Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible

by E. Randolph Richards

One day, I was sitting in a hut with a group of church elders from a remote island village off the coast of Borneo. They asked my opinion about a thorny church issue. A young couple had relocated to their village many years before because they had committed a grievous sin in their home village. For as long as they had resided here, they had lived exemplary lives of godliness and had attended church faithfully. Now, a decade later, they wanted to join the church. "Should we let them?" asked the obviously troubled elders. Attempting to avoid the question, I replied, "Well, what grievous sin did they commit?" The elders were reluctant to air the village's dirty laundry before a guest, but finally one of them replied, "They married on the run." In America, we call that eloping. "That's it?" I blurted out. "What was the sin?" Quite shocked, they stared at this young (and foolish) missionary and asked, "Have you never read Paul?" I certainly thought I had. My Ph.D. was in Paul. They reminded me that Paul told believers to obey their parents (Eph 6:1). They were willing to admit that everyone makes mistakes. We don't always obey. But surely one should obey in what is likely the most important decision of his or her life: choosing a spouse. I suddenly found myself wondering if I had, in fact, ever really read Paul. My "American Paul" clearly did not expect his command to include adult children deciding whom to marry. Moreover, it was clear that my reading (or misreading?) had impl...

For example, I (Randy) remember grading my first multiple-choice exam in Indonesia. I was surprised by how many students left answers unmarked. So I asked the first student when handing back exams, "Why didn't you select an answer on question number three?" The student looked up and said, "I didn't know the answer." "You should have at least guessed," I replied. He looked at me, appalled. "What if I accidentally guessed the correct answer? I would be implying that I knew the answer when I didn't. That would be lying!"

A frequent translation of John 14:1 reads, "Do not let your hearts be troubled." The English suggests that I need to take action over my heart. Yet, in John's text, Jesus is giving the command to the hearts of his disciples to stop being troubled. In our minds, that doesn't even really make sense. But perhaps Jesus understood that we humans have less control of our hearts than we like to admit.