I Corinthians 13 Guide to Culture - thanks to YWAM KnowledgeBase

This version of 1 Corinthians 13 was written especially for people going to work in another culture, and it goes to show, love wins every time.


If I speak with the tongue of a national, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I wear the national dress and understand the culture and all forms of etiquette, and if I copy all mannerisms so that I could pass for a national but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor, and if I spend my energy without reserve, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love endures long hours of language study, and is kind to those who mock his accent; love does not envy those who stayed home; love does not exalt his home culture, is not proud of his national superiority,

Does not boast about the way we do it back home, does not seek his own ways, is not easily provoked into telling about the beauty of his home country, does not think evil about this culture;

Love bears all criticism about his home culture, believes all good things about this new culture, confidently anticipates being at home in this place, endures all inconveniences.

Love never fails: but where there is cultural anthropology, it will fail; where there is contextualization it will lead to syncretism; where there is linguistics, it will change.

For we know only part of the culture and we minister to only part.

But when Christ is reproduced in this culture, then our inadequacies will be insignificant.

When I was in Britain (Korea, the US....), I spoke as a Brit, I understood as a Brit, I thought as a Brit; but when I left Britain I put away British things.

Now we adapt to this culture awkwardly; but He will live in it intimately: now I speak with a strange accent, but he will speak to the heart.

And now these three remain: cultural adaptation, language study, and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

• Based on work by Kevin Colyer and others.
 
• Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License unless otherwise noted.

A bluetit and a harvest mouse

Today while Alex was a t a birthday party, Abby and I did some painting. It had been a long time... I had another go at a bluetit - they seem to be hard to get right! Abby painted a cute little harvest mouse. 

Connection

This Christmas we simply bit the bullet and bought Alex an XBox 360, which connects to the internet and the TV - so at last he can play two (only... so far) computer games on our television, play against other friends remotely, and, um, have fun. Dan and I also signed up for a Tivo box, which means we can watch programmes up to a week old, and record ones we want to keep - so we feel totally up-to-the-minute, techno-savvy, and pretty darn chuffed...

To boot, we brought down from the roof where we had stored it, a massive beautiful soft blanket which our friends the Lilfords gave us when we visited them in Botswana. This blanket is so heavy, and warm, like being under a huge non-sticky marshmallow. So now it is all too tempting to spend these chilly winter evenings squeezed on the sofa, snuggled under this wonderful blanket, enjoying our new technology. One problem is, the moment I pull the softness to my chin, the warmth and weight makes me start to doze, and in minutes I am off to sleep!

Anyway, we had another problem until today. We have wifi in the house, but the strength wasn't enough for the XBox live. Alex would be in the middle of a game when it would suddenly freeze and the message "Disconnected from XBox live" would appear. He would reconnect only for it to happen again. We found out that the line between the router, in the kitchen, and the xbox in the living room, is too cluttered with various solid objects like a filing cabinet and a radiator, which make the connection too weak.

So we had to bite the next bullet and buy something called a Powerline home network adaptor - you just plug one part into a socket by the router, and the other part into a socket near the Xbox, with ethernet cables into each device, and then the connection is no longer wireless - and it no longer drops at all. We have gone up from one bar to five bars! Wonderful.

Technology keeps on giving us new parables. This today made me think of how my connection with God is sometimes so weak, like a wifi connection that gets blocked or interrupted - I might even be in the middle of a prayer or reading the Bible, and I totally drift off, or someone calls me, or I just lose the moment and decide to go back to my novel. Sometimes the connection is perfect and so strong. When I was thinking about starting the New Year, I was all excited about starting a new year in my faith. But a few days later I haven't really prayed much, and I wonder why it is so easy to let it drop.

Wouldn't it be great to have a Powerline Home Faith Network Adaptor - so that I stayed connected with God all the time. I think that would help a lot - when I was stuck in a traffic jam and so mad and arriving 45 minutes late for Abby's piano lesson, or when I was stressing about the first lecture of the course I'm teaching at Redcliffe this term, or when I was feeling so discouraged  and fed up about doing housework when the carpets look dirty again even a few hours after vacuuming... if only I had those five bars, all the gifts and blessings of being with God All The Time. I wonder if PC World can help me with this one... I wish!

Water water everywhere

This happened when we had only been in Uganda for a few weeks: we were staying in the Jacksons' house, and just down from us, our neighbours had four students staying in their converted garage - complete with lino on the floor, a table and beds, a charcoal burner to cook on. But they told us that the roof leaked when the heavy rain fell.  It was just as well that the practice was stopped not long after. Anyway, the campus is on the side of a hill which stands up above all the surrounding area, so that when the rains come, first the heavy clouds assemble, billowing and swelling over the top of the hill, and when they start to spread out over the top, the rain suddenly pours, - in bucketfuls. On this day, as the clouds began to gather and swell and the thunder began, we saw these four girls run out of their accommodation and take up stances in the road, faces pointing up towards the clouds, fists raised against them: "You shall NOT rain! In the name of Jesus, we command you, you shall not rain!" Unfortunately though the thunder growled and rumbled on, and soon the fat globs of water began to fall and splash around their feet, and then, slightly muted, "OK, you may rain, but you may not spoil our things!"

I have been saying the exact same prayer in my head over the last couple of days, even though feeling that praying against the weather is seemingly pointless. It is going to come. But England has been inundated with water again these last two weeks. There is flooding in the north, south, east and west. Hundreds of people were flooded out of their homes over Christmas. And we know from our experience in 2007, when our house in Gloucester flooded badly, that it can be up to six months before you can move back into the house, depending on builders, insurance and, the weather. So it is no small thing. 

Flooded fields just outside Gloucester today

Our area has just escaped so far although the big river Severn, in whose valley Gloucester lies, has burst its banks at several points. But the fields all around where our little house is, in Longford, are all covered with water now. A few more heavy downpours, and it seems likely that the roads will flood again. No, Lord, please! (We ourselves are living in a rented house in a safer part of town, but it is our tenant - and also our floors and walls - in the little house we let out that I am talking about.)

I have often wondered about God and the weather. I know we all ask those questions when there is a major weather-related disaster, such as the Tsunami, or the earthquake in Haiti - but also, what about just, a country getting a lot of rain? Or, a lot of sunshine, like Uganda? The weather affects everything - the economy, food production, as well as also people's mentalities, plans, and even their happiness levels. Is God involved in the weather? He must be. Yet it seems so random. And can we pray about it? I remember hearing people say, "You mustn't pray for fine weather for your wedding day/bbq/swimming party - think of the poor farmers who badly need the rain!" Annoying, but true I suppose! "Nice weather for ducks" about sums it up - the weather we want may not be what our fellow-creatures want.

What about this:

"He sends his command out to the earth; his word runs swiftly. He gives snow like wool, he scatters hoar frost like ashes. He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs; who can stand before his cold? He sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow and the waters flow."  Ps 147: 15-18.

As God is in charge of this world, the weather is in his remit as well, of course, as this psalm shows. But it seems clear that God normally lets the world run along in its natural course, which includes the weather as well, for good and for bad - this is the only explanation for illness, for birds being eaten by cats in the garden, for people losing their jobs, and all those things that happen that we wish didn't happen. What I hold onto is that God can and does intervene at times, but honestly, it would be ridiculous to think of him providing the exact right weather for all our requirements from one day to the next - how could he run the world like that? He also expects us to use our brains to find ways of living in the world as it is.

But anyway, I shall still pray that Gloucester doesn't get flooded, because I really don't want it to! But I have to accept that if it does, God will help us and everyone else get through it, that this is part of living in a messed-up world, that this life isn't all we have.