If you read the Bible with any amount of frequency, I’m sure you’ve experienced this. You have come across a passage and asked, “Why did they do that?” or “What does that mean?”. Biblical culture shock happens when we read something in the Scriptures that has specific meaning to the culture in which it was written. For us today, reading about customs and practices that were common in biblical times can be shockingly confusing. Unless we try to understand those cultures, we will fail to understand the situation and misinterpret the meaning of the passage.

For example, it is confusing for us why food sacrificed to idols is a big deal in 1 Corinthians 8, unless we understand how young converts were saved from pagan religions where the food was offered to idols and then that meat could be purchased at a local market.

Or we would have a hard time understanding the significance of being thrown out of the synagogue in John 12:42, unless we understood the controlling centrality of the synagogue on Jewish life.

Biblical culture shock should happen all the time and should humble us into learning the ways of the new culture. If you have not been hit by the strangeness of the biblical culture, then you need to plug your brain in before your reading your Bible and then realize that you are in unfamiliar territory and ask God’s Spirit to help you navigate through it.

It has been far too long since I’ve posted, but I can guarantee that I have not been twiddling my thumbs. I want to keep you all updated, so here is the promised video of me giving a tour of my apartment. Ian and I were able to hang out on Thursday night, so he filmed this for me.

The days here go faster than ever. It is hard to believe that I have been here for almost a month and a half. I’m still getting a handle on seminary classes and what it means that I am now a graduate student. I am totally loving the time I get with the Jr. High and High School. The Lord has been gracious to allow me to enjoy hanging out with them and I think they enjoy hanging with me to some extent. It is strange to be just out of college and to be doing what I have always wanted to do and what I am training to to do.

This week was really tough. I only slept a little over an hour on Monday night and only a couple hours last night, and yet I did not get anything done. I know that all of this is growing me and stretching me, but sometimes it is just painful. I feel like I cannot give my all to either ministry or seminary because I am being pulled so strong on both ends. But I know that the Lord gives the grace to endure and I am constantly seeking His face for the strength.

I am so thankful for all the people who pray for me. They have been a crucial part in my transition process, which as gone well. It is so encouraging to know that God’s people support one another and we can do that through speaking with our compassionate Creator. So, if you have been praying for me thank you, thank you, thank you – it means so much to me.

Our church down here is in the middle of a big outreach campaign to reach the city of Upland. Teams have been going from 6:30am to 10pm spreading the gospel to college campuses, nursing homes, and neighborhoods. These people are hardcore ambassadors of the gospel of Christ. It has been humbling to see them minister in such faith and persistence. If you remember them the rest of the week, please pray that hearts would be soft to the Word of God. We have already seen several people make professions of faith.

There is so much more to fill in on, but that will have to be at a later time.

“Those who say they long for Christ, yet never gaze on his beauty by faith in this life, are only kidding themselves.” – Kris Lungaard

“If your spiritual muscles are flabby, what will you do when you are called upon to stand firm?” – David Forsyth

If we aren’t careful, we can tend to become familiar and slack when it comes to relating to the God of the Bible. There are many things which can lead to such sluggish apathy, but I think one catalyst to such an attitude comes from interacting with Scripture on a surface level. We read the Bible in our language and we know it is talking about a great God. But we take the blessing of God’s Word being readable and knowable and then we begin to think that God is kind of like us. This does not happen immediately, but subtly.

I know it sounds so blasphemous to say that we think God is like us, but I can feel the tendency. I begin to just assume that God is an English speaking God who relates on a human level. But God is so far above us and beyond us. In fact, He says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8,9) He is entirely NOT human and completely different. Paul Washer said, “He is not quantitatively bigger than us, He is qualitatively different from us.” In other words, He does not just do everything better than us and in a larger capacity, but He does things differently.

The reading of the words that have come from the mouth of God must lead us to small view of God because the words are understandable, but to a high view of God that worships and thanks Him for speaking to us.