Outlined Transcript:
Hi, everyone.
I just want to follow up on the previous video and talk about a few of these different cultural value systems. In some cultures, they have a high value for honor and a disdain for shame. Well, not all cultures that value honor mean the same thing.
Different Cultural Understandings of Honor
I'm just going to summarize some basic differences between cultures here.
Some achieve honor through being macho or through machismo, trying to assert themselves as strong and powerful. In other cultures, like some Central Asian cultures, they achieve honor through deception, ripping people off, and bragging about it. Somehow, through illegally lying or propping up their family and looking out for the best interests of their family through corruption, they achieve honor.
Then they laugh about it, and they get honor through what is almost like a counterfeit hustle culture, where they look busy, look like they're working, and are always giving handouts to people within their inner family circle. That boosts their reputation in a way that merits a high standing within the family. That's how they do it, and that's honor.
In other cultures, honor is basically just not losing face and not doing something that would embarrass you.
So not all cultures have the same idea of what honor and shame are. They have their own ways of interpreting those values and applying them.
The missionary, the evangelist, needs to be careful to listen to what people say. When they say certain words, don't just assume that when they say honor, they mean what the Bible says when it says honor, or when they say shame, they mean what the Bible says when it says shame.
You have to listen to the words they say, how they use them, and how they don't use them, and then try to find ways to interpret.
The Enoughness Test
What is the main problem? What is the problem they're trying to solve, and how do they get there? And when is enough enough? What have they done enough of? What's the threshold of enoughness that they can get to achieve honor or to avoid shame?
It's what I call the enoughness test that I've talked about in previous videos.
There's a certain code of conduct they must follow to merit that honor. This is why, at the heart of all these systems, there is essentially a guilt-righteousness paradigm.
When you talk to somebody, even from an Islamic culture or a Buddhist culture, both of which have high values of honor and low values of shame, they'll both talk about how you get honor by doing certain things.
Again, they're attributing the goal of honor to some sort of code, some sort of moral code or ritual code that merits an honorable reputation or avoids or takes away, expiates, a shameful reputation.
So again, it's all based upon a merit system, a code that you must follow. In a way, they are earning their own righteousness. They're following a law in order to merit righteousness, in order to obtain and achieve honor.
You have to ask questions like, "Why do you do that?" Or, "What's the purpose of this practice or this custom?" Or, "Why do people in your culture value it that way? Why do they achieve things this way? What is so negative back here that they're trying to avoid?"
And you listen for their story. You listen for how they reason in their own mind or explain to themselves why they do what they do. Listen for things they must do enough of to achieve their end goal.
Those are usually your talking points for how to steer into the gospel system as the Bible prescribes it and as the Bible defines it.
Shame Is Downstream of Guilt
In the Bible, you frequently see that shame is downstream of guilt.
Probably the easiest passage to go to, which people will often overlook, is Adam and Eve.
They are guilty. They have done something wrong. They have disobeyed the Word of God. And what was the first thing that they felt?
Well, it was probably a lot of things, but it was a combination of shame and fear. Those are downstream of the infraction, the breaking of God's law, the guilt before God.
You can see that our very first parents felt shame. They felt fear. They felt weak. They felt in bondage, stuck, trapped.
Why?
Because they were guilty before God.
That's the original sin. That's the original problem. And that's what all cultures are running from: guilt before God.
They mask over it with these felt needs of, "I just don't want to lose face," or "I don't want to be viewed as weak," or "I don't want to feel afraid of demons," or "I don't want to be stuck in bondage to certain systems, to injustices," or whatever.
All of those are real felt needs, to be sure. But they're always downstream of the original sin problem in Adam that has been credited to all of Adam's progeny, to all of his family throughout the ages.
We have been imputed legally with the guilt of Adam and Eve. And so here we are. We're guilty, in shame, in fear, in bondage, and in weakness.
Communicating the Gospel Across Cultures
This is how you steer the conversation into some of these cultures.
In the next video, we'll talk about fear and peace and how to communicate the gospel in those kinds of cultures.