Culture can help us see the bigger picture in the Bible. But before that, we need to get some perspective on how we think about culture now.
Culture has always existed but something is different in how we think about it now. 50 years ago, culture used to be rarely mentioned. But now you hear about it all the time.
Has something changed with culture, or are we now just more aware of it? The answer is both.
On one level, culture has changed. But on another level, culture never changes. In the same way, we have always been aware of culture, even if we didn’t call it that. But now we seem to be noticing and talking about it all the time.
Culture relates to everything we do, which is why it can be difficult to talk about.
God has woven culture into the fabric of his creation, and he has a purpose for it.
God has a purpose for culture. Because we are created in the image of God, we have a unique role in his purpose for culture.
As Christians, we have an opportunity and responsibility to shape the culture that we are part of. But how can we do that if we are not sure how it works?
Challenges in Our Perspective on Culture
Part of the challenge is that we all have a personal perspective on culture. How I see and experience culture will be different from you, and different from everyone else.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t come to understand how it works. The patterns we observe will be the same for each of us, even if the outcomes look different.
This brings us to another part of the challenge in learning about culture. We all will react differently to what we see (Read more at FaithCulture.org).
A lot of our conversation about culture is driven by the feelings these issues create in us. It’s easy to think that for someone to agree with me, they have to react the way I do. But that’s not always the case.
But we might not consider how someone else may see the same thing, but react differently. In that case, we loose a valuable perspective on what we are trying to understand.
The Redemptive Leader Framework helps us understand our unique, personal experience with culture. And that allows us to relate that experience to other’s experience of culture.