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

by E. Randolph Richards

As we will see, it is a better method to speak of what the passage meant to the original hearers, and then to ask how that applies to us. Another way to say this is that all Bible reading is necessarily contextual. There is no purely objective biblical interpretation. This is not postmodern relativism. We believe truth is truth. But there’s no way around the fact that our cultural and historical contexts supply us with habits of mind that lead us to read the Bible differently than Christians in other cultural and historical contexts.

Christians face the unique challenge of being squeezed between conflicting mores. On one hand, Christians often adhere to a certain code of conduct without question and regard certain behaviors as essential to the well-being of both the Christian community and the world at large. On the other hand, majority Western culture has its own values that likewise go without being said and which are considered essential to human liberty and satisfaction. Thus, the church and the world often hold contradictory mores. Our options, then, are either to stubbornly resist the infiltration of a cultural more we consider antithetical to a Christian one or to compromise.

Being confronted with what others take for granted helps us identify what we take for granted. The point of collision is a priceless opportunity for learning. No one has said this better, as far as we know, than C. S. Lewis in his now-classic introduction to Athanasius’s On the Incarnation. Lewis advises readers to read at least one old book for every three new ones. Here is his reason: “Every age has its own outlook. It is especially good at seeing certain truths and especially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. . . . Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes.”[23]

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.

One practice that has been extremely useful for both of us in trying to identify with a collectivist worldview is reading fiction written by authors with a collectivist perspective.

.c1 Yay! A point and purpose for reading fiction

This can be particularly helpful if the novelists happen to be Christians; they’ll help you wrestle with new ways of understanding the Bible.

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A few years later, I discovered that students considered me a man of little faith. All I did was give them medicine! They would always pray for the student after I had left. In my worldview, we had quit praying for colds and ear infections a generation ago. We understood them, so God was no longer involved—although we never said it so crassly. This is a serious loss. We no longer had a loving Father watching over us in the night. Our point is not that there is anything faithless about taking medicine. 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.

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.

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Similarly, sermons in the United States today often have three points. It is just a custom; we all know that.

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What went without being said in Paul’s day was that it is not enough to remove vices; one must acquire virtues. The clothing metaphor indicates that. Once you cast off the vices, you didn’t want to stand around naked! Put on virtues. Yet Westerners tend to restrict the Christian life to avoiding vices.

beware of thinking of the Bible in terms of “what this means to me.” Remember, the Bible means what it means. When we’re talking about the relevance of the Bible in our personal lives, we should ask, “How does this apply to me?” Remember, too, that you should try to answer the question “What did this passage mean to the original audience?” before asking, “How does this passage apply to me?”