Culture: Who are you? Who were they? Why does it matter?

From: Preserving Bible Times: The Bible Its Land and Culture, Session 3: https://mailchi.mp/preservingbibletimes/cultural-context

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15, ESV).

Who are you? It is a complicated question. Equally complicated is the question, "Who were they?" when referring to the people of the Bible. If we are to understand the rich meaning of the scriptures, we must understand who the people of the Bible were. When we consider this question, what we are really asking about is culture.

The word culture is derived from the Latin cultura, meaning "to cultivate.” To understand culture, it requires an understanding of language and knowledge differences, and perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, which are formed through patterns of human activity and symbolic structures, which give these activities significance, meaning, and importance.

Culture can be defined as ways of life, which include the arts, beliefs, and institutions that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society” and includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, art, norms of behavior, such as law and morality, and systems of belief (Cultural Awareness).

In “The Case for Context,” Doug Greenwold wrote about the importance of understanding the religious cultural context. Doug emphasized that the religious culture included “ceremonial laws, feasts, issues of ritual purification, the Sabbath, the rabbi/disciple dynamic and how disciples were ‘made,’ as well as the corruption of temple laws, worship, and temple leadership” (The Case for Context). We cannot separate culture from rightly understanding and applying a Biblical text. We must rightly understand the cultural context to rightly understand and apply the Bible.

As Dr. Randall Smith said it, “The Bible writers assumed their readers lived when, where and how they did. Thus, they had no need to explain what everyone knew to be true. They just assumed you would know.” So unless we do the hard work of Biblical contextual exegesis, we will not be able to “rightly handling the word of truth” as someone who “lived when, where and how they did” (2 Timothy 2:15b, ESV).

May we rightly handle the word of truth.

A Prayer Before the Reading of Scripture: “Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your Holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (#101., Book of Common Prayer, 2019).

From: Preserving Bible Times: The Bible Its Land and Culture, Session 3: https://mailchi.mp/preservingbibletimes/cultural-context