Rightly Understanding God’s Word: Bible Background (Part 1 of 2), by Craig S. Keener
In such cases, do we follow Paul’s specific example for his culture, or do we follow the transcultural principles Paul used to make a specific case for a specific culture? This is why it is so important for us to take into account cultural background and read Scripture consistently in light of it: If God inspired the writers to address their own culture in a particular way, how would they have addressed our culture today? Which are the principles and which are the specific examples that illustrated those principles in the situations the biblical writers addressed?
Jesus interpreted Scripture this way. The Pharisees were interested in detailed regulations, but Jesus was more interested in the principles (Matt 12:7). Jesus took into account the human reasons some Scriptures were given: some things God permitted because of the hardness of their hearts (Mk 10:5), but their real goal should be to understand God’s ideal purposes (Mk 10:6-9). They cited a law; he cited a story. All Scripture is inspired and useful for teaching (2 Tim 3:16), so the issue is not that one kind of writing is more useful than another. The issue is that they saw only details, whereas Jesus looked for the reasons for the details. Jesus claimed that what mattered most was justice, mercy and faith (Matt 23:23)–the heart of God’s word. Paul in the same way disagreed with his contemporaries on what was fundamental, arguing that it is God’s own power that saves us, not secondary issues like circumcision or food laws. This method of interpretation requires us to keep central what matters most (the gospel and obedience to God’s will), rather than becoming legalistic on secondary matters that could distract us from the heart of the gospel.
Much of the New Testament consists simply of examples how to relate the basic message of the gospel to various concrete historical situations and challenges. We must likewise learn how to relate the central message of Christ to our various situations today, never losing sight of what is the central principle and what are simply the cultural expressions. Many early missionaries came with a gospel contextualized for their own culture, say American or European versions of Christianity. Usually they remained largely faithful to the Bible, but they often failed to discern the difference between the Bible’s actual teaching and the way they had applied it for the issues that confronted their particular cultures. Thus they sometimes forced African Christians to adopt western music styles, clothing styles, wedding ceremony styles, and so forth because they had assumed these customs to be Christian. Today we know better, and today we must avoid making the same mistake. We should be able to distinguish between the Bible’s universal principles and how it applied those principles in the cultures it addressed. (Again, we affirm that all Scripture is God’s message. But it was first God’s message to the original cultures to which God sent it, so for us to hear it properly today we must take into account how God related it to those cultures.) Likewise, we must distinguish between what the Bible teaches for all cultures and how we have applied it specifically to the situations we must address.
Category: Biblical Studies, Fall 2004, Pneuma Review
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