2020-06-22 Coffee with Chris - Culture & Christianity Part 2 Jesus wasn’t from our culture

The speaker discusses the influence of culture on our understanding of Christianity and the Bible. They emphasize that Jesus did not come from our culture and lived in a different time period. They highlight the importance of recognizing cultural differences when interpreting scripture and understanding that the Bible is primarily about God, not ourselves. The speaker encourages listeners to learn about the cultures of the Bible's writers and characters and to approach unfamiliar passages with an open mind, seeking to understand what they reveal about God. The next part of the series will focus on God's heavenly culture. Hey there and welcome to Coffee with Chris. Today is part two of me talking about culture and Christianity. Last time I talked about how culture, you know, we can tend to think of our cultures as the normal one and how that can affect our outlook in the world. But today I want to talk about culture and how it relates to the Bible and particularly Jesus. Um, so no matter where you are today, I can honestly and affirmatively say Jesus didn't live out his earthly life in your culture or mine. First, if you live in the western world like me, he definitely didn't come from our culture. Jesus was born in the first century Israel in Bethlehem, which is today in the disputed West Bank area. It's a relative term, of course, when we say the western or eastern world. You know, where I live on the west coast of Canada, it would actually be quicker to travel west to get to what we often think of as the eastern world. The fact that we denote this spot as the west and some other spot of the east shows our bias. West of what? West of Europe. Europe was once seen, probably by most Europeans, as the center of the world. We've all seen the European Jesus in ancient art. We've all seen the European Jesus in the movies. But the fact is, the culture Jesus was born into was entirely different than a European or western one. And there are many differences between what we call eastern and western cultures. And as someone from the west starting to learn more and more about eastern cultures by virtue of relationships with people from eastern cultures, I can see what I take for granted as the normal way of doing things, if not the universal or even the most popular way of seeing things. Second, Jesus walked the earth in what was an ancient culture. It was pre-internet, pre-electricity. And for some of us, it may be easier to imagine that than for others. Many of you have grown up in a time before the internet. Some of you may have even grown up without electricity in your homes. But it's doubtful that anyone watching this remembers a time before, say, cars. And yet, even something like that dramatically changed the world that we live in, in our entire culture, not just transportation, because that transportation opened up our world and how we do things, how people interact and socialize and work. So one thing that fascinates me about history is the way it's both eerily familiar and eerily otherworldly. At times, even reading the thoughts and opinions of people from my own culture, written 100 years ago, includes some foreign logic to me that is hard to relate to. And it's much harder to put ourselves in the shoes of someone from a culture that ceased to exist over 2,000 years ago. When we look at scripture, we tend to read between the lines with our own cultural perceptions and viewpoints. And we assume that the people we're reading about share our standards of values and customs. So when things in the Bible seem peculiar by our own cultural standards, we tend to gloss over, downplay, skip, or avoid these passages in the Bible. But it's important to remember that the Bible is not the story of you and me, primarily. In fact, it's ultimately not even the story of disciples, prophets, kings, or ancient Jews or Gentiles. It's the story of God. And just to exemplify this, when studying the book of John recently with our church's youth kids, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. When I read the Gospels, I tend to put myself in the disciples' shoes. I imagine what it would be like to listen to Jesus speak. I imagine myself in that position. But I noticed that our youth kids put themselves in Jesus' shoes with the questions and comments that they had. Or I guess I should say Jesus' sandals, considering his culture and time period. So the point of the Bible, though, is to understand God, which I'm so proud to see that the kids are getting that and teaching me about that by example as well. Because the point of the Bible, as I just said, is to understand God. And I think that at times we read it looking for it to tell us about ourselves. You know, we look for God's will for our lives rather than God's will, period. If you want to hear more about God's will, you know, please tune in at 7 a.m. to these coffee videos. Pastor Ralph is putting coffee videos out as well, and he'll be talking a little bit about God's will. So jump into that to hear more about that. But my point, just touching on that briefly, is I think sometimes we read the Bible looking for what it can tell us about us rather than what it can tell us about God. You know, we look to the disciples, the judges, the kings, and prophets for examples of how we can relate to God instead of looking for God and what he is doing in the story. We need to understand the context of which the Bible was written. The culture of the people, the letters and histories were written to or about. But most of all, we must recognize the Bible is written about God, who exists in a culture of his own, entirely distinct from our own culture or the ancient peoples in the Bible. Which leads me to the subject of the next part of the series I'll be doing next time on culture and Christianity, and that's God's heavenly culture. And we'll get to that next time. But until then, my thought for you today is try to learn about the cultures of the writers and characters of the Bible. And when you come across a passage that feels so unusual to your cultural sensibilities and viewpoint, just stop. Recognize that your culture and viewpoint is not the be-all and end-all, and ask the Holy Spirit to open up your eyes and your heart to the reason that the passage is in the Bible, and what it says about God. And then from there, what that says about how you can relate to God. But first and foremost, what does it say about God? Even if it seems strange to you. Anyway, I'm rooting for you guys to learn and grow in Christ. God bless.