Cultural Perspective

Cultural Perspective

      I want to start by saying that I am married. I am not just married; I am so married. I like to tell folks that she is the second-best thing that ever happened to me. This often raises the question; “What was the first?” That gives me an opening to tell them about Jesus.

     I love my wife, a lot. Surprisingly enough, she loves me, a lot.

We are in the process of living happily ever after.

One of the best things we do and have done from the beginning of our marriage is to start each day sharing a cup of coffee and reading the Bible. It’s nice to start the day with a time of spiritual intimacy; just the three of us. The Lord is always welcome in our house.

The other day, as we were sitting and sipping, we decided to take a break from what we had been studying strenuously till we thought our brains would pop. We decided to leave that part of the New Testament for the moment and just read elsewhere.

My Bible opened at Song of Solomon chapter four. My eye fell on the first line which was “Thou art fair, My love; “I thought Oh good! I will look her lovingly in her eyes (You know the gig. That mushy stuff where you communicate silently. In this case, as much as to say, “Sweet Wife, this one’s for you.”)

I started reading to her those sweet words; “Thou art fair, my love, behold, thou hast dove’s eyes within thy locks:”

So far, so good. I might not have said it that way, a bit odd to me but still kinda romantic, I guess.

“Thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from Mt. Gilead.”

Uh Oh! Where is this going? Your hair a flock of goats?! I bravely went on, but things went downhill from there.

4:2 “Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bore twins…”

 I paused and asked sweetly “What would you like to read Honey.”

Is there an American woman here in the Twenty First Century that would not chase you with a frying pan if you described her hair as a flock of goats!? Now, I’m no Mensa candidate but neither am I the village idiot, (depending somewhat on the size of the village).

In case you are wondering if there is a point to this story, other than how easy it is for a man of good intentions to put his foot firmly in his mouth when interacting with the opposite sex, in fact, there is.

Our studies have made it clear to us that our modern perspective, across great spans of time, distance, language and culture, handicaps us severely in correctly interpreting the Word of God. I have thus far avoided learning Ancient Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic but I’m not sure how much longer I can hold out.

Our gift of God’s Word, the Bible, came out of an agrarian culture many thousands of years removed from our present day industrialized, information driven society, in which most of us are city dwellers. Therein lies the rub. Without making a study of the Languages and culture of that time we are mostly shooting in the dark and likely missing the nuances if not the literal meaning of many of the Holy Scriptures.

For those wishing to delve deeply into the Bible as it was written, I cannot do better for you than to refer you to the YouTube channels of:

LoveIsrael.org whose teacher is Dr. Baruch Korman. Baruch as he prefers to be called, is the expository teacher who uses original texts(as he reads live). He parses scripture sometimes down to translating individual words.

TorahClass.com taught by Tom Bradford is a very careful and detailed parsing of the scriptures. His focus is more cultural but does not spare linguistics.

Both of these together have opened the Bible to us more than anything we have done yet. 

But don't forget to read the entire passage before you try to use it to communicate your love and affection to your wife!  

Blessings! Terry