| renewal wrote: | Let me understand something..
You are saying that the culture had nothing to do with anything at all?
If so, the way things worked in those times are not important to what is taking place?
Then how does one explain certain actions taken by the people involved?
For example. when Mary was with child Joseph wanted to put her away privily.
Matt 1:19 relates that fact..Without knowing the way things worked in those days, a person would not know what that means.
This is not for just good preaching it is vital to clear understanding...
You can disregard these things and miss much..
Your choice of course.. |
Good post.
We do need to understand culture. To understand the verse you mention, we'd need to understand that a man who wants to put away his betrothed in Jewish culture/law would have to give her a certificate of divorce, even if they hadn't yet had the wedding party or had sex yet.
What constitutes men's clothes and women's clothes is dependent on culture. If fashion changed a lot between 1300 BC and 1 AD, then culture would have been an issue in interpreting the law. If white make-up was a female thing in the 1st century, but not when Moses gave the law, then Jews could have applied the law to their culture and taught against men wearing white make-up.
But it would have been totally different to do away with the commandment and say, "The Lord just gave that commandment for a cultural reason in 1300 BC. Worshippers of Baal would probably dress like women back then. And they don't do that anymore, so all the guys can wear white make-up and lip stick and be drag queens now."
That's the 'culture' excuse approach to the New Testament I object to. One of the contemporary arguments is that wives had to submit to their husbands in the first century because women were treated like chattle. But they aren't now, and so, the argument goes, they don't have to submit. I haven't read that specific argument on here, but that's the sort of thing I'm talking about. That's the sort of approach to 'culture' as an excuse to do away with the word of God that concerns me.
Homosexual apologists will argue that in the time of Moses, gay prostitutes were involved in idolatry, and that therefore the commands only apply to idolatrous prostitution. They will claim that in Paul's culture, Paul was only familiar with child molestation and idolatry, not the type of gay lifestyles they live, and argue that the scriptures no longer apply because the culture has changed. That's the sort of approach to 'culture' as an excuse to do away with the word of God that concerns me.
One could argue that 'Thou shalt not kill' does not apply to school shootings. After all, in the culture of 1300 BC, killing was done with stones, fists, arrows, blunt instruments, sharp instruments, poison, rocks, drowning, and pushing people off of cliffs. But firearms had not been invented yet. So in that culture, killing wasn't done with firearms. Therefore, the culture was different. So does that make it okay to shoot someone to death? They didn't have bombs or airplanes they could fly into buildings back then. If we applied the liberal cultural-excuse reasoning to murder, we could try to justify that as well.
I've taken a bit of flack for considering 'culture' as an excuse to do away with the teaching of scripture. I appreciate different cultures. I've studied Cross-Cultural Psychology and I'll probably do some academic publishing that makes use of these theories.
As far as the Bible and our faith is concerned, I agree with you that we need to understand culture to understand scripture in context. Understanding the differences between culture in Biblical times and now to understand how to apply scripture.
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3/28/16 1:46 pm
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When Culture Matters In Interpreting Scripture
