God Does Not Submit To Culture

Culture may be fast

Culture may say “everyone else is doing it”
Culture may be self centered.
Culture may shape your scripture yet it is scripture that should shape your culture.

God does not submit Himself to our culture, the culture submits to Him.

The greatest gift God gives me is world travel. I’ve been able to serve the Lord in over 30 countries and each time it’s expanded my understanding of cultures and has opened my mind to the depth of scripture and my narrow interpretation of it, almost always because of my cultural filters.

I described it to my son and his friend Titus this way. Imagine you are a fish born to a fish bowl life, you learn the ways of that bowl, you know where and why everything is the way it is and you understand God and the Bible based on that environment and the teachings of that culture.

Suddenly you find yourself being transported into larger and larger tanks, meeting more fish while learning their diversity and their interpretations shaped by their culture. Before you know it your mind is expanding and truths you hold you begin to realize aren’t universal, and or, that your prosperity has come at the cost of someone else’s suffering.

Imagine your final trip is to the ocean with unlimited roaming all the while knowing all things are created by One who’s given us all a love letter and an instruction manual for life and all. Using that road map to navigate the waters of the ocean are far different than in the fish bowl, not because the manual has changed but because the need for a much larger faith is needed to navigate the waters that aren’t familiar to you and your former surroundings. Stretching your faith stretches your interpretation.

God is leading us into bigger waters brothers and sisters. Don’t get stuck trying to navigate them with the familiarity of a fish bowl.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” Isaiah 43:19