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

by E. Randolph Richards

The ancients used kairos to refer to the more qualitative aspect of time, when something special happened. This term is used much more often—almost twice as frequently—in the Bible. Sometimes translated “season,” kairos time is when something important happens at just the right time.

Kairos also can be used to describe a situation or circumstance. In Ephesians 5:15-16, Paul encourages Christians to “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity [kairos], because the days are evil” (emphasis added).

It is possible to be so worried about the time (chronos) for something—such as the return of Christ—that we miss the time (kairos) for something—such as living like citizens of the kingdom of God.

Matthew has every major event in the life of Jesus occur on a mountain. (This sometimes requires referring to a hill as a mountain, as in the Sermon on the Mount.)

Scholars have long noted the way Mark tells the story of Jesus clearing the temple (Mk 11:15-19).[8] He sandwiches it in the middle of the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree (Mk 11:12-14 and Mk 11:20-25). Mark’s arrangement of the stories indicates that the fig tree story is to tell us how to understand Jesus’ actions in the temple. Like the fig tree, the temple was full of activity but was bearing no fruit. Jesus condemned it as a “den of robbers” as Jeremiah had the previous temple (Jer 7:11).[9]

Mark connects these stories in a number of ways. Both the girl and woman are called “daughter.” The girl is twelve years old; the woman has been bleeding for twelve years. Jairus falls to the ground; the woman falls to the ground. Clearly Mark wants us to read the stories together. Most important for our purposes here, Mark’s sequencing of the events connects them. He wants us to interpret them together, compare and contrast the responses to Jesus.

Take a moment to think through the implications of your decision. How might you interpret the passage differently if the author is describing chronos? What if he is describing kairos? Pay close attention to the sequence of events in a biblical passage. We recommend outlining the passage on a piece of notebook paper as you read. What happens first, second, third and so on? Is the main story (i.e., the healing of Jairus’s daughter) “interrupted” by another story (i.e., the healing of the bleeding woman)? If so, indicate that in your outline. Is the author connecting this story with the one before or after by repeating words or themes? Answer these questions: What is the author trying to highlight by ordering the events in this way? How would I misconstrue the meaning of this passage if I interpreted it in historical, chronological order rather than in the order the author presents it?

What virtues and vices do you associate with chronos time (i.e., punctuality, tardiness, etc.)? What virtues do we ignore—such as a “word aptly spoken” (Prov 25:11 NIV 1984)—because we fail to see kairos time?

What is Luke saying to us through the timing (the sequence) of the stories? Is the widow a role model of sacrificial giving, or is Jesus holding her up as an example of how religious folk can exploit the piety of the poor? Should those of us who preach this story actually be afraid of it?

pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards, for example, believed that “the things of the world are ordered [and] designed to shadow forth spiritual things.” Based on the orderliness of creation, Edwards concluded, “We see that even in the material world God makes one part of it strangely to agree with another; and why is it not reasonable to suppose he makes the whole as a shadow of the spiritual world?”[1] So, for example, “The sun’s so perpetually, for so many ages, sending forth his rays in such vast profusion, without any dimunition [sic] of his light and heat, is a bright image of the all-sufficiency and everlastingness of God’s bounty and goodness.”[2] The more Edwards learned about the laws—the divine laws—that governed the cosmos, the more he understood about the Creator himself.

When Paul sought to explain the Christian’s new relationship with God, then, one of the ways he did so was in terms of the ancient system of patronage—something everyone understood. In other words, it went without being said that relationship is the premier and determinative aspect of charis, grace.

The problem with the Western view of a rule is that it has to always apply. But “veer right” is only good instruction if you’re headed into the ditch on the left.

What?

We create a nice dualism. God is in charge of supernatural things, and natural things just run on their own. The trick is that our definitions of natural and supernatural are ever changing.

Our point is that at an unconscious level, our expectation that the universe operates according to natural laws excludes the possibility from our minds that God might intervene in our daily affairs.

Our tendency to emphasize rules over relationship and correctness over community means that we are often willing to sacrifice relationships on the altar of rules.

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt” (Ex 20:2). This reminder, which precedes the first command, puts the rules (commandments) that follow in relationship terms. There is an implied “therefore” between “I am the God who brought you out of Egypt” and “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:3).

Then he makes an exception.

I have always believed this.

Historically, Christians have opted to keep Old Testament law,

I do not know any Christians who believe this.

Among the philosophers of Paul’s day, it was common to state virtues or vices in lists of five, often followed by one that summarized the list. Paul uses this pattern, since it would have been familiar to his readers.

Lists could be organized around some sort of theme. For example, Paul seems to emphasize sins of speech in the second list, probably because the Colossians were having trouble with it. The main point Paul was making was that we need to be removing vices and adding virtues in an ongoing quest for godliness.

What went without being said in Paul’s day was that it is not enough to remove vices; one must acquire virtues.

Yet Westerners tend to restrict the Christian life to avoiding vices. In Scripture, the godly life is portrayed as a lifelong work, not a list of don’ts. The active pursuit of virtue, particularly through the disciplined practice of godly habits, is overshadowed.

Leadership is a Western virtue; submission is a biblical virtue.

As far as Augustine was concerned, reading Scripture should encourage the reader’s love for God and for his or her neighbor. “So anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding build up this double love of God and neighbour, has not yet succeeded in understanding them.”[3]

Western Christians, especially North American Christians, tend to read every scriptural promise, every blessing, as if it necessarily applies to us—to each of us and all of us individually.

So for generations now, Americans’ primary concern has been themselves. In his 2005 book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, sociologist Christian Smith coined a now-famous term to describe the religion of most teens in the United States. He called it moralistic therapeutic deism. One aspect of moralistic therapeutic deism is the assumption that the purpose of religious faith is “providing therapeutic benefits to its adherents.”

For Calvin, Romans 8:28 was a reminder that, “though the elect and the reprobate are indiscriminately exposed to similar evils, there is yet a great difference; for God trains up the faithful by afflictions, and thereby promotes their salvation.”[9]

When we realize that each passage of Scripture is not about me, we begin gradually to see that the true subject matter of the Bible, what the book is really about, is God’s redeeming work in Christ. God is restoring all of creation (including me), but I am not the center of God’s kingdom work.