Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible

The 5th title in our Siblings’ Book Club this year is one that I personally submitted and have wanted to read for years. I’m so glad I finally did, though it’s one of those books that needs a second or third re-read to ensure I’ve properly ingested it.

Summary

Stated simply, the authors point out nine ways in which Western culture has blinded us modern readers so that we unintentionally misinterpret the Scripture we read. Because we have a different understanding of things like language, time, and relationships, we tend to miss the things that (for the original audience at least) went without saying. The authors don’t dig too deep into the details, but they offer key examples for each of these nine areas and definitely spark our thinking about what else we might be missing when we read. The book is broken down into these sections and chapter topics:

• Part One: Above the Surface: Mores, Race and Ethnicity, and Language
• Part Two: Just Below the Surface: Individualism and Collectivism, Honor/Shame and Right/Wrong, and Time
• Part Three: Deep Below the Surface: Rules and Relationships, Virtue and Vice, and Finding the Center of God’s Will

A Short Harangue: “Just Me and God”

This book forces me to soap-box a little, so pardon this brief diatribe against a philosophy out there that suggests that the Bible’s the only thing we need (bear with me). I’ve heard it all my life: “We don’t need anything but the Holy Spirit to understand the Bible correctly.” I agree…in theory: in a perfect world, that would most certainly be the case. But we don’t live in a perfect world. Our thoughts, opinions, and interpretations are constantly skewed by sin within and wickedness without. As holy as it sounds to spurn the commentaries, sermons, and podcasts and just commune with the Lord alone with an open Bible, it’s a recipe for disaster. The “just me and God” route invariably ends in some heresy or another, because our sinful pride can’t avoid it.

We need teachers and guides, and we need each other, not because anyone is perfect, but because we’re all imperfect! As a community, we help each other stand in Truth. We also need books like this to help remove those cultural, traditional, denominational blinders that convince us we’ve got a monopoly on that Truth.

Yes, the Holy Spirit helps me understand His Word — I’d never argue the opposite — but when it’s “just me and God,” what’s then stopping me from equating my own ideas with His while I read? Who’s crosschecking my interpretations to make sure I’m discerning things correctly? Who’s verifying that I even understand the context of whatever verse I’m “claiming” today? Despite my regeneration, I’ve still got a sin nature that constantly wants to magnify myself, justify my sin, and form God into a mold of my own design. I’m only human—and so are you. We all need the checks-and-balances of the Christian community to ensure that we’re not living off “what the Bible means to me.”

Highlighting the Emphasis on ME

Part of the reason we even have this problem of people doing the “just me and God” thing is that we have the BLESSING of the printed Word. Just think:

• You have 24-7 access to God’s Word in hundreds of English translations and thousands of other languages besides, all with a couple of swipes with your thumb! Consider the blessings we have!
• Thirty-plus years ago, even while your parents’ home might have had 10 Bibles to choose from, Bibles in other nations had to be physically printed and secreted across enemy territory into thirsty believers’ hands.
• One hundred years ago, families would normally have just one Bible in the home, and someone (generally Pa) would sit and read it aloud to the family.
• Three hundred years ago, a whole town would be blessed to have a church with its own printed Bible, and the priest or preacher was responsible for rightly handling the Word of Truth.
• Then from 600 years ago to the beginning of time, books were hand-written and rare, and mere parts of a Bible were the prized possession of kingdoms. No one read the Word for themselves or took time to study its nuances. No normal believer had his “devotions” as we know them today, that time sit and pray through an open Bible and ask God, “Which verse do you have for me today?”

The authors reference this reality:

As Eugene Peterson has argued, the original processor which God worked with his people was through speaking-writing-reading (aloud)-listening. That is, until the Reformation, people heard the Scriptures in church – and only in church. That meant the natural question when interpreting the Bible was, “What does this mean to us?” (197)

We’re living in a such a blessed time that of course we abuse it. Of course we’ve taken God’s showers of blessing and turned them into yet another way to prove how selfish we really are. It’s all about “me” these days, my feelings and thoughts and interpretations and calling. This doesn’t describe everyone always, of course, but it’s all of us sometimes, whenever we let the “old man” creep back in, even under the guise of “worship.”

The authors of this book have a lot to say about this self-focused mentality in this book. It’s really the guiding theme. They write, for example, about our preoccupation with the “relevance” and “application” of a text instead of its meaning (see Chapter 9 and pages 198-199). They also emphasize how we’re almost trained to place ourselves personally into the grand drama of Scripture, as if we’re automatically next in that long line of the faithful servants from the Bible. I love how they state it:

As we have argued, North American Christians are predisposed to this element in our worldview that emphasizes me. God‘s word is a message for me. These apocalyptic texts would be irrelevant – would have no meaning for me – if the events they described were not planned to occur in my lifetime. Perhaps the sensibility runs even deeper. Do we think, Of course, I would be on the stage when the world ends. How could God do such a dramatic event without me? We don’t say it so bluntly, but the subconscious reasoning often runs this way: Of course the world couldn’t end before I got here, but now that I’m here, there isn’t any reason for God to wait any longer. When we state it so blatantly, we immediately see it as absurd; however, we should not dismiss that it was driving our (mis)reading. (206-207)

To counteract this bent of selfishness, they recommend one incredibly simple switch in the brain: “Make a conscious effort to read the ‘you’ in biblical texts as plural, so that we’re less focused on personal repercussions but how our behavior and decisions affect the community or congregation.” (p.110) They offer an example from the ever-popular Romans 8:28, which reads: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” The authors clarify:

This does not say that “all things are good” or even that “all things work together for good for everyone.” It also does not say (or mean) that everything that happens is the will of God. “How can that be!?” you ask. Well, the last time you [sinned], was that God’s will? Did God want you to sin or did He allow you to sin? There’s a difference, and making sense of this helps us make sense of everything in this wicked world, from the Hitlers to the tsunamis. (See the whole discussion on p. 202-203)

I don’t think there’s any more important lesson from this book than this, that we need to stop reading our individual selves into the Bible, taking is promises literally for “me” alone. I like to use the example of Jesus’ conversation with the Rich Young Ruler. What did Jesus literally tell him? “Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come follow me.” (Luke 18:22) If I took that “you” as literally for “me,” then suddenly the Gospel is not “by grace through faith, not of works” (Eph 2:8-9) but is instead a Gospel of works—that “Jesus himself said I can earn my way to Heaven!” No He did not! Seek the meaning of the text first and foremost, for only then can you understand its application.

Other Useful Lessons

Of course, the book shares a whole lot more than this emphasis on individualism, but I just know that’s our biggest killer right now. Further advice in the text deals with topics like these:

• Time – They describe how the biblical writers were way more concerned with timing (kairos) then time (chronos). (See p.145)

• Language – When translators can’t find the right word in our language to match the original meaning, though have to make do. The authors describe it with the fruit of the Spirit. Paul couldn’t think of the right, single word (perhaps), so he used all the words he could think of that describe what happens when someone is Spirit-filled. We look at it as a list of attributes, when really it’s more likely one long hyphenated word! They also refer to “blessed” in Matthew 5 as being in your happy place, not that God actively blesses you IF you are this type of person. (see p.74) It’s all around great stuff and really helps me slough off some old ways of thinking.

• Sharing – “Most of us think of our options as either saving or spending. But the biblical witness and Christian tradition suggest that there’s another option: sharing. Rather than storing away all of our access for an uncertain future, God appears to expect believers to be faithful in the present.” (189)

Conclusion

I savored the lessons taught in this book and have really sought to take its points to heart in how I read—and teach!— the Word of God. I’m a failure like everyone else when it comes to these cultural potholes, bumping my way through my Bible reading, trying to make sense of “how this applies to me,” and sometimes even ending up in a nice, messy little crash.

This book has helped align my thinking more properly, and I’d argue it’s an essential part of the whole hermeneutic process. It’s not only about understanding the original audience and context but also about removing myself from the text completely so that proper applications can be drawn to my life and context in due time.

I’d recommend that Bible teachers and seminary professors alike take a good look at this book for classroom reading—it may only scratch the surface, but it scratches exactly where it needs to scratch. I think Bible students of all levels could benefit from it, and I highly recommend it.

©2024 E.T.