One In Jesus

(Act 2:36 ESV) ³⁶ “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Peter accused the Jewish audience — implicitly, the entire race — of the shame (not the guilt) of having crucified their Messiah.

(Act 2:37 ESV)  ³⁷ Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

What shall we do about what? Well, about killing Jesus. But most of them didn’t kill Jesus. But they were all shamed by the actions of their national leaders, who did kill Jesus while the people watched and allowed it to happen.

Doubtlessly, many of Peter’s listeners hadn’t even been in Jerusalem at the time, but in a collectivist, honor culture, they all carried the shame of having killed God’s Messiah because their leaders did this and did so very publicly. They would have felt that shame as strongly as you or I would feel the guilt of having driven the nails in his hands. Continue reading →

[This my own analysis — kind of an experiment to see how Acts 2 might be read from an honor-culture perspective. If the Jews of the First Century were truly an honor culture, then we should be able to discern that fact in Peter’s preaching to a Jewish audience.]

The Five Step Plan of Salvation doesn’t speak to the East — not the way we interpret it. To us, “repent” means “leave your life of sin.” It’s about guilt and forgiveness — washing away your sins. And it really and truly is. But if Peter was speaking to Jews steeped in a Middle Eastern honor culture, they surely heard something else, because personal guilt would have been utterly foreign to them.

Let’s see … Continue reading →

As promised, I’ve ordered and read Roland Muller’s Honor and Shame: Unlocking the Door.

Muller served many years as a missionary in Islamic countries, and so understands the honor culture of the Middle East very well indeed. Most importantly, he’s wrestled with how to present the gospel in a culture that doesn’t understand personal guilt.

In Romans, Paul famously presents the gospel in forensic (courtroom), guilt, and forgiveness terms. This has defined the gospel in the minds of the West ever since — because Roman culture was largely guilt-based.

But Jesus lived in an honor-based culture, and the Old Testament is written largely in honor-based terms to people with little sense of personal guilt. Of course, God himself fully understands personal guilt and sometimes speaks in those terms to his people, but most of the time, an honor-based reading of the text fits the best. Continue reading →