11.20.25 ~ Cultural Context
Good morning!
The day of Thanksgiving is quickly approaching and the opportunity to give thanks is before us once again (1 Thess. 5:18)! Now the hearts of many, especially the commercial world, turn towards Christmas. As with everything else in life, context is the key to good understanding.
Because we live in the present, we don't often consider the context, the origin of something; only what it means to me now. Why should we, right? After all, Christmas is no longer the Roman, pagan, violent, inhumane celebration it once was. It no longer calls forth images of the birth of pagan deities. It’s just a Christian tradition, one that has been usurped by the retailers and the party-goers so to strip it of even the Christian claims.
I was meditating in Psalm 104:3 this morning. I thought to myself, is this just KJV poetry or is there more to the idea of God laying the beams of His chambers in the waters! Who makes the clouds His chariot! Who walks upon the wings of the wind!
Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great; you art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coversHimself with light as with a garment: who stretches out the heavens like a curtain: Who lays the beams of his chambers in the waters: who makes the clouds His chariot: who walks upon the wings of the wind: Who makes His angels spirits; His ministers a flaming fire: (Psa 104:1-4)
Whether it's the flat earth concept, the creation story, the global flood, the trinity theology, or any verse old or new, no verse, not a single one, comes to us without a cultural context. Genesis-Deuteronomy was written for a people that were recently freed from bondage in Egypt. Its images and metaphors are filled with ancient Egyptian thinking and tribal identity. Kings and Chronicles come with the culture of Israel in trouble with pagan worship and pagan empires. The story of Ruth can't be understood without a knowledge of Lot and Tamar. The Psalms are no different. Whenever we turn to the words of God, we encounter the thoughts of men. God comes to us in human clothes and unless we understand the cultural perspective of the authors, we can't understand what they intended to communicate...no wonder we have over 42,000 different denominations in evangelical Christianity alone; let alone every splinter group in the Hebraic community!
As I was sharing in the hardware store yesterday, you can't read any Scripture as though it's written to you. It wasn't written to you. It was written for your benefit, but not to you (i.e. to the saints which are at Ephesus...to the church of God at Corinth...). The Spirit can give myriads of application, but only diligent study is going to reveal the author's intent to the story line.
Consider David’s declaration, here in Psa. 104! Where's he getting this imagery from? David's not giving us a scientific view of God's spiritual domain, he's writing with the culture of his time. It doesn’t mean it isn’t what God wanted. It just means that the text comes with a culture. All of the texts come this way; as we displayed the other night with Psalm 23. If we (speaking of me, myself and I :-) remembered these simple principles of understanding, we'd experience much less confusion.
Christmas is another cultural image of the day. It used to mean one thing, now it means something else. If you don’t know the history of the idea, you really don’t know much more than the tradition you've inherited. That’s perfectly alright, if that’s all you want to know. But it ignores the evidence, just as ignoring the mythology of David’s time distorts David’s words. So today, as the world gets ready for Christmas, remember this: ideas have a history. To know what an idea really means is to know its history and its cultural context. Once you know the context you can determine if it's something you want to identify with.
Hanukkah is coming up. Where we might think it's only a Jewish celebration back to the Maccabees, that mindset would ignore the burning bush (Ex. 3) or the instructions in Leviticus 23 or the prophetic statements in Haggai. The cultural context of that event is much deeper than celebrating a little oil lasting for eight days (a traditional idea with no evidence).
We all celebrate what we are informed about and, more times than not, criticize what we are not informed about. Yes, confirmation bias runs rampant and we believe what we want to believe.
In this week's Torah portion, Toldot/generations, we have the identity of the flesh and spirit revealed through Esau and Jacob. The story gets convoluted at times, but through its connection to Abraham and understanding the context of love, hope, devotion, overcoming...the story leaves the realm of deception to one of holiness and obtaining the favor of God. On Friday night's zoom call, we'll dig deeper so we have some context to conform our 21st century lives too!
Everything in life is context. May this winter season manifest the ancient context of light in more ways than one (Matt. 5:13-16)!
Another contextual day is coming, Shabbat. Keep the covenant with your God, seed of Abraham :-)
Shalom,
Alan
Because we live in the present, we don't often consider the context, the origin of something; only what it means to me now. Why should we, right? After all, Christmas is no longer the Roman, pagan, violent, inhumane celebration it once was. It no longer calls forth images of the birth of pagan deities. It’s just a Christian tradition, one that has been usurped by the retailers and the party-goers so to strip it of even the Christian claims.
I was meditating in Psalm 104:3 this morning. I thought to myself, is this just KJV poetry or is there more to the idea of God laying the beams of His chambers in the waters! Who makes the clouds His chariot! Who walks upon the wings of the wind!
Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great; you art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coversHimself with light as with a garment: who stretches out the heavens like a curtain: Who lays the beams of his chambers in the waters: who makes the clouds His chariot: who walks upon the wings of the wind: Who makes His angels spirits; His ministers a flaming fire: (Psa 104:1-4)
Whether it's the flat earth concept, the creation story, the global flood, the trinity theology, or any verse old or new, no verse, not a single one, comes to us without a cultural context. Genesis-Deuteronomy was written for a people that were recently freed from bondage in Egypt. Its images and metaphors are filled with ancient Egyptian thinking and tribal identity. Kings and Chronicles come with the culture of Israel in trouble with pagan worship and pagan empires. The story of Ruth can't be understood without a knowledge of Lot and Tamar. The Psalms are no different. Whenever we turn to the words of God, we encounter the thoughts of men. God comes to us in human clothes and unless we understand the cultural perspective of the authors, we can't understand what they intended to communicate...no wonder we have over 42,000 different denominations in evangelical Christianity alone; let alone every splinter group in the Hebraic community!
As I was sharing in the hardware store yesterday, you can't read any Scripture as though it's written to you. It wasn't written to you. It was written for your benefit, but not to you (i.e. to the saints which are at Ephesus...to the church of God at Corinth...). The Spirit can give myriads of application, but only diligent study is going to reveal the author's intent to the story line.
Consider David’s declaration, here in Psa. 104! Where's he getting this imagery from? David's not giving us a scientific view of God's spiritual domain, he's writing with the culture of his time. It doesn’t mean it isn’t what God wanted. It just means that the text comes with a culture. All of the texts come this way; as we displayed the other night with Psalm 23. If we (speaking of me, myself and I :-) remembered these simple principles of understanding, we'd experience much less confusion.
Christmas is another cultural image of the day. It used to mean one thing, now it means something else. If you don’t know the history of the idea, you really don’t know much more than the tradition you've inherited. That’s perfectly alright, if that’s all you want to know. But it ignores the evidence, just as ignoring the mythology of David’s time distorts David’s words. So today, as the world gets ready for Christmas, remember this: ideas have a history. To know what an idea really means is to know its history and its cultural context. Once you know the context you can determine if it's something you want to identify with.
Hanukkah is coming up. Where we might think it's only a Jewish celebration back to the Maccabees, that mindset would ignore the burning bush (Ex. 3) or the instructions in Leviticus 23 or the prophetic statements in Haggai. The cultural context of that event is much deeper than celebrating a little oil lasting for eight days (a traditional idea with no evidence).
We all celebrate what we are informed about and, more times than not, criticize what we are not informed about. Yes, confirmation bias runs rampant and we believe what we want to believe.
In this week's Torah portion, Toldot/generations, we have the identity of the flesh and spirit revealed through Esau and Jacob. The story gets convoluted at times, but through its connection to Abraham and understanding the context of love, hope, devotion, overcoming...the story leaves the realm of deception to one of holiness and obtaining the favor of God. On Friday night's zoom call, we'll dig deeper so we have some context to conform our 21st century lives too!
Everything in life is context. May this winter season manifest the ancient context of light in more ways than one (Matt. 5:13-16)!
Another contextual day is coming, Shabbat. Keep the covenant with your God, seed of Abraham :-)
Shalom,
Alan
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