 --> 00:20:27,600 Now in our society, if we ask a person a question, it's because we want to know the answer. 349 00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:31,560 But in an honor and shame system, when you call somebody out publicly or even just ask 350 00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:36,280 what seems to be an innocent question in public, you're making a challenge to their honor. 351 00:20:36,280 --> 00:20:40,440 If they don't answer well, or if they answer in a way that society doesn't support, you 352 00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:42,280 can take some of their honor. 353 00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:46,680 So the Pharisees were actually trying to challenge Jesus and take some of his honor. 354 00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:51,400 But when Jesus was able to answer their questions and usually defeat their arguments, he would 355 00:20:51,400 --> 00:20:53,000 actually take their honor. 356 00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:55,780 And so we see the Pharisees get furious with Jesus. 357 00:20:55,780 --> 00:20:59,600 It's because every time he's able to answer one of their challenges, he is lowering their 358 00:20:59,600 --> 00:21:03,000 status and standing in that society. 359 00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:06,840 Now if we don't understand this dynamic, we can get the wrong impression about other 360 00:21:06,840 --> 00:21:08,560 people like Nicodemus. 361 00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:13,400 For instance, in John 3, 1-2, Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night and he wants to speak with 362 00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:14,400 him privately. 363 00:21:14,400 --> 00:21:17,080 In our culture, we might call Nicodemus a coward. 364 00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:18,560 And I've heard people say this before. 365 00:21:18,560 --> 00:21:22,800 They would say that Nicodemus was so ashamed to be seen with Jesus in public and he didn't 366 00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:27,680 want to talk to him for fear of other people's opinions, but that's not what was going on. 367 00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:31,480 If you approach somebody privately, you're not challenging their honor because it's not 368 00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:32,480 done in public. 369 00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:34,240 Nicodemus really wanted an answer. 370 00:21:34,240 --> 00:21:39,120 And he came to Jesus in a way that wouldn't challenge his honor to show respect and demonstrate 371 00:21:39,120 --> 00:21:40,800 his interest. 372 00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:44,200 The final item in our just below the surface category is time. 373 00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:47,960 And we're getting into aspects of a culture that are so ingrained in the culture and so 374 00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:53,560 hard for us to imagine anything being different that we have to just jump into an example. 375 00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:57,240 And so the example I picked for time is vineyard time. 376 00:21:57,240 --> 00:22:00,280 I first learned about it a couple years ago at the National Conference when I was helping 377 00:22:00,280 --> 00:22:01,640 with the kids. 378 00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:05,940 We wanted parents to pick the kids up at 4.30, but I noticed that they had set a dismissal 379 00:22:05,940 --> 00:22:08,040 time on the schedule for 4 o'clock. 380 00:22:08,040 --> 00:22:11,560 And so when I asked about this, I thought it was a mistake in the program and the organizer 381 00:22:11,560 --> 00:22:15,160 started laughing and she said, no, we don't operate on normal time here. 382 00:22:15,160 --> 00:22:17,000 We operate on vineyard time. 383 00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:20,360 And so if we want the parents to pick the kids up at 4.30, we have to tell them that 384 00:22:20,360 --> 00:22:24,440 it ends at 4 o'clock so that they'll be here at 4.30. 385 00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:27,920 Now this is a little bit different than our culture's ordinary approach to time where 386 00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:31,800 we have strict measurements and things are in strictly chronological order. 387 00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:35,880 But it turns out that vineyard time is actually pretty close to some of the biblical culture's 388 00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:37,120 conceptions of time. 389 00:22:37,120 --> 00:22:40,880 One example of this are the two ways that the Greeks approached time. 390 00:22:40,880 --> 00:22:43,780 They had chronos, which is where we get the word chronological. 391 00:22:43,780 --> 00:22:47,600 And this refers to events happening at the exact time that they did and in the specific 392 00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:48,940 order that they did. 393 00:22:48,940 --> 00:22:49,940 But they also have kairos. 394 00:22:49,940 --> 00:22:55,500 And we don't have a concept like this in English, but you could sort of explain it as when things 395 00:22:55,500 --> 00:22:59,440 happen at the right time or when things happen at a significant time. 396 00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:04,520 And so for instance, if I'm talking about how my morning goes, I might say I wake up, 397 00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:09,600 I brush my teeth, I get a shower, I eat breakfast and I leave for work. 398 00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:12,260 That would be chronos or the chronological time. 399 00:23:12,260 --> 00:23:16,000 But what if I focused primarily on the things that were super important to me? 400 00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:19,760 I could say I got up this morning, I brushed my teeth and took a shower, I'm ready for 401 00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:20,760 the day. 402 00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:24,280 Now I left out a bunch of things and I may have even put those two items in the wrong 403 00:23:24,280 --> 00:23:25,280 order. 404 00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:28,600 But I talked about the things that were most significant to me. 405 00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:33,400 Now in our culture, we might say that I left out some information or I presented it inaccurately. 406 00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:37,280 But in the Greek culture, this would be a perfectly good use of kairos where I'm highlighting 407 00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:40,360 important things in the order of importance. 408 00:23:40,360 --> 00:23:44,440 It's important that we're aware of this distinction when we read some of the biblical narratives. 409 00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:48,660 For instance, in the temptation of Jesus, the devil tempts Jesus three times. 410 00:23:48,660 --> 00:23:51,640 This is recorded in Luke and in Matthew. 411 00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:56,400 In Luke, first the devil challenges Jesus to turn a stone to bread. 412 00:23:56,400 --> 00:24:00,480 Then the devil takes Jesus up to a mountain and tells him if he worships him, he will 413 00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,380 give Jesus control over the entire world. 414 00:24:03,380 --> 00:24:07,120 And then finally, he takes Jesus to the highest point of the temple and challenges him to 415 00:24:07,120 --> 00:24:09,740 jump off to see if the angels will catch him. 416 00:24:09,740 --> 00:24:14,200 Now when we look at the temptation in Matthew, Matthew also starts with the devil challenging 417 00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:16,160 Jesus to turn the stone to bread. 418 00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:20,280 But he tells the temple story second and goes to the mountain third. 419 00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:24,180 Because of our culture's perception of time, we look at this and we see a problem. 420 00:24:24,180 --> 00:24:25,520 Did one of them make a mistake? 421 00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:26,660 Did one of them lie? 422 00:24:26,660 --> 00:24:30,560 We might consider this a mistake or discrepancy, which could call the inerrancy of scripture 423 00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:32,080 into question. 424 00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:35,760 But what Luke and Matthew are doing is they're using kairos. 425 00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:40,000 Whatever the real order of these three events was, we can trust that all three events happened 426 00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:44,200 because both authors include them, but each is making a different theological point. 427 00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:48,740 And they're using kairos to highlight the most significant of the three events last. 428 00:24:48,740 --> 00:24:52,560 For instance, Luke's gospel builds towards the scene at the temple. 429 00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:56,720 And so it makes sense that he ends the temptations of Jesus by focusing on the temple. 430 00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:00,680 And when you look at Matthew's gospel, many of the most significant things in his gospel 431 00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:02,440 happen on mountains. 432 00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:07,120 You know, for instance, we can see the transfiguration and we can look at the sermon on the mount. 433 00:25:07,120 --> 00:25:11,600 And so it makes sense that with this theme of mountains, he's going to present the mountain 434 00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:13,320 temptation last. 435 00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:14,320 Neither of them are wrong. 436 00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:16,440 Neither of them are lying or made a mistake. 437 00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:20,760 They're simply using an accepted rhetorical method to present the information. 438 00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:22,600 Well now it's time to go deep below the surface. 439 00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:25,800 And our first topic in this category is called rules and relationships. 440 00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:30,920 And here we're talking about how different societies look at firm rules versus things 441 00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:32,640 that can bend a little bit. 442 00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:37,040 And so I think one of the best ways to illustrate this is the time that I learned how to barter. 443 00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:41,120 Now my best friend is Chinese and so is the girl that I dated for a couple years in college. 444 00:25:41,120 --> 00:25:44,840 And so I had the great experience of getting to go to different Asian street markets. 445 00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:48,600 And I learned really quickly that the culture there is quite different than what you would 446 00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:51,040 expect at a normal American grocery store. 447 00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:55,560 If I go into Weiss and I want to buy a Dr. Pepper and the price says $3 and I go up to 448 00:25:55,560 --> 00:26:00,240 the register and I want to pay $2, they're going to tell me that's too bad and I can 449 00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:02,480 either pay the $3 or leave. 450 00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:07,360 But when you go to the street markets, you're expected to barter because it builds a relationship. 451 00:26:07,360 --> 00:26:09,160 It took me a couple of times to realize this. 452 00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:13,240 It wasn't until I kept trying to pay people the advertised price until somebody pulled 453 00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:16,160 my girlfriend aside and asked her if I was kind of slow. 454 00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:20,280 And so finally she explained to me that the advertised price was merely a starting point 455 00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:22,240 to build a relationship. 456 00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:26,600 If the price on the sticker said $5, I was meant to offer $3 and then the person would 457 00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:30,840 counter with $4.50 and then I would counter with $3.50 and then finally we would settle 458 00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:31,960 on $4. 459 00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:36,080 Now there'd be a relationship of mutual respect which would lead to future business. 460 00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:39,800 We see a lot of examples of relationships trumping rules in scripture as well. 461 00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:43,360 For instance, consider Paul's words on women in ministry. 462 00:26:43,360 --> 00:26:47,360 One of the most well-known verses is 1 Timothy 2.12 where he says, I do not let women teach 463 00:26:47,360 --> 00:26:50,000 men or have authority over them. 464 00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,320 Now this seems pretty black and white. 465 00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:56,840 If we listen to what Paul is saying, women can't be pastors, women can't be teachers. 466 00:26:56,840 --> 00:27:01,520 But the exact same person wrote in Romans 16 1-2, I commend you, our sister Phoebe, 467 00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:03,520 who is a deacon in the church in San Crea. 468 00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:08,000 Well, a deacon is a position of authority who would often be involved in some teaching. 469 00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:09,800 So what is the difference here? 470 00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:14,000 It's that Paul's first statement, which is a rule, is based on certain elements of that 471 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:15,000 culture. 472 00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:18,960 For instance, in those days women were not educated in the Torah like the men were. 473 00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:22,760 So there were many situations where women were having to interrupt or stop church to 474 00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:24,880 ask questions about things that all the men would know. 475 00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:26,600 It was very disruptive. 476 00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:30,360 So when Paul came up with this rule, he was responding to a set of circumstances. 477 00:27:30,360 --> 00:27:33,120 But the rule bans based on relationships. 478 00:27:33,120 --> 00:27:37,600 And if Phoebe is somebody that God has called and equipped to be in ministry, he's not 479 00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:39,140 going to say no. 480 00:27:39,140 --> 00:27:43,320 And so what Paul is saying is, yes, my general rule is that women are not allowed to teach 481 00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:45,060 or hold positions of authority. 482 00:27:45,060 --> 00:27:48,400 But if God has called a woman to do that, I'm not going to stand in her way. 483 00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:52,360 There are well-known examples when Jesus' disciples picked grain on the Sabbath. 484 00:27:52,360 --> 00:27:56,680 The Pharisees got upset about it, but Jesus redefined the laws of the Sabbath to prove 485 00:27:56,680 --> 00:28:00,560 that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. 486 00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:03,920 Considering that Christianity is ultimately about a relationship between God and man, 487 00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,560 we can't ignore the power of relationships over rules. 488 00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:10,440 Our next deep below the surface topic is virtue and vice. 489 00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:14,920 And the idea here is that different cultures have different ideas of what's virtuous and 490 00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:16,200 what counts as vice. 491 00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:19,920 I ran into a situation when I was doing my undergraduate studies in computer science 492 00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:21,760 that can illustrate this. 493 00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:25,120 At the University of Maryland, we had four main groups in computer science. 494 00:28:25,120 --> 00:28:30,320 There were the American students, Asian students, Indian students, and Russian students. 495 00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:34,760 And it was just a part of the American, Asian, and Indian culture that when you were given 496 00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:39,200 a programming assignment, you were expected to do it on your own and submit your individual 497 00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:40,200 work. 498 00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:43,080 But that's not how Russian students learn to do programming work. 499 00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:46,760 When they learn, they're expected to work in a group and they submit the group's work 500 00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:47,760 together. 501 00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:52,240 So, when we had a big programming assignment due, there was this huge scandal because all 502 00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:56,200 of a sudden, all the Russian kids got flagged for plagiarism. 503 00:28:56,200 --> 00:29:00,240 They had done what they had always done, which was to work as a group and then they submit 504 00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,840 everybody's individual assignment as a copy of the group's efforts. 505 00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:08,080 Well, the college had to step back and realize that they weren't cheating, but there was 506 00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:12,900 this huge disconnect between their expectations and the Russian students' culture. 507 00:29:12,900 --> 00:29:16,340 And so, going forward, they had to educate the Russian kids and it took them quite a 508 00:29:16,340 --> 00:29:18,420 bit of time to get used to this difference. 509 00:29:18,420 --> 00:29:22,220 And the really crazy part about this was that when it comes to school assignments, we consider 510 00:29:22,220 --> 00:29:27,440 things like self-sufficiency virtuous and we consider sharing work or sharing information 511 00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:29,380 to be something bad. 512 00:29:29,380 --> 00:29:32,400 But when you get out into the working world and you're working as a team and you're submitting 513 00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:35,760 all of your work as a team, it's the exact opposite. 514 00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:40,760 An employee who refused to work with other employees is not a virtuous employee. 515 00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:45,800 And so, our ideas of what is virtuous and what is a vice depend heavily on context as 516 00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:46,800 well as culture. 517 00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:50,040 And this is a lesson we have to take into our reading of the Bible as well. 518 00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:54,980 And so, if we re-examine the idea of self-sufficiency being a virtue in American culture, we can 519 00:29:54,980 --> 00:29:57,680 find that that's not really compatible with what the Bible says. 520 00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:01,400 You know, in American culture, it's considered good if you can do everything on your own 521 00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:03,680 and you don't need help from other people. 522 00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:06,300 But consider what it says in Galatians 6, 2. 523 00:30:06,300 --> 00:30:10,240 The NIV version says, carry each other's burdens and in this way you will fulfill the 524 00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:11,240 law of Christ. 525 00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:15,920 And the NLT says, share each other's burdens and in this way obey the law of Christ. 526 00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:20,120 And it's clear that what Paul is saying here and what God is saying through him is that 527 00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:23,340 self-sufficiency is not this thing that we should strive for. 528 00:30:23,340 --> 00:30:26,960 You know, we're meant to be an entire family under Jesus. 529 00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:29,040 And so, we should be sharing each other's burdens. 530 00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:30,540 We should be helping each other out. 531 00:30:30,540 --> 00:30:33,760 It's not a sign of weakness to go to other people and ask for help. 532 00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:37,680 Instead, it's a blessing when someone comes to us and asks for our help. 533 00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:41,920 And we should be just as blessed and willing to go to other people and ask for their help. 534 00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:46,480 This is the opposite of what our culture says is virtuous, but that's why God's kingdom 535 00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:49,060 is sometimes called the upside down kingdom. 536 00:30:49,060 --> 00:30:51,660 Because it doesn't match what it shows on earth. 537 00:30:51,660 --> 00:30:56,000 And that's why our ideas of virtue and vice are not necessarily what they were in the 538 00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:57,760 biblical cultures. 539 00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:00,380 And then the last cultural difference we're going to look at today is called the center 540 00:31:00,380 --> 00:31:02,120 of God's will. 541 00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:07,000 The best way to think about this is when God makes promises or when God makes predictions, 542 00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,040 is he talking about me as an individual? 543 00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:10,620 Is he talking about a group of people? 544 00:31:10,620 --> 00:31:12,160 Is he talking about an entire culture? 545 00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:13,160 Is he talking about a country? 546 00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:15,420 Is he talking about the human race as a whole? 547 00:31:15,420 --> 00:31:19,920 When we read the Bible, we want to understand which group of people God is talking to. 548 00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:23,560 In the biblical cultures, often had a different understanding of what that was. 549 00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:27,260 For instance, look at Romans 828 in the NLT version. 550 00:31:27,260 --> 00:31:31,080 It says, and we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who 551 00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:34,760 love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 552 00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:39,400 If we take this as being a promise to us individually, it could throw our faith for a loop when bad 553 00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:41,140 things happen to us. 554 00:31:41,140 --> 00:31:45,120 If we understand correctly, however, that this is meant to be a promise to all believers 555 00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:48,140 as a whole, we can understand God's intention better. 556 00:31:48,140 --> 00:31:52,080 And we're not going to be discouraged when bad things happen to us individually, but 557 00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:54,280 overall things work out for God's plan. 558 00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:56,400 A few years ago, I was driving with a friend of mine. 559 00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:00,840 We were going out to get lunch and we passed the children's hospital and she knew that 560 00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:02,200 I was starting to be a pastor. 561 00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:05,600 And she looked over to the children's hospital and she said, you know, I'm really glad that 562 00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:09,840 Christianity works for you, but as long as places like that exist, I don't think I could 563 00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:10,840 ever be a Christian. 564 00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:14,040 And I asked her what she meant by that. 565 00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:18,080 And she said, you know, God promises that all things will work out for good, but that 566 00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:20,520 building is full of sick and dying children. 567 00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:21,520 How is that good? 568 00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:26,440 Well, then I later found out that she had actually had a miscarriage and this miscarriage 569 00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:29,760 had caused her relationship with her boyfriend to break up. 570 00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:33,960 And so she's gone through all this trauma and she's taking the promises that God made 571 00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:36,920 in the Bible that she'll never have any trouble. 572 00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:41,480 And so when she has trouble, she sees this as God breaking his promises. 573 00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:46,080 Now that was obviously not the right time to launch into some sort of apologetic explanation, 574 00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:49,400 but it helps us prepare ourselves for when bad things happen. 575 00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:52,960 We have to fight this tendency in Western culture to take all of these promises in the 576 00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:55,680 Bible at an individual level. 577 00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:59,680 For instance, in Philippians 4.13, when Paul says, I can do all things through Christ who 578 00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:00,920 strengthens me. 579 00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:04,960 This is not a blank check to every believer that God is going to help them succeed in 580 00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,440 every single thing they ever want to do. 581 00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:10,760 Now in Paul's situation, he's talking about enduring hardships and suffering, which is 582 00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:14,080 something that millions of Christians have had to do throughout time. 583 00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:18,440 And if they've been able to do it because of Christ strengthening them, it's not a promise 584 00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:22,280 that I could go out tomorrow and become the next star quarterback in the NFL. 585 00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:26,320 And so if we can adapt our understanding of the center of God's will to what it was to 586 00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:31,040 the biblical cultures, we can better understand what the Bible is promising and we can set 587 00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:32,320 our expectations correctly. 588 00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:36,120 Well, now that we're aware of some of the differences between our culture and the biblical 589 00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:38,760 cultures, what are we supposed to do with all this? 590 00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:41,060 I've got five tips that I hope will help. 591 00:33:41,060 --> 00:33:43,420 The first is this, don't stop reading your Bible. 592 00:33:43,420 --> 00:33:45,600 The first time I read through this book, I freaked out. 593 00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:49,200 I said, wait a minute, I've missed so many things when I've read through the Bible because 594 00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:50,920 I wasn't familiar with the cultures. 595 00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:52,600 Should I stop reading my Bible? 596 00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:55,720 Should I spend the next year or two learning about the biblical cultures before getting 597 00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:56,720 back into the Bible? 598 00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:57,720 And the answer is no. 599 00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:01,480 I can guarantee that your Bible reading so far has changed your life and help you grow 600 00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:02,640 closer to God. 601 00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:04,160 And that's not going to change. 602 00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:08,000 What will change is that you now know that there are differences between our cultures 603 00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:09,960 and things are going to stand out to you. 604 00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:11,480 You're going to be reading through a Bible passage. 605 00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:12,480 You're going to spot something. 606 00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:15,360 You're going to say, hey, this seems really different from our culture. 607 00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:18,520 Could there be a different meaning here or hidden meaning? 608 00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:19,840 I better go look this up. 609 00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:22,980 And that leads directly to tip two, which is read books on biblical cultures. 610 00:34:22,980 --> 00:34:26,620 The authors of Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes recommend a book called Biblical Social 611 00:34:26,620 --> 00:34:30,640 Values in Their Meetings, a handbook by John J. Pilch and Bruce J. Molina. 612 00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:34,200 Another tip that I highly recommend is reading writings by the church fathers. 613 00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:38,440 These are people who studied with or directly from the apostles. 614 00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:40,420 They were very involved in the early church. 615 00:34:40,420 --> 00:34:45,060 They published a lot of writings with different theological perspectives and help us understand 616 00:34:45,060 --> 00:34:48,360 how those biblical cultures were applying what they were learning. 617 00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:54,000 Some of my favorites are Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, and especially Augustine, 618 00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:56,720 who's been transformational for my life as a Christian. 619 00:34:56,720 --> 00:34:59,420 I also recommend looking up the Didache. 620 00:34:59,420 --> 00:35:03,080 This is one of the first Christian commentaries that goes into a lot of detail on how the 621 00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:05,640 early Christians interpreted scripture. 622 00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:10,140 And speaking of commentaries, tip four is to look up biblical commentaries. 623 00:35:10,140 --> 00:35:14,580 There are thousands of commentaries out there and it can be hard to find the right one. 624 00:35:14,580 --> 00:35:18,780 One thing they recommend in seminary is the website bestcommentaries.com. 625 00:35:18,780 --> 00:35:21,920 This shows all of these scholarly accepted commentaries. 626 00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:23,440 They're sorted by order of reviews. 627 00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,600 You can filter by different denominations like Protestant and Catholic. 628 00:35:26,600 --> 00:35:30,800 It can really help you track down some amazing resources to dive deeper into the Bible. 629 00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:35,000 And then the final recommendation, tip five, is to read non-Western theology. 630 00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:39,880 This can be incredibly challenging, but two great books to start with are The Next Christendom, 631 00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:43,760 The Coming of Global Christianity by Philip Jenkins, and An Introduction to Third World 632 00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:45,760 Theologies by John Parrott. 633 00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:49,560 These are going to help you understand how people from non-Western cultures interpret 634 00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:52,400 the Bible and you may find some very useful tips in here. 635 00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:54,120 And so that's going to wrap us up for today. 636 00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:57,720 I'll put the resource back up on the screen along with my email address and a link to 637 00:35:57,720 --> 00:36:00,080 where you can download the slides in the future. 638 00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:04,300 As always, I'm grateful for your feedback, questions, comments, and ideas. 639 00:36:04,300 --> 00:36:07,680 Please feel free to get in touch anytime and thank you for listening today. 640 00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:15,800 There's no impossible I believe that you are working now 641 00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:42,200 to pour it out, pour it out, pour it out.