In Genesis 11, God scatters people who had one language, one common speech. At Pentecost, that same list of people understands each other thanks to the Holy Spirit. The healing is underway. When God brings about the New Heaven and the New Earth, “every tribe, nation and tongue” will worship together. It’s the completion of the trajectory of unity, post-Tower of Babel.
One of the things I appreciate about being able to teach at Vida220 in Costa Rica is how I get to experience a glimpse of this unity in the midst of national diversity. At one point, we had people from 7 countries together in a worship service. We sang in Spanish, English and something else (I think it was a language spoken in Belize, though the students from Belize spoke English as their first language).
Then there are the other differences that are common experience: socio-economic backgrounds, gender, age (students can range from late teens to their thirties), family of origin experiences, politics, theological/church background…the list is long. And they are going to live in close quarters for 9 months, first to study and then to go out in smaller teams.
I am asked to give the students tools for reading the Bible. Sometimes in previous years, the differences between myself and the students and between the students felt like a barrier to overcome. Translation can be tricky; images I use and pop cultural references I want to make might land with half the group. Their different church backgrounds (or lack of church background) meant I didn’t know how familiar everyone was with the Bible, and I didn’t know when I might be stepping into theological minefields without knowing it.
This year, I realized I had begun to see this diversity not as a barrier but as a gift. So I changed the approach so that we spent the week practicing how to study the Bible together, pulling from each other’s diversity of theological background and life experience to help the Bible reveal a richness of God’s revelation in ways the students would not have thought of on their own.
I want to show you this morning what the beginning of that process looked like, then talk a bit about why it’s just as important for us here, in this church, with a group whose differences might be mostly of a different nature but remain a very real thing that can either be a barrier to our fellowship or - by the grace of God - an opportunity to fellowship more deeply. We started with a list of questions:
· What are God’s attributes? Which is the primary one? Which one amazes you the most?
· Do you think of people as primarily from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7) or created a little lower than the angels (Hebrews 2:7)?
· Which influences your view of government more: Paul’s teaching of respectful obedience to God’s chosen leaders, or the resistance to the dragon of Exodus (Pharaoh) and the Beast of Revelation (Roman emperors)?
· Does God completely, partially, or never determine what we do?
· Does God love everyone or only some?
· The prophets constantly challenged cultures around Israel; Paul said, “it’s not for me to judge those outside the church.” (1 Corinthians 5:12) Which approach resonates the most with you?
· Which atonement theory best captures what happened on the cross?
1. Ransom (Adam and Eve basically sold humanity to the Devil. On the cross, God paid the Devil a ransom to free us from the Devil's clutches.)
2. Substitution (Jesus made satisfaction for humankind's disobedience through his own obedience, even unto death.)
3. Christus Victor (On the cross, Jesus was victorious over the powers which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death, and the devil.)
4. Moral Influence (Jesus died as the demonstration of God's love in order to change the hearts and minds of the sinners and shows us how to live.)
5. Recapitulation (Jesus, the new and perfect Adam (human), succeeds where the first Adam failed and makes eternal life possible.)
6. Penal Substitution (Jesus was punished – penalized – as a substitute for sinners, thus satisfying the demands of God’s justice.)
7. Scapegoat (Jesus takes the blame and punishment of our sin upon himself and becomes the ‘scapegoat’ so we can be free from the penalty of our sins.)
8. Governmental (Jesus didn’t pay the exact punishment of our total sins. Instead, God publicly demonstrated his displeasure with sin through the suffering of his own sinless and obedient Son as an act of atonement.)
We did not get through this whole list. We ended up only having time to focus on three or four because we had such good discussion. The point of this particular exercise wasn’t to figure out who was right and who was wrong; the goal was to show how we often have a view of God, humanity or just life crafted by the lenses through which we study Scripture. It turns out that lenses that might be good in helping clarify some things might distort other things. Think, perhaps of reading glasses. They help clarify the words right in front of you as your reading a book traveling down the interstate. Those same glasses will make the messages on the billboards really hard to see well. This is true of interpretive lenses as well.
I was reading this week how the Hebrew word for God in the Tower of Babel narrative highlights that God is the Merciful One. What if we read that story and said “The Merciful One” every time the text says “God”? How might that change our view not only of what God is doing in that story but what God is like in the story?
Why does the book of Judges record the ongoing failure of Israel’s judges? Is it to show us humanity is prone to sin and serve as a warning? Is it to reveal a God who never gave up on His people no matter how many times they failed, and so serve a story of hope?
So, what do we do to avoid settling for less than the pursuit of the fullness of God and His revelation to us? One way is to share glasses. We introduce to others what helps us see well, and we welcome what has helped them to see well. Together, we gain clarity as we look at truth. Together, we learn far more than we learn alone. I’ll use on example from the list, the one about God’s attributes.
Think of God as a diamond with dozens of facets on the side. Think of those facets as attributes of God, or maybe as a window with which to look into that diamond and see that part of God, of a window from which that attribute of God shines out more brightly than the rest. Please don’t build a theology of God’s nature out of this analogy. All analogies about God have problems.
Probably all of are raised to turn that diamond in such a way that certain characteristics of God stand out more than others. They get more focus. Now, are they all attributes of God? Absolutely. They are all good. But if we don’t see the fullness of God’s attributes, we are going to get things wrong when we think about what God is like.
For that matter, what if God only has one attribute – love? (This is the Eastern Orthodox position). What if all those attributes are adjectives that describe his love: just love, merciful love, etc? How might that change how we see God as we read the Bible?
Once the students started listing the attributes they thought were primary or amazed them the most, then we started talking. Why that one? Why not that one? It turns out church background, family of origin, and life experience had a lot to do with it. Depending on how life has been, we notice and cling to different areas of Scripture or attributes of God. Depending on how life has been, we can build theologies that confirm what we want to be true or deny what we want to be untrue.
The students were better together. Together, they saw more. They thought with more breadth and depth. They learned more about God as they learned more about each other, because God’s Spirit worked in all of them in different, beautiful ways.
I appreciated how Pat showed God’s faithfulness two Sundays ago while pulling from stories in which the consistency of human failure can overshadow the faithfulness of God if we aren’t careful. We must see both to appreciate the story the Bible is telling us about God and humanity.
The whole point was to leverage that group’s diversity to dig more deeply into Scripture. The student who loved God’s power needed to talk with the student who loved God’s gentleness so they both see how God is both. The student who loves God’s justice needed to talk with the student who loves God mercy so they both see how God is both. The student who loves a God who destroyed an Egyptian army and thundered on the mountain needs to get to know why that other student clings to a picture of God as a mother hen protecting her chicks, or of a whispering God who tells Elijah to take a nap and eat something.
And – as you have probably noticed by now - in the process of enriching their view of God and hearing why certain attributes stand out, they get to know each other. Communion with God and each other. A taste of what Eden was meant to be, and what the New Heaven and Earth will one day be.
All that was to make a simple point: all language has a context and a subtext. Here’s what I mean.
Context: The context is what goes with the text (“con” = “with”). It’s our social ecosystem. It requires a knowledge of current events.
“The Lions destroyed the Rams yesterday.”
“That sounds worse than a Diddy party.”
Subtext: The subtext is what is under the text (“sub” = “under”) Think of hyperlinks in an online article. It requires knowledge of historical background.
“That sailor is going to Davey Jones’ locker if he’s not careful.”
“That sounds like a deal somebody made at a crossroads in Georgia.”
When the students were discussing the previous topics, they were thinking about God and the Bible through the context in which they were raised, which was filled with the subtext of historical influences in their family, church and culture. To really understand each other, they were going to need to get to know the other person to really understand what is being communicated, and with what motivation, and towards what ends.
This is true of all conversation. Sometimes it’s obvious, like when I sit down to a stranger at the airport and hear them say to someone on the phone, “And that’s why you should never use Bluesky around food that slaps at Piggly Wiggly, no cap.” Okay, I am going to need some more information.
The Bible is not exempted from this principle. It’s one reason why I tell the students to never read a Bible verse. Read the paragraph, the chapter, the book, in the context of the whole Bible. When I told the students not to “cherry pick” Bible verses, the Latin students had no idea what I meant. Case in point. They needed context to understand what that meant.
When we read the Bible, we want to know the context and the subtext of the original audience. What connections did they make? What history did they share that hyperlinked them to ideas and events? What was their equivalent of slang terms and colloquialisms? How can we hear what they heard and understand what they understood?
Well, this led to a discussion about the differences between Western and Eastern thinking, two different ways of thinking that are not right vs. wrong, they are just different.[1] And we need to understand that difference to better understand what biblical writers are trying to communicate. Let’s define terms first.
Western: the Greek and Roman way of thinking, of which modern Western thinking is the legacy (think of Europe and North America as primary examples).
Eastern: the Ancient Near East way of thinking, which can still be found in Judaism and many Middle Eastern, Oriental and African countries.
Now, some examples.
Western: likes definitions, prose, outlines, lists, and bullet points. See this list as an example J
Eastern: prefers poetry and imagery and symbolism.
“What are the attributes of God? What is God like?”
Western: “God is omniscient, omnipresent, sovereign, loving etc.”
Eastern: “God is a fortress, a shepherd. God is an eagle’s wings.”
Western: focused on the nature of the being of God. What or who is this God? What is he like?
Eastern: focused on the nature of the relationship, because they expect to learn the answer to those questions through relationship.
For example, the Western mind wants to know the science of how creation happened. The Easterner is much more interested in how God related with creation.
Western: eternal life is something that starts at an chronological point in time, a different kind of life that starts when this world is over.
Eastern: eternal life starts in this world, and is more about a particular kind of life then a chronological point in time. When you are living in harmony with God, you have entered eternal life that will endure forever. The word in the Hebrew is olam haba, or in Greek, aion zoe (the phrase zoe aioinios shows up a lot in Jesus’ teaching).
Western: tends to think about the implications of biblical teaching individually.
Eastern: tends to think about the implications for the community.
If you were to talk to NT Greeks about sin, they would probably start thinking about their own sins as an individual. A NT Jewish convert was more likely focused on all the ways the community had sinned, and their contribution to that problem. (It’s one reason some people are more comfortable talking about “systemic sins” – think “sins of the community.”) Once again, this is not right and wrong thinking. It’s different thinking. Both/and.
Western: faith is centered around and in some ways measured by adherence to creeds, and doctrines, and belief statements.
Eastern: faith is centered around and measured by relationship with God. They’re less interested in defining what that looks like and more interested in what they and others experience in their walk with God (which certainly includes what is revealed in Scripture as the measure/standard).
Western: Truth is timeless and unchanging, and either have it or you don’t. Once something is “known” about God, for example, any thoughts that you should change your view feels like failure at best and flirting with heresy at worst.
Eastern: truth is timeless and unchanging, but our experience of and understanding of truth is dynamic and unfolding; we learn more and more about this truth. #diamond The Easterner is less concerned about being “right” and more concerned about being “righter” as life goes on. There is a lot more room for disagreement and mystery.
Western: a confusing or obscure passage of Scripture is cause for frustration, worry about what they are missing, or deep concern that they could be wrong.
Eastern: a confusing or obscure passage of Scripture is cause for excitement because they have more to learn. They look forward to digging yet again into God’s word until God reveals more of His truth to them.
* * * * *
The Bible was written thousands of years ago in language different from English. The translation needed is more than just the words: it’s the culture, the mindset, the moral, social and religious ecosystem in which the people lived and wrote.
If that makes it sound like we have our work cut out for us, well, we do J It’s exciting! It means the Bible is not a stale revelation, exegeted, pulled apart and analyzed to death. It’s not a stagnant pool of water that has nothing moving. It’s like living water, full of energy and life, moving us always deeper into the truth God inspired the biblical writers to record. It’s full of treasure for which we will have to dig. That will be hard but worth it, because the more treasure we find, the more our lives are enriched.
This is how I summarized how to read the Bible.
“With humility (because we don’t know everything), with curiosity (about context and subtext), and in community (because there is godly wisdom in righteous - committed to being right with God and others - diversity).”
Our differences, our diverse life experiences here at CLG, might not look just like the one the students were navigating, but we have them, loads of them, right here in our church: non-churched and otherly-churched; poverty and wealth and everything in between; significantly different church backgrounds; educational backgrounds; significant trauma history and blessedly safe history; families of origin that set us up for failure or success, and often a little of both; different political ecosystems which shaped even our emotional views of our party and the other parties; church histories that make it easy to come to church or hard to come to church just because it’s a church; a range of struggles with mental, emotional and physical health. The list goes on and one.
And these differences are either hurdles to overcome or opportunities to embrace. Maybe – almost certainly? - a little of both. I hope this draws out of us:
Humility (we keep learning that we don’t know everything, and some things we thought we knew correctly, we didn’t)
Curiosity (we are not threatened by thinking about God, His Word, or life in different ways, because there is always more to learn)
Community (because there is godly wisdom in righteous diversity of those committed to being right with God and others)
___________________________________________________________________________________
[1] I am heavily indebted to Marty Solomon’s teaching and writing on these differences. See bemadiscipleship.com