Week 2 - Day 2 Cultural Context

"Cultural context contains attitudes, patterns of behavior, or expressions of a particular society that affect our understanding of a passage."

 I'll be honest, I have always tried to take context into consideration before when reading/studying the Word.  But this one is new to me.  I'm not trying to question its worth, but I have don't have a lot to say on the matter.

Two statements made in our DVD presentation Tuesday have stuck out to me.  Dr. Guthrie uses the phrases: "Tune into the culture of the Bible" and "enter the world of the Bible".  Those actually do make sense to me.  There are several nuisances of the Bible that reflect the culture of that day.  Understanding the settings of the day can bring light to those.

The illustration used in our lesson today is a perfect example.  If you have been in church any amount of time you have probably heard the phrase "Take up your cross and follow me".  Ask anyone today what a cross is and at the very least you are going to get the answer, "its a religious symbol".  In Jesus' day it was the sign of a horrible, torturous death.

So Jesus telling someone to take you his cross and follow Me was more that just telling someone to leave everything behind and become my follower.  He wasn't preaching the prosperity gospel that's for sure, and this had to be clear to disciples.  They knew that the road would be harsh.  I guess the argument could be made that they may have "selective" hearing loss, but Jesus did paint the proper picture.

One of the discussion question for our next meeting is "How does this understanding of crucifixion help you understand the force of Jesus' words in Luke 9.23-24"?  Wow!  What an awesome thought!  I want to challenge you to spend some focus, quality time meditating on that question.  Try rephrasing the passage.  An example would be "...take up his cross [that torturous, painful, shameful death] daily and follow me."

Feel free to post your comments/questions here for other to think about before Tuesday.

Side note:  Please pray for my family and I as we help with Disciple Now at our church this weekend.  We have approx. 40 teenagers signed up to attend.  Starting with the Rock and Worship Show tomorrow night.