23 March 2024
The New Testament clings to the collectivist and honor-based culture of the Old. When you read Paul's warning that God on His Judgment Seat will review all our deeds in this life, it might sound embarrassing, but we don't feel threatened. But to the folks in Paul's audience, this would be devastating. They would be shamed in front of the whole community of faith. This is how Paul motivates them to better behavior.
During His ministry, Jesus was often confronted with honor challenges. If people wanted information, they could have come to Him privately as did Nicodemas. The public questions were challenges to His honor, a very clear win-loss game. When He shut them down, He gained honor and they lost it. When Jesus was confronted in the Temple grounds over whether to pay tax to Caesar, it was a very high-stakes game. Once Jesus silenced them, no one dared challenge Him publicly again. The officials were tired of these mounting losses of face, and had Him killed for it. His death was planned as the ultimate loss of face for Him.
Jesus warned His disciples to walk humbly to avoid the high risk of losing face. In the discussion about attending a dinner party, He suggested they choose a humble place at the table, and allow someone else to honor them. Otherwise, they were in peril of losing face. English translations of Luke 14 leave out the meaning of moving down to a lower place in shame. We further miss the implication that a loss of honor comes back to haunt you in every area of life. The community does not forget such things.
That story in Judges 19? Our western minds don't see the real tragedy, and the whole story makes us wonder why it shows up in the narrative of that period. We can identify certain sins, but don't see how the man shamed the girl's family by refusing to give her status as a wife, but drags her off like a slave. And while he was worried about what might happen in a Gentile town, the worst happened in an Israeli village. The whole nation was shamed by those actions. The point of the story was to show just how the community had fractured and honor was despised. This raised the prospect of serious divine wrath.
Paul often used honor-based language to encourage elevating Jesus' reputation. When you see "worthy", that's an indicator of honor/shame thinking. Obviously Paul was teaching that sin was not a private matter between "me and Jesus". It defiled the whole community. Your sin puts dirt on Jesus and everyone who claims His name. It's frankly sinful to ignore that. Thus, Paul's comments in 1 Corinthians about the bad habits of the church members regarding the Lord's Supper celebrations were shameful to all Christians.
Cutting out the poor and the slaves from family sharing was ripping Christ's face off. That defilement took away some of their covering, so that they suffered things from which Jesus offered to protect them, but only if they stood in His glory. The death and sickness didn't fall only on those who "ate and drank unworthily" but on the whole community. Doctrinal point: The consequences of sin afflict the whole Body. Yes, the whole Body of Christ throughout world suffers because of your private sin.
When one of the book authors tried to develop a course in pastoral counseling in Indonesia for ministry training, he was shocked to discover it was a whole different game. Little of the American material would work. There was no privacy (zero) in Indonesian communities, and couples would never seek private counseling. They would wait for the community to tell them there was a problem that required counsel, and otherwise not give it a thought. Personal problems were the village's problems.
Pay attention to the context in Scripture. Was an event private or public? The authors say it like this: "But context indicates motive. Private questions were not honor challenges. Public questions were."
Comments
Jay DiNitto
This difference between the western internalized guilt and the honor/shame dynamic feels the hardest to really grasp for me.
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