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Culture In Scripture

Now to idea that the culture in which the Bible was written needs to be considered when interpreting certain passages. In the early 1970’s a legalistic type Christian man rebuked me for having long hair. He told me that "somewhere" in the Bible God said that men shouldn’t have long hair. Hoping not to embarrass the poor guy too much, I told him that the verse he was attempting to quote was found in 1 Cor. 11:14. The man was taken back, not thinking that a guy looking like me might know exactly where such a verse would be found, but it was only one of more than 1800 verses I had memorized to that point. Whether right or wrong, I told the man that Paul’s statement was based on his cultural upbringing.

Paul also told women not to have braided hair. Most scholars tell us that prostitutes had braided hair in those days and so Paul didn’t want Christian woman looking like prostitutes. I’m not sure prostitutes have braided hair these days, so I really don’t think braided hair is a relevant issue for today’s Christian woman. Ironically enough, the man’s wife who rebuked me for my long hair had braided hair. The point here is that Paul’s statement concerning braided hair was based on the culture of the day and doesn’t have the same relevance for woman today.

Then there’s the matter of women being silent in the church. Most women believe this statement is based on culture, while many men believe it’s God directive to women. I’ll let you figure this issue out for yourself.

The idea of culture influencing certain Biblical passages does have "some" validity. There’s just one problem though, and that is we need to be careful lest we culturalize the Bible away. We need to be sure what is cultural and what is God’s directive or else we’ll misinterpret the Bible.

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