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

by E. Randolph Richards

Scholars generally agree that the Holy Spirit convicted biblical characters through external, not internal, voices.

David was not where he was supposed to be. He was lounging at the palace, while Joab was doing the kingly role of leading the army. (Joab’s role will come up again.) Already the issue of honor and shame is introduced. David is not acting honorably as king.

We may assume Bathsheba was aware that her rooftop was visible from the palace, notably from the king’s balcony.

We think the story is told in a way to imply she intended to be seen by the king.

The servant responded with a question because it would shame the king for a servant to know something that the king doesn’t know. So he informs the king by posing a question, giving David the opportunity to answer, “That’s correct.” Everyone saves face.

David isn’t interested in acquiring Bathsheba as a wife or concubine; he wants to save face.

the narrator wants us to know that the real conflict is between David and Uriah. The story quits referring to her as “Bathsheba” and switches to “the wife of Uriah”

In fact, it is quite possible that the narrator never tells us her name. Bathsheba means “daughter of an oath” or probably “daughter of Sheba.”

Now, we may not know why he sent for Uriah, but everyone else would have. David is asking Uriah to let him off the hook. If Uriah comes home and spends one night with his wife, then the baby is “technically” Uriah’s, even though everyone knows otherwise. Honor would be restored (among the men).

It is quite likely that Uriah had already heard the gossip by the time he returned home.

Uriah’s reason for sleeping at the palace entrance was to make a public statement. Everyone, including David, knows now that Uriah is not letting David off the hook.

The very act of a mere mercenary soldier—remember, Uriah is not an Israelite—having a second audience with the king is a veiled threat.

Nicodemus came at night because he didn’t want his question misunderstood. He was looking for answers from Jesus, not honor. But public questions were contests. The winner was determined by the audience, who represented the community. If you silenced your opponent, you gained honor and they lost some. Even though scholars often refer to this as the “honor game,” don’t underestimate its seriousness. As we mentioned above, this is why the Jewish officials killed Jesus. They had been challenging Jesus publicly (Mt 12:1-7, for example), and every time they “lost,” they lost honor.

Jesus won. The leaders then decide to kill Jesus. Honor is at stake here. They cannot just go down to the assassin’s booth at the market. Sticking a knife in Jesus in some Jerusalem alley would make him a martyr. They need to publicly disgrace Jesus in order to get their honor back. They need him executed as a criminal.

We sometimes see “sin” where the narrator did not intend it—or worse, we don’t see “sin” when the narrator was waving it in front of our faces.

The word worthy should alert us that honor/shame language is being used. In the verses that follow, Paul mentions specific behaviors that fall in this category. But his point is to identify righteousness as conformity to the expectations of God’s community. The thought that should guide our conduct is that we are representatives of both Christ and the community that bears his name. As such, we must be careful to live in such a way that brings honor, and not shame, on Christ’s name and his family.

We deceive ourselves when we think sin is individual and independent of a community’s honor.

Sin is corporate; it permeates the whole body. We don’t like to think that way, but it’s true. It leavens the whole lump and the honor of us all is at stake.

more often than not the biblical writers are describing kairos, not chronos

it appears Joseph and Mary may have remained in Bethlehem for nearly two years. When the wise men arrived, they went to a house where the toddler Jesus and his parents were living

Because we in the United States fret over time, we figure God does, too. God must be watching his watch, checking the time until the end of time.

It will come at the right “time” (kairos not chronos), under the right conditions and in the appropriate season. The day of the Lord will occur when God is ready.

Because Westerners are so interested in time, we tend to find a lot of significance in the order of events in Scripture. When we study the life of Jesus, we often want a chronology of his ministry. When something occurred matters to us.

We seem to assume that because the biblical stories are not in chronological order, they are in the wrong order.

the Gospel writers often composed their stories more like Indonesian storytellers than like Western historians. The chronological sequence is often unimportant.

Since Luke uses references to the temple as an organizing theme in his Gospel, for example, the “correct” sequence for Luke is the one that ends where Jesus stood on the pinnacle of the temple and was urged to jump (Lk 4:9).

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.) For Matthew, the “correct” sequence is the one that has the crescendo event on a mountain, w...

the biblical authors were intentional about the sequence in which they presented events, even if they weren’t preoccupied with historical, chronological order. We Westerners can focus so much on the time (chronology) that we miss the timing (the meaning of the sequence) in a biblical passage.

Mark likes this storytelling method. He tells us that Jairus comes to request healing for his daughter (Mk 5:22-24). Jesus agrees. On their way to Jairus’s home, Jesus heals a woman who touched the hem of his cloak (Mk 5:25-34). Only after Jairus’s daughter has died does Jesus heal her (Mk 5:35-43). 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.

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?

Westerners increasingly assumed that God no longer tampered with the world he had made. He was a master watchmaker who skillfully creates a quality timepiece, winds it up and then lets it run on its own. No longer was God assumed to be the sustainer and maintainer of the universe.

When we cannot determine how to apply a biblical law or promise to everyone, we declare it to be “cultural” and thus flexible in application.

First, the patron-client relationship may have been a major challenge for Paul. How could Paul accept gifts, for example, without becoming someone’s client?[6]

It appears that on several occasions Paul did not want to depend upon gifts from the church in Corinth because of the massive influence a patron could exert. So he earned his own living instead

Words we usually consider particularly Christian terms—grace and faith—were common parlance before Paul commandeered them. The undeserved gifts of assistance the patron offered were commonly called charis (“grace” and “gift”).[8] The loyalty the client offered the patron in response was called pistis (“faith” and “faithfulness”).[9]

In the ancient world, rules were not expected to apply 100 percent of the time. Israel did not keep the rules and God complained about it, but we often gloss over the reality that the rules had been broken for centuries. The covenant, however, was broken only when it became clear that the relationship was over (e.g., Hos 1:9). The end came when the relationship, not the rules, was broken.

Rather than an image of a contract or a courtroom, the Christian life is more helpfully viewed as a journey along a road (a hodos, a “way”), to use Jesus’ image.

In the West, rules must apply to everyone, and they must apply all the time. In the ancient world, rules did not seem to require such universal compliance.

Once we understood something about how lightning works, we stopped considering it supernatural. Lightning never changed. But something serious happened: God quit having a role in lightning, as far as we were concerned. Once we understand a bit about how something works, we shove the divine out of

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.

we have to learn to identify when the Bible is prioritizing relationship instead of rules or laws. One way to do this is to pay attention to the motivation or rationale a biblical writer offers for a commandment.

When the “me generation” became Christians, we baptized this egocentrism. We now felt guilty for spending all our money on ourselves. So we gave it to the church. Mainly to our own local church. The church growth (megachurch) movement was led by baby boomers and populated with the “me generation.” We built modern cathedrals with children’s ministry spaces that Disney would covet. We still gave (and give) money to missions, but preferably for a trip that includes me. We sing the (beautiful) praise chorus, “It’s all about you, Jesus.” Who are we kidding? It’s all about Jesus—as long as it’s in a service I like, in a building I like, with people I like, with music I like, for a length of time I like. At some point in this generation, “Take up your cross and follow me” changed into, “Come to Jesus and he’ll make your life better.”