Good Question

Cultural practices and Christian identity—some further thoughts

Q. In the study guide on Galatians, you ask whether our personal experiences of the Holy Spirit have been “sufficient to convince [us] that no particular cultural practices have to be added to what [we’ve] believed about Jesus” (Paul’s Journey Letters, p. 93). Are you using the term “cultural” in a particular, narrow sense? It seems as if everything that we do as humans is in some sense “cultural”—even if it’s simply avoiding “acts of the flesh” such as selfish ambition and drunkenness, or practicing “fruit of the Spirit” such as forbearance and self-control, which Paul mentions at the end of his letter.

I answered this question in my last post, but it has suggested some further questions to me that I think would make for interesting reflection and conversation:

– If we’re members of a community of Jesus’ followers in a particular place and time, chances are it has some “insignia” of its own. But we often take these for granted and don’t recognize them for what they are. Can you identify the insignia of your own community? Is it legitimate for a community to expect its members to follow some specific cultural practices (in the narrower sense of the word culture), not to be accepted by God, but to further the community’s mission in its place and time? What happens to someone in your community who doesn’t adopt these practices?

– Can a person who’s coming from the background of another religion continue to maintain some of their previous insignia as cultural practices (in the broader sense), without this constituting any disloyalty to Jesus or the community of his followers? For example, if Jewish followers of Jesus can legitimately continue to practice circumcision, observe the sabbath, and keep kosher (as the New Testament says they can), can a person from a Muslim background who becomes a follower of Jesus continue to fast during the day in the month of Ramadan and eat only halal food?

– Are some insignia, such as baptism and communion, expected of all followers of Jesus, based on Jesus’ own commands? (“Do this in remembrance of me” and “Go and make disciples, baptizing them”)

– Will followers of Jesus in different cultures live out in different practical ways the mandate to forsake the acts of the flesh and cultivate the fruit of the Spirit, even if their internal values and attitudes are basically the same?

– The study guide question is originally about the Holy Spirit: Has our experience of the Spirit been such that we recognize that insignia are not needed to make us more acceptable to God? What kind of experience have you had of the Holy Spirit’s presence and transforming power?

As a rule this blog presents my answers to questions I’ve been asked, but in this case I wanted to ask a few questions of my own!

If followers of Jesus don’t need to add any “cultural practices” to faith, doesn’t this mean they don’t have to add anything at all?

You make an excellent point—everything we do is, in some sense, cultural, so if no cultural practices needed to be added to trust in Jesus, then nothing practical at all is expected from those who trust in him, only believing. But as you point out, Paul does expect believers to exhibit a dramatic change in life (not to be accepted by God, but because they have been accepted).

So yes, I am the term “cultural” in a narrower sense. Your question has helped me clarify what this is. What I actually mean by “particular cultural practices” is practices that have been given a religious significance within a particular cultural setting, which people are expected to adopt in order to be recognized and accepted as members in good standing of a religious community. (These are sometimes called “insignia.”)

The main issue in Galatians is whether Gentiles should be required to adopt the practice of circumcision in order to be recognized and accepted as members of the community of Jesus’ followers. As I note in the guide (p. 30), circumcision “has been practiced in a variety of cultures for different ceremonial and medical reasons.” For the Jews it was the necessary sign of community membership. But Paul’s argument in Galatians is that God’s people are now a multinational, multiethnic community whose members are not required to adopt the insignia of any its constituent ethnic or national groups, not even those of the foundational Jewish community (also including sabbath observance, annual festivals, and kosher diet, which he mentions in other letters such as Romans and Colossians).

This would apply equally to the insignia of any modern-day Christian community, such as (for example) not dancing or abstaining from alcoholic beverages. But members of the community of Jesus’ followers everywhere are expected to forsake the “acts of the flesh” and live out the “fruit of the Spirit” as their lives are transformed by the influence of the Holy Spirit and of the community of believers to which they now belong.

See some follow-up thoughts on this topic here.

Does God punish the same sins twice? (Part 2)

If Jesus took the punishment for all the sins of the world on the cross, why does God also punish people in hell? Isn’t God punishing the same sins twice? It reminds me of the master in Jesus’ parable who forgave his servant a large debt, but then made him pay it anyway.

unforgivingservant2 — Detail from The Unforgiving Servant, stained glass, Scots’ Church, Melbourne

I discussed the parable in my last post. To address the other part of your question, I wouldn’t say that people in hell are being punished a second time for sins that Jesus already took the punishment for on the cross. Jesus’ work on the cross is sufficient to atone for all of the sins of the world. But in order to receive the benefits of that atonement, people need to respond in faith and trust to what Jesus did.

It’s as if someone announced a huge relief fund for the victims of a natural disaster, a fund that would be sufficient to cover all of their losses. People would still need to apply to the fund to get benefits. If they didn’t apply, perhaps because they didn’t want to be beholding to anyone, or because they wrongly suspected the motives of the benefactors, they shouldn’t think that they were still suffering their losses because the fund wasn’t sufficient to cover them, or because the losses had to be paid for twice–once by the fund and then again by themselves. The explanation is that they didn’t apply.

In the same way, if people experience separation from God in hell, this is not because Jesus’ death wasn’t sufficient to pay for their sins, and not because God is making them pay for these sins a second time, but rather because they haven’t chosen to trust in Jesus’ work for their salvation.

I would add that the essential character of hell is separation from God. In effect, those who choose not to enter into relationship with God through Jesus’ work on the cross are choosing to live out of relationship with God. A holy God cannot have sin in His presence, and that’s why there’s a place where people who do not embrace God’s provision for the forgiveness of their sins live apart from God. Hell is also described as a place of suffering, but I don’t think its essential purpose is punishment. Rather, it’s separation. People who choose not to be restored to relationship with God are given what they have chosen–an existence apart from God.

I hope these thoughts are helpful in addressing your excellent and thoughtful question.

Does God punish the same sins twice? (Part 1)

These are excellent questions. Let me start with the parable, which is found in the gospel of Matthew. We need to understand it in light of its original context.

The ancient servant-master relationship was one in which servants would be entrusted with resources to accomplish the master’s work. The king or master in this parable is said to be “settling accounts” with his servants, that is, having them account for what they’ve done with the resources he’s entrusted to them. The first servant can’t account for a huge amount of money and the master is ready to sell him and his family into slavery to collect what he can. But when the servant begs for mercy, the master says he doesn’t have to repay the money.

However, when this servant refuses to show the same kind of mercy to one of his fellow servants who owes him only a small amount, the master realizes that he wasn’t worthy of this generosity. And so, still within the ongoing master-servant relationship, the master says that the servant will have to pay the debt, and sends him to debtors’ prison, exactly where the servant sent the one who owed him a small amount.

In other words, this was not a commercial loan that was cancelled through a legal transaction, which the master then tried to renege on. Rather, these were the arrangements that the master was prepared to make within his ongoing relationship with this servant. When the servant insisted that he was operating in good faith and would repay everything, the master was willing to make a fresh start in their relationship. But when the master discovered that the servant really wasn’t operating in good faith, as evidenced by his ingratitude (if he’d really been grateful, he would have shown the same mercy to his fellow servant), the master realized that he would have to conduct the relationship along different lines, and insist on repayment of the misappropriated resources.

Whatever the specific arrangements (and it might not be possible to reconstruct them exactly from our historical and cultural distance), they must have been understandable to the original hearers, and I don’t think the master’s change of attitude towards his servant is meant to be the shocking or puzzling aspect of the parable. (Most of Jesus’ parables, by design, have some such aspect.) Rather, I think it’s the servant’s hypocritical and ungrateful response, even after being shown such mercy, that’s meant to shock us. That’s what Jesus specifically calls attention to at the end of the parable: Each person who has been forgiven by God needs to forgive their brother or sister from their heart.

I’ll address your question about hell in my next post.

unforgivingservant — The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, stained glass, Scots’ Church, Melbourne

Should Christians read books and watch movies that have magic in them?

Q. Is it all right for Christians to read books and watch movies that have magic in them?

There are certainly many warnings against magical practices in the Bible. One of the strongest is in Deuteronomy, which forbids any use of divination, sorcery, spells, etc. (This is discussed in Session 8 of the Deuteronomy-Hebrews study guide.)

But I’d say the answer to your question actually depends on how the concept of magic is being used in a book or film. If it’s essentially a literary device, as in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, and readers aren’t encouraged to think that they should practice magic for their own personal power and wealth, then it can be understood as a legitimate element of literature or film or drama.

Even if magic is presented as something real, but its connection with the devil and the occult is explained, and people are warned away from it, then that’s a good and helpful message for people to get. It would be like in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, when Banquo warns Macbeth, “The instruments of darkness tell us truths to win us to our harm.”

But if a book or film or play suggests that there’s a difference between “black magic” (bad) and “white magic” (good), even though both rely on spells and charms but not God, then that’s very dangerous. This encourages people to get into magic and the occult and not look to God for protection and provision. And if a book or film or play encourages people to use magic for their own power and wealth, to take revenge against people they’re holding a grudge against, etc., then that’s even more dangerous.

So in your own reading and viewing, if you know that a book or a film is going to send a dangerous message like this, you should probably stay away from it. But if you don’t know, and you watch it or read it innocently, then you need to be discerning about the message. Talk to yourself and with others about it. Recognize how it differs from biblical teaching. Talk back to it. Actively engage your culture, but from an informed biblical perspective.

Did ancient cultures worship the true God under a different name?

Q. I’m homeschooling my daughters and we’ve been learning about ancient Greek civilization. When they heard about its highly developed religion, my daughters asked me whether the Greeks were worshipping the true God under a different name. What do you think I should tell them?

The Bible says that something about the true God can be known through creation and conscience. Paul wrote to the Romans, for example, that “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” (See the Paul’s Journey Letters study guide, Session 24.) And Luke records in Acts that Paul explained to the people of Lystra, “God has not left himself without testimony: he has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons.” Paul also told the Athenians that God created the nations and made them finite in duration and territory so that “they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him” (Luke-Acts study guide, Sessions 21 and 22). So there is a natural seeking after God, and people are able to find out some things about Him that way.

I would not conclude from this, however, that ancient cultures were actually worshiping the true God under a different name. In addition to the testimony to God in creation, there is the witness of the covenant community through time about its encounter with the God who has entered human history to redeem people and restore them to relationship with himself. I believe that people need to connect with that work by hearing and believing this witness. Thus the witness needs to be offered all over the world.

So I would encourage your daughters to understand that these ancient cultures were in a position to learn something about God, and that some of what they believed about God was therefore true and correct, but that we need God’s self-revelation in order to know Him in the way that we should. In other words, I don’t believe that the Greeks who worshiped Zeus were actually worshiping the covenant God of redemptive history without knowing it. But they may have taken some steps toward this that enabled many of them to understand and believe the good news about Jesus when they heard it.

Are the numbers 3, 4, 7, 10, etc. intentionally symbolic in the book of Revelation?

Q. In your Revelation study guide you say that there’s a symbolic meaning for the numbers in the book. 3 means God, 4 means creation, 7 means perfection, 10 means completeness, and so forth. Did John really write with all of this in mind?

(The Revelation study guide can be read online or downloaded for free from this link.)

I believe he definitely did. Throughout the book of Revelation, John is drawing on a stock of recognizable symbols from the First Testament. This stock includes some commonly-used numerical symbols that would have been meaningful to John’s readers.

For example, in the First Testament, 10 represents completeness in the human dimension, since people usually have ten figures and ten toes. That’s why God gave an epitome of the law in the Ten Commandments. The number is also used in this sense when Job says to his friends, “Ten times now you have reproached me.” This is not a literal count, because the friends have only spoken five times to that point in the book. But the number means “You’ve reproached me as many times as a human can bear.” Ten meaning what is complete or ultimate in human experience is also seen in Daniel’s vision of the four beasts. The last one, representing a supreme empire, has ten horns. The image and the number with its significance are echoed in John’s description of the dragon in Revelation.

To give another example, since there were twelve tribes of Israel, the number 12 represents the covenant community in the First Testament. In the New Testament, Jesus himself appealed to this symbol when he chose 12 apostles. Through this number he was declaring that a new kind of covenant community was coming into existence through his life and ministry. In Revelation the number 12 is used throughout the book to represent the community. See how many times it’s used in the depiction of the New Jerusalem, for example. (See the Daniel-Revelation study guide, p. 131.)

Twelve can also be used in multiples and in combination with other numbers. There are 24 elders in the heavenly throne vision to depict the continuity of the first and new covenant communities. The number 144,000, for its part, comes from 12 x 12 x 10 x 10 x 10, representing the fullness of the community of believers throughout time and space from the first and new covenants. (I have a separate post about this, “Who are the 144,000 in the book of Revelation?“)

Examples like these show us what an intentional part numbers play in the book of Revelation’s symbolism, echoing the First Testament background. As for some of the other numbers in the book, as I write in my Daniel-Revelation study guide:

• 3 represents God, who’s often described in three-part phrases (“who was, and is, and is to come”) and ascribed triple attributes (“holy, holy, holy”; “glory and honor and power.”)

• 4 is the number of creation. It’s represented in the heavenly throne vision by four living creatures, and it’s also described as having four parts: heaven, earth, under-earth, and sea. The song of every creature ascribes four attributes to the Lamb: praise, honor, glory and power. There are other uses of the number 4 to symbolize creation later in the book, for example, in the following vision, “four angels standing at the four corners of the earth holding back the four winds”.

• The number 7 (4+3) represents perfection and completeness. The Lamb has seven horns and seven eyes; these symbolize his absolute power and knowledge. The scroll has seven seals because it contains the definitive judgments of God. The seven churches at the beginning of the book are symbolized by seven lamp stands and seven stars. While these are actual churches, they’re also representative of the church as a whole; what’s written to them is also addressed to the wider community of Jesus’ followers. The throne vision depicts the “seven spirits of God.” As a translation note in the NIV explains, this is the “seven-fold” Spirit of God–the perfect (divine) Holy Spirit. The angels, in their song, ascribe seven attributes to the Lamb, acknowledging his divine perfections.

We see in all of these ways, as I write in my study guide, that “in addition to visual symbols drawn from earlier Scriptures, the book of Revelation also uses numerical symbols. Certain numbers in the book are like ‘logos’ that point to key characters and themes.”

For the symbolic meaning of the number 666, see this post.

Is the lake of fire described in Revelation a real place?

In your study guide to Revelation, are you saying that the lake of fire isn’t a real place?

In session 23 of the Daniel/Revelation study guide I observe that “it’s impossible for a literal fire to burn a finite amount of fuel forever,” so that the image of the lake of fire near the end of Revelation shouldn’t be taken to mean that those who definitively reject a relationship with God will “burn up forever.” Rather, this image represents the way that people who reject God “will be separated permanently from him, they will always be objects of his displeasure, and they will never receive the comfort and satisfaction that God gives those who do live in his presence.”

In session 24 I observe that shortly after Revelation depicts all those whose names are not written in the book of life being thrown in the lake of fire, it says that only those whose names are written in the book of life may enter the New Jerusalem; all others will be kept outside its gates. I then ask, “If these same people have already been thrown into the lake of fire, why do they need to be denied entrance to this city?” I conclude that “the details of these two visions can’t be reconciled by a literal reading, but this only shows that both are meant to be understood symbolically. . . . Two different figures are used, but their message is the same: those who definitively reject God will be kept out of his presence, while those who remain loyal and faithful, even through sacrifice and suffering, will live forever with God in a place of splendor and glory.”

More generally, it’s impossible to read the visions throughout Revelation both literally and sequentially. For example, the sun is destroyed when the sixth seal is opened, but shortly afterwards, when the fourth trumpet sounds, the sun is shining in full strength, because one third of its light is then dimmed. Examples like this show us that we need to interpret Revelation symbolically.

That’s why, throughout this guide, I seek to explain the meaning of the symbols in Revelation as allusions to other images in the Scriptures, particularly Daniel and the prophetic books, or else as echoes of images that would have been recognizable from the surrounding culture. The great prostitute who sits on seven hills, for example, evokes the popular idea of Rome as the “city of seven hills.” For its part, the lake of fire may echo the Greek idea of the underworld containing a river of fire. But more important than the source of these images is the use John makes of them to communicate God’s purposes for the culmination of history.

And whatever we believe about the actual ultimate circumstances of those who reject God’s gracious offer of forgiveness and a restored relationship, we should make every effort, by our words, personal example, and loving service, to urge and encourage everyone we know to accept this offer.

How do people who don’t consider themselves Christians respond to these guides?

Q. Have you used any of these study guides with people who did not consider themselves Christians? What reaction did they have to the material?

I’ve personally used the guides in several groups that included people who didn’t consider themselves Christians. They appeared to feel very much at home and they participated freely. In these groups we took turns reading the various discussion points and asking the questions related to them, and even though I said that anyone who didn’t want to do this could “pass,” our not-yet-Christian friends were always happy to take their turns.

I think they were so comfortable because the study guides are intentionally written in such a way that people who aren’t yet followers of Jesus feel welcome and included. Because the guides invite people to engage the Bible through the lens of their own experience, everyone has something to share in response to the discussion questions, even if they don’t have a lot of biblical background or doctrinal knowledge.

The questions themselves often begin with qualifiers such as “If you are a follower of Jesus” or “If you’re part of a community of Jesus’ followers,” and they provide other options for people who don’t fit these descriptions. (For example, “If you’re not part of a community of Jesus’ followers, talk about one you’ve visited or heard about.”)

Guides often invite people to share where they are along their spiritual journeys. For example, the guide to Paul’s Journey Letters asks (in Session 24), “Before you began this study of Paul’s letters, where would you have put yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is not believing in Jesus, 5 is the threshold of believing, and 10 is a settled, unreserved faith and trust in Jesus for life? Where would you put yourself now? If you’ve ‘stepped across the threshold,” or if you want to know more about how you can do that, share this with the group and ask them to talk and pray with you about it.”

This question is typical of the ones, found in other guides as well, in which people are asked how they’ve moved along in their spiritual journeys in the course of the study. There’s typically an opportunity in one or more sessions in each guide for people who are ready to become followers of Jesus to make that commitment with the group’s help.

So I think your friends who aren’t yet followers of Jesus would feel welcome, encouraged, and also graciously invited towards faith in a group that was using one of these guides. (What I’d love to see some day is a group made up predominantly of not-yet-Christians using the guides, as I think the discussions in such a group would be unpredictable and dynamic. If you put a group like that together, please invite me to visit!)

Where can I get more information on the Bible’s historical and cultural background?

~ I love the concise explanations and the historical information you include in the study guides. Now I want to learn more! Are there particular materials you’d recommend to delve a bit deeper into understanding the texts?

~ My group has been going through the Genesis study. One woman who grew up in the Middle East has commented in a couple of places on how the stories reflect that culture, especially in regard to bartering and protecting one’s sense of honor. A good example is when Abraham buys the cave as a burial plot for Sarah. Our group was reflecting on this “bartering” tradition when we read through the story of Abraham bargaining with God for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. I think we would be really interested in learning more about the cultural aspects of these stories. Where might we go to learn more?

~ Where can I find reference materials on the background information given in these books? Is there a reference list online, or reliable sources that we can use as supplemental readings?

Let me say to all three of you that I’m really glad to hear your experience with the study guides has made you want to dig deeper into the Bible and its background.

The place to go next is a biblical commentary. Commentaries give you extensive information about the historical and literary context of particular books of the Bible. They allow you to listen in on the scholarly conversation about passages that are difficult to interpret. And they provide details about the various ways that Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words and phrases can be translated.

The study guides in the Understanding the Books of the Bible series do as many of these things as possible, but they’re limited in length and they also need to save room for reading suggestions and discussion questions. So you’ll want to find a good full-length commentary (or two, or three) on the biblical book you’re interested in.

There are lots of really great commentaries out there these days. Some series I like in particular are The New International Commentary on the Old Testament, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, and the Word Biblical Commentary. All of volumes in these series show respect for the Bible as the inspired and authoritative word of God and at the same time make full use of the findings of biblical scholarship.

I hope you enjoy your further explorations!