5 Things | Jun 26, 2010 | 0 Comments

Five things I have learnt so far in doing my PhD.

I lived for six years in a rural area in Indonesia with a strong local culture, teaching at a theological college. Since then I’ve been working on a Ph.D. to understand how to interpret the Bible in different cultures, focussing on Hebrews 8-10 in that particular culture. My first two points are things I’ve learnt from the process of studying, while the next three are some of the things I’ve learnt in my studies.

1) Writing is hard work. Be thankful for writers that have helped you know God better–their labour was hard and costly.

2) I don’t really understand what I’m thinking until I write it down or talk to someone about it. It turns out I’m not quite the self-sufficient individual I though I was. Most of my ideas come from other people, and even the ideas I’m trying to think up myself don’t really take shape until I share them!

3) Cultures are different, yet we are all human. We do similar things, like earn a living, or reject God, but in very different ways. This includes responding to the gospel. By definition, responding to the gospel means confessing Jesus as Lord, but what discipleship looks like for a villager from another religious background in Indonesia struggling with poverty or persecution and a middle-class Sydney-sider struggling with affluence will be very different.

4) One thing we all do is try to make sense of the world. We do so in a way that combines head and heart, such that our fundamental beliefs about the world and the way we are in the world–the way we feel and act–mutually reinforce each other. That’s why an unloving culture in a church damages not just feelings and relationships but people’s faith; the gospel of love seems unreal when those who espouse it seem to hate each other. For those living in fear of spirits, the gospel will also seem unreal if Christ’s victory over all forces of evil is not made clear–missionaries have been known to dismiss such fears as superstition, rather than preaching Christ’s power over them. For others, emphasising that Jesus’ resurrection is a fact may have less impact than explaining how in the resurrection God gives the ignominiously crucified Jesus the highest honour–the latter being as challenging for someone in an honour-shame culture to accept as the former is for a modern skeptic. The gospel is true, and glorious, and powerful. It has the resources to connect with and enrich and challenge all kinds of cultures–provided we don’t get in the way and require people to see the gospel from our point of view, as if our way of making sense of the world is the only way that makes sense.

5) In conclusion, the Bible is rich. People from different cultures will draw different implications from the Bible, not because they are confused, even less because the Bible is confused, but rather because the Bible contains more than any one culture can grasp.

Thanks

Andrew Buchanan