1 Corinthians 11:1-16

Culture

I believe the Bible. I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of the Living God and that it is the ultimate authority for our lives. This does not mean that all passages carry equal weight, nor that all pronouncements are for all places and all times. There is simply no way around the fact that some things are related to culture.

Our family spent three years in Zimbabwe during the mid 1980’s. We had never lived outside of the USA before and some things took a little getting used to. One thing that was particularly hard for me was in communicating with my students at the school where I taught. It didn’t take long to discover that they would easily tell me what they thought I wanted to hear, but if I really wanted to find out what they truly thought it required some patience and work on my part. At first I considered this to be a form of lying and it upset me. Over time I came to discover that it was a combination of simple respect and the result of decades of European oppression.

I can hear what many of your are thinking. “Here we go again. The devil white man is to blame, blah, blah, blah...” Before I lived in this culture and made real friends with members of this culture I would have thought the same thing. Afterward, I know better. There really is often a built in arrogance and condescension encoded into European cultures that is frequently present in American culture. And we are blind to it. 

I am not saying this to bash our culture. I am a child of my culture as is everyone else on this planet. There are cultural things built into our make up that seem as natural and vital to us as breathing, but which have almost no significance for someone from another culture. 

What does this have to do with women praying with their head covered and men getting haircuts? Everything and nothing. Everything in that for the people of central Greece almost 2,000 years ago these were apparently significant matters. Nothing in that for people in the USA in the twenty first century they have almost no significance and some parts of this passage are simply downright baffling. 

Don’t worry about it. You believe that Jesus is God’s Son, that He died on the cross for your sins, and that God raised Him from the dead then you have the important stuff covered. Why it is disgraceful for a man to have long hair, and what really is long hair anyway...it honestly a matter for another culture at another time.