Text + Context

At a conference I attended recently, the questions of Text and Context immerged, and it has not ceased to cause me great contemplation. It resonated with me because I value culture. When in Rwanda I wanted to know the history of the people. I wanted to understand the genocide and what preceded it. When in China I wanted to know how the people were dealing with the western influences on their culture. I fully believe that if you understand a culture you understand a people.

As a teenager I started attending a large church one town over. This church would bus in under privileged kids from a variety of towns. The problem was that these were rival groups who needed only to be in a room together for major brawls to break out. There were several large fights and one riot. (I was apart of a couple of those.) The church had an amazing heart and a critical message (text), but they didn’t understand the culture (context), and it went south fast.

On another occasion, this church invited some of us to come and play basketball. We went excited to get in a couple games in an actual gym verses the street ball we were used to playing. There was a change made, for whatever reason, and they closed the gym and took us to sanctuary. Now, this was a large mostly white church circa 1990, and the music and service style were different than what urban black kids were used to hearing. There was little to no drums or bass, and everybody was clapping at the wrong time. So, we ran across the 2-3 acre lawn toward home, which was miles away. Once again they had failed to understand our context. We had no problems with the text.

So many people hold up the Bible and tell its truth completely ignorant to cultural Context of those listening. That’s like speaking Korean to a Chinese person. You could tell them the most important thing they could ever know, and they wouldn’t ever respond favorably. The Text is the unchanging Bible, the word of life. The Context is whatever real life perspective the person is coming from. Generally, only when we explain the Text in light of Context do people feel compelled to respond. Now, we can’t control their response, but they are more likely to listen to the Text when we care about their cultural Context.