Interesting discovery of the Biblical culture

This is a rather lengthy post regarding interpretation of the bible and different cultures.
Please proceed reading if you are interested; otherwise, stay tuned for the next normal, picturesque post :)


Just came back from Perspectives and learnt about church planting. Why? and How?
One thing that the preacher talked about which really stayed with me is that "The Bible is an Eastern Book". It is a book wrote based on the Eastern culture but we are trying to interpret it from a Western perspective.

In the Eastern world, it is all about spending time with each other to build relationships. That's why most gatherings come with meals and meals can take up to a couple hours to half a day. In the western world, time is money, time is precious, time is everything. Nobody stayed on to fellowship after the church, after church everyone went on separate ways. They got to catch their time for other important stuff.


Here is an example of how Jesus was practicing an Eastern culture, which I will call the 'acting polite game'.

In Luke 24, when Jesus resurrected and reappeared to the two disciples traveling to Emmaus...

"28 So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, 29 but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. "

Jesus acted as if he were going farther. The Westerners might ask, why is Jesus pretending? why don't he just be honest and tell them he wanted to stay?
It is a cultural thing!
Like how us Easterners like to ask
"Do you want some tea or coffee"
"Oh, no no no, it's okay"
"Are you sure?"
"yea yea"
"Are you really sure? Here, I have some tea boiling ready to serve."
"Oh, no no no, it's okay....  Okay i'll take it"

it's a cultural thing.
If you enter an American's home and he ask
"Do you like to have some tea?"
and you said, "Oh no no no, it's okay"
then you'll never get any tea for the rest of the day.

it's a game that Easterners play.

In the second case, when the King of Egypt asked the Hebrew midwives to kill all Hebrew's baby boys,
"The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"

19The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive."
In Western's culture of honesty and integrity, they might be confused if the midwives' answers are considered lies.
Are they telling the truth? Or are they lying? Is that okay? In some Eastern culture, it's okay to keep some truth to yourself, you don't have to tell the whole fact. Be sensitive and know the culture that you are in.

For me, coming to US and seeing things done in a different manner, I am torn in between which practices to keep and what to hold as truth and right for myself. I admit that a lot of times,I am guilty of prejudging my own culture and thinking that the American way is the right or better ones.(especially when it comes to Christianity and biblical stuff).

1) Like speaking in tongues is not practiced in the church that I am attending currently because tongue is supposed to be a different language and not just repetitive words and it is not a gift for everyone and most of the times people would say that God had stopped using that kind of way to reach out in today's world. So are they right? I have thoughts torn in between both stands in my own head. I speak in tongues and I have seen and known it to work.

2) Westerners say that the biblical way of leadership is to have a group of elders, a board, not a single person to be the head of the church, because Jesus is the head of the church. I can see how that works in the westerner's church, it worked pretty well actually, so the pastor wouldn't be the counselor, funeral speaker, sunday service speaker, the handyman, the driver, the leader for prayer meeting, leadership meeting and all multipurpose.
but now I have to think if that kind of leadership concept would work in the Eastern culture?

3) But one thing I still do not completely agree with is the way Americans or rather Texans do it is that women are generally expected to the the supporters and there should never be women elders in the church. Men are encouraged to be leaders while women are not. Men should always be the initiators, while women are encouraged to just wait and be passive.
I just talked to one of my American friend and she was explaining how she had the idea of attending a seminary but she put that away because she thought even if a woman attend seminary, she still can't have as much impact or access to ministries as men do. I was pretty surprised to hear that from her. I thought America is a land of equality. Men and Women are equal. but apparently, I think I get much more freedom and opportunity to step up and lead in Malaysia rather than in America.

Now that my eyes are opened up to more biblical culture, I realize that a lot of times Westerners interpret bible in a very different way from the Easterners. Interestingly, the Bible is an Eastern book. I am not saying which interpretation is right or wrong, but rather, I learnt that we can always go back to the bible and apply what is relevant to our different cultures.