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

by E. Randolph Richards

Another way to say this is that the most powerful cultural values are those that go without being said.

When a passage of Scripture appears to leave out a piece of the puzzle because something went without being said, we instinctively fill in the gap with a piece from our own culture—usually a piece that goes without being said. When we miss what went without being said for them and substitute what goes without being said for us, we are at risk of misreading Scripture.

The “average” American church will look very different twenty years in the future than it did twenty years ago. “Contrary to popular opinion,” writes Soong-Chan Rah, “the church is not dying in America; it is alive and well, but it is alive and well among the immigrant and ethnic minority communities and not among the majority white churches in the United States.”[8]

Mores are the social conventions that dictate which behaviors are considered appropriate or inappropriate.

Because we privilege marriage as God’s preferred way of life for everyone, churches in America, on the whole, do a very poor job of ministering to single adults. Our programs are rarely geared for singles. The few that are tend either to isolate them from the rest of the congregation or function as a Christian matchmaking service. We sometimes think that the best discipleship step a single Christian can make is to marry a good Christian mate.

Spiritual gifting is not reserved for the married.

Perhaps instead of focusing all our attention on ministering to the needs of families, we should find more meaningful ways of equipping singles for the work of the Lord.

Paul was admonishing the hostess of a house church to wear her marriage veil (“cover her head”) because “church” was a public event and because respectable Roman women covered their heads in public.[19] These Corinthian women were treating church like their private dinner parties. These dinners (convivia, or “wine parties”) were known for other immoral activities including dinner “escorts” (1 Cor 6), idol meat (1 Cor 8–10), adultery (1 Cor 10) and drunkenness (1 Cor 11). The issue was modesty, but not sexual modesty. These women were co-opting an activity about God for personal benefit. They were treating church as a social club.

Paul discusses women’s apparel again in 1 Timothy. Again, the issue is modesty (1 Tim 2:9). In Timothy’s church in Ephesus, some women were dressing inappropriately. Again we might assume Paul is concerned about sexual modesty. Contextually, however, a case can be made that Paul meant, “Women should dress economically modestly” so as not to flaunt their wealth.

In other words, one of the ways Westerners routinely misread instructions about modesty in the Bible is by assuming sexual modesty is of greater concern than economic modesty.

Many of us wear our “Sunday best” to church because we claim we want to look our best for God.[20] But God sees us all week. Is it really God for whom we want to look our best?

It’s tempting to read Peter’s response as self-righteousness. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean,” he says (Acts 10:14). He’s been a good Jew all his life, and not even God can make him compromise his scruples. But perhaps Peter’s reaction to the vision is not simply righteous indignation; maybe it is nausea. No doubt Peter would have been disgusted by the very idea of eating the animals presented in the sheet. Restrictions against eating pork and shellfish are legalities to us. But for first-century Jews, they were deeply entrenched dietary (cultural) mores. The Lord’s command might evoke a similar feeling in Westerners if we were confronted with a sheet full of puppies and bats and cockroaches.

We reject this belief and the related implications—that some “races” are morally and intellectually superior to others, for example. We believe there is only one race, the human race, made in the image of God. Second, speaking in terms of ethnicity is a more precise way to account for the differences between people groups. Blanket racial terms, such as Caucasian and black and Latino, flatten important distinctions between cultures.

colorblind: the belief that ethnic differences don’t matter. Of course it would be fine if what we meant was that everyone should be treated with equal dignity or enjoy the same rights. But we suspect what is commonly meant is that everyone should be treated as if they were the same—and by same, what is frequently meant is majority culture.

The Cushites were not demeaned as a slave race in the ancient world; they were respected as highly skilled soldiers.[6] It is more likely that Miriam and Aaron thought Moses was being presumptuous by marrying above himself. That makes sense of the tone of the passage. “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” they whined. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” (Num 12:2). In other words: Moses is not the only prophet here. Who does he think he is?

The events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, so important for Jews and Christians at the time, were marginal events in a nothing town on the edge of an empire with more important matters to consider. If we fail to recognize this, we can fail to recognize just how remarkable the rapid growth of the early church really was. For the first couple of centuries, Roman writers often referred to Christians as “Galileans,” indicating how nominal and provincial they considered the early Jesus movement to be.

It is possible, though, that the divisions among the churches in Corinth were not theological. We may be failing to note ethnic markers that Paul sprinkled all over the text.

The fact that the Moabites, along with the Ammonites, originated from an incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughters (Gen 19:36-38) may help us understand why Ruth’s ethnicity is an issue in her narrative. Furthermore, the Moabites hired Balaam to pronounce a curse on Israel (Num 22), and Moabite women seduced the men of Israel in Numbers 25 and encouraged them to sacrifice to idols. For these reasons, the Lord declared, “No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation” (Deut 23:3).

“The most insidious racism is among those who don’t think they harbor any.”[13] His point is that those of us who leave our ethnic stereotypes unexamined will inevitably carry them forever, perhaps even pass them on to others. We would add that failing to come to terms with our assumptions about race and ethnicity will keep us blind to important aspects of biblical teaching.

the frequency and number of words we have for a given thing or experience and its value in our worldview are connected.

We also perceive a corollary point to be true: if we don’t have a word for something, then it is likely not very important to us.

Paul struggles for a Greek word to describe the fruit (singular) of the Spirit. He describes it as a “love-joy-peace-patience-kindness-goodness-faithfulness-gentleness-self-control kind of fruit” (Gal 5:22). Paul is not giving us a list of various fruits, from which we may pick a few. Rather, he gives us a list of words that circle around the one character of a Spirit-filled life he is trying to describe.

In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that if you are a peacemaker, then you are makarios. Since English doesn’t have a word for this feeling, translators have struggled to find one. What do you call it when you feel happy, content, balanced, harmonious and fortunate? Well, translators have concluded, you are blessed. Thus our English translations say, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9). Unfortunately, this introduces another problem. The English language prefers clear subjects for its verbs. So the missing puzzle piece in the Beatitudes is, How is one blessed? What goes without saying in our culture is that God blesses people. Consequently, we often interpret this verse to mean, “If you are a peacemaker, then God will bless you.” But this isn’t what Jesus meant. Jesus meant, “If you are a peacemaker, then you are in your happy place.” It just doesn’t work well in English. Alas, here is the bigger problem: maybe the reason we North Americans struggle to find makarios in our personal lives is because we don’t have a word in our native language to denote it.

“Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said ‘Repent,’ willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance,” Luther argued in the opening sentences of his disputation.

People who speak only one language, which is most Americans, often assume that there is a one-to-one relationship between languages. This derives from how we understand reality. We assume that everyone interprets reality like we do. So when we run across a concept in a foreign language that describes an experience that’s familiar to us, we assume they mean what we mean. Well, they don’t. Sometimes there is no equivalent.

We Westerners commonly think that Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, went to a private place in the garden of Gethsemane to pray (Mt 26:36-39). Actually, none of the Gospels say the place he prayed was private or solitary: “Sit here while I go over there” (Mt 26:36); “withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them” (Lk 22:41); “he took Peter, James and John along with him,” and then “going a little farther” (Mk 14:33, 35). It is clear only that he separated from the disciples. At Passover, the garden was likely packed with people;

One likely explanation is that Luke translated (from Aramaic into Greek) what Jesus said and that Matthew translated what Jesus meant. Assuming that the first Gospel was written by the disciple Matthew, he was a native speaker of Aramaic. Matthew was already accustomed to moving between languages. Luke, a native Greek speaker, didn’t know what went without being said in the usage of Aramaic.

An absolutely delightful expression from Arkansas is, “I ain’t got a dog in that fight.” I (Randy) have used it in Florida as a powerful administrative tool to indicate that (1) the issue at hand is not an integral part of my area of responsibility; (2) this is a messy problem with a lot of upset people; and (3) I could get hurt if I get involved and I am not invested sufficiently to justify the risk. Stating this propositionally takes longer and is often less effective.

In Ezekiel 34, God describes himself as the Good Shepherd and all the Jewish leaders as bad shepherds. What is Jesus suggesting, then, when he claims, “I am the good shepherd” (Jn 10:14)? He is not just critiquing the leaders as bad. Is he using the metaphor to identify himself with God? His audience thought so. They picked up rocks to stone him “for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God” (Jn 10:33).

There is no real substitute for becoming familiar with the Bible’s original languages. But that doesn’t mean you can’t become sensitive to the difference language makes in the meantime. To do this, we offer one simple suggestion: read from a variety of translations. Translators have different goals.

Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem when they did because everybody else was going. We imagine Joseph and Mary trudging alone up to Jerusalem, in the quiet of night. Nope. They were part of two large clans—his and hers.

In antiquity, teamwork and cooperation were the norms. Paul always had a team. When he lost his first team partner, he did not journey again until he had gotten another one

Many will argue that Paul couldn’t have written certain letters because they don’t have Pauline characteristics—that is, they don’t “sound” like Paul. But if Paul regularly worked with coauthors and secretaries, if they actively contributed content and turns of phrase, then this might explain why Paul’s letters have variations in style. They bear the marks of his partners. The Spirit’s inspiration covered the entire process.

Certainly even for Westerners, the prospect of isolation because of the faith is not comforting. Yet it is in some ways natural. We are used to our decisions, and thus our conversion, being personal and private affairs.

But in non-Western cultures, group conversions—when whole families or tribes come to faith at once—are not uncommon.

“Kingdom relationships are depicted as the believer’s primary family.”[10] This was not the pattern in antiquity. Rome frowned upon claiming family ties without cause. Being family gave you obligations. Jesus and Paul’s language about church as family was radical talk and not merely cultural convention.

Many of us joke that “you can’t choose your family.” But we all know full well that we can choose our church.

If we’re not careful, our individualistic assumptions about church can lead us to think of the church as something like a health club. We’re members because we believe in the mission statement and want to be a part of the action. As long as the church provides the services I want, I’ll stick around. But when I no longer approve of the vision, or am no longer “being fed,” I’m out the door. This is not biblical Christianity. Scripture is clear that when we become Christians, we become—permanently and spiritually—a part of the church. We become part of the family of God, with all the responsibilities and expectations that word connotes in the non-Western world. We don’t choose who else is a Christian with us. But we are committed to them, bound to them by the Spirit. And we are not free to dissociate our identities from them—mainly because once we are all in Christ, our own individual identities are no longer of primary importance.

Paul asked the Corinthians: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own” (1 Cor 6:19). We typically understand the singulars and plurals in this verse backwards. In the original Greek, the you is plural and temple is singular. Paul is saying, “All of you together are a singular temple for the Holy Spirit.”

So why go to church? Why worship with a group? Because, in some way we may not fully understand, the Spirit indwells the group in a way the Spirit does not indwell the individual. We are all built together to become one, whole building: a single dwelling for his Spirit. Like it or not, we need each other. As Rodney Reeves noted, “I cannot worship God by myself.”

Associating with Christ but not his church is a distinction Jesus would never have made. In his final prayer to the Father before his crucifixion, Jesus prayed that his followers would recognize that they are eternally knit together and that their corporate testimony would win even more followers to the Way. “I do not ask on behalf of these alone,” Jesus prayed, “but for those also who believe in Me through their word”—that’s us—“that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me” (Jn

our decisions to act rightly are not necessarily made with other people in mind—to please others, for example—but on the basis of an objective and largely individual sense of right and wrong.[3]

In biblical times, it was an honor/shame world.

The suggestion is that ordinary humans do right only if others are watching.

A critical value in this sort of culture is preserving “face,” or the honor associated with one’s name. As Duane Elmer notes, the Thai word for being shamed, for losing face, literally means “to tear someone’s face off so they appear ugly before their friends and community.”

If a person from a shame culture commits a “sin,” he will not likely feel guilty about it if no one else knows, for it is the community (not the individual) that determines whether one has lost face.

in an innocence/guilt culture (which includes most Western societies), the laws of society, the rules of the church, local mores and the code of the home are all internalized in the person. The goal is that when a person breaks one of these, her or his conscience will be pricked. In fact, it is hoped that the conscience will discourage the person from breaking the rule in the first place. The battle is fought on the inside.

In an honor/shame society, such as that of the Bible and much of the non-Western world today, the driving force is to not bring shame upon yourself, your family, your church, your village, your tribe or even your faith. The determining force is the expectations of your significant others (primarily your family). Their expectations don’t override morals or right/wrong; they actually are the ethical standards.

shame is not negative in honor/shame cultures; shaming is. Technically, in these cultures, shame is a good thing: it indicates that you and your community know the proper way to behave.[12] You have a sense of shame; if you didn’t, you would have no shame. You would be shameless. This is different from being shamed.

When one is censured for not having a sense of shame, for being shameless, then one is shamed.