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April 21 - May 11, 2020
hectic,
Agitado
concrete, propositional language is better than ambiguous, metaphorical language is just one more thing about language that goes without being said in the West.
Because we are somewhat uncomfortable with the ambiguity of metaphors, we tend to distill propositions out of them. We want to know what they mean, in categorical terms. A philosophical description of God (“omnipresent”) is better than an anthropomorphic one (“his eyes roam to and fro throughout the land”).
The biblical writers didn’t make the distinctions we make regarding when metaphorical and potentially ambiguous language is appropriate.
Language behaves differently in different literary genres.
in language: the game determines the rules.
In one historical text, we are told that the Lord “drove the sea back with a strong east wind” until it was divided, but in the subsequent song, we are told, “By the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up.
The surging waters stood up like a wall; the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea” (Ex 14:21; 15:8). These statements do not contradict each other; the game has simply determined the rules.
when we say the game determines the rules, we are saying that genre influences how something is to be understood.
If you are told a biblical book is in the apocalyptic genre, you know before you even open it that there will be trumpets, plagues, stars, books, strange animals and lots and lots of numbers.
prowess.
Proezas
Iain McGilchrist points out; the “point of a metaphor is to bring together the whole of one thing with the whole of another, so that each is looked at in a different light.”[15]
Time and time again, the biblical writers use metaphors to connect central truths in Scripture. One of the most famous and enduring images of God is as shepherd (Ps 23, for example).
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.
The metaphor is not just a frilly package. In this case, the package is actually the bridge connecting all these ideas. Real misunderstanding is at stake.
Classical liberal theologians of the nineteenth century argued that Jesus never claimed to be divine. They missed the crucial point that Jesus made important truth claims—including being God incarnate—through his use of metaphorical language.
The prophet Isaiah sings the “song of the vineyard,” a lament of the unfaithfulness and unrighteousness of the pe...
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Combining the vineyard metaphor popular with Isaiah and the prophets and another image—“the stone the builders rejected”—from Psalm 118:22, Jesus explains in no uncertain terms that he is God’s chosen son sent to redeem God’s vineyard, Israel.
Jesus’ listeners would have recognized immediately that he was drawing together these different strands of Scripture and that they were at risk of sharing the punishment Isaiah pronounced for the unfaithful.[17]
Serious misunderstanding can occur when we fail to recognize all that goes without being said about language and how we use it. There is no real substitute for becoming familiar with the Bible’s original languages.
read from a variety of translations.
some translations emphasize getting the original languages right, while others emphasize getting the contemporary languages right.
How might Job’s experience help us face life, since we also are rarely told by God why things happen?
Is it possible that direct statements of propositional truth aren’t as good as we think? Describe what you might say to a friend in a similar situation.
Describe how you would explain to a nonbelieving friend the concept of “The Lord is my shepherd” (Ps 23:1).
it is the idea of eternal reward presented to them in individualistic terms. You (as an individual) will go somewhere else when you die, alienated from your ancestors and from your living relatives who have not been allowed access to this paradise. For Khmus people, and many others in the world, their first reaction to the idea of spending eternity in heaven is, “What? And leave my family?”
Over the centuries, Christians gradually adopted this way of thinking. At death we “cross over” to heaven.
After the Reformation, hymn writers commandeered the Exodus story of Joshua leading the people of Israel into Canaan and mixed it with the Greek myth of crossing the River Styx. “Crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land” became an image of the migration of the Christian soul to heaven.
The Khmus tribesperson, for whom leaving his or her tribal home is a terrifying thought, would like the biblical image better: God brings his kingdom here.
The New Jerusalem descends down to our current home: “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them” (Rev 21:3).
Western individualism affects more than just our view of eternity.
dismayed.
Consternado
I was saving time. He was saving jobs. I was thinking about the situation from my individual point of view. He was thinking of the group. For me, it was an economics problem and certainly had nothing to do with moral right or wrong. I obviously was not even thinking of the other people involved. He thought I should be ashamed.
chapter four, we talk about the differences between collectivistic and individualistic cultures.
chapter five, we talk about the values of honor and shame.
chapter six, we address the tricky co...
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For all of us as readers, this is where serious misreading of Scripture can occur.
Individualism and Collectivism
In The Samurai, Japanese Catholic novelist Shusaku Endo explores some of the crosscultural challenges that made the Japanese slow to adopt the Christian faith.
For some, maintaining individual choice is more important than improving safety and education.
Collectivist cultures are very different indeed.
In a collectivist culture, the most important entity is the community—the family, the tribe or the country—and not the individual.[3]
A person’s identity comes not from distinguishing himself from the community, but in knowing and faithfully fulfilling his place.
Rather, members of collectivist cultures make decisions based on the counsel of elders—parents, aunts or uncles. The highest goal and virtue in this sort of culture is supporting the community. This makes people happy (makarios).
In individualist cultures, people marry for “love” (or at least that’s what we call it). What we mean is that the only person who decides whom I should marry is me.
Things are not so simple in a collectivist culture. Arranged marriages are much more common in collectivist cultures, because it goes without saying that, in this most important of decisions, the community should decide what’s best for the young people.
meddling.
Intromisión
For Indonesians, it seems unfair to leave an individual in a situation in which his or her only real protection is willpower.
The challenge is that the more you like someone, the less restraining your willpower becomes.
What is Christian community for, they ask, if not to protect each other? Indonesian Christian teens, for their part, have told me (and I am inclined to believe them) that they are relieved that someone else is responsible for protecting them.
