R4-6: Why It’s So Difficult For Westerners To Understand The Bible

I’ve been working in Japan in the recruiting industry for close to 16 years now.

And I’ll never forget the time I was interviewing a Japanese engineering professional who had spent several years working in Israel.

During our conversation, he said something I’ll never forget.

It went something like this:

“The Israelis don’t think like Americans or Europeans.  
Their thinking is much more adaptable and flexible”.

Looking back and after many years of deep Scripture study I can see just how correct he truly was.

A lot of folks classify the Bible as being a Western Book.

While gentile Christianity especially as it exists in America could be described as a Western religion.

The book from which it sprang is not.

See, the biggest problem Westerners face when trying to interpret the Bible is that they’re Westerners.

That’s the BIGGEST hurdle.

The way they think…

And the way they reason…

Their worldview was birthed in Greek culture as practiced in the Western Roman Empire.

But the Bible itself is an Eastern book.

Every event we read about in the Word is based on Eastern culture…

And on ancient Hebrew thinking patterns.

This includes the New Testament.

That’s right homies.

The New Testament was originally written in Greek but the authors such as Kephas (Peter) and Rabbi Shaul (Paul) were easterners.

This means that embedded in the Greek text of the New Testament are Eastern cultural thinking patterns.

Now imagine what happens when a Western translator reads the Greek New Testament and then attempts to render it into another European language such as English, Spanish or French.

The gap widens even further…

Resulting in the aberration that exists today known as Western Christianity.

One positive thing about the New Testament is about 50% of it consists of direct quotes from the “Old” Testament.

And when I say “direct quotes” I mean exactly that…

Not thoughts or ideas taken from the “Old” Testament…

But exact word-for-word quotes that have been literally extracted from the Hebrew and put into Greek.

This means we can go back and cross-reference all those NT passages that cause us to scratch our heads in confusion.

So if you’re a Westerner, it doesn’t matter how many doggone hours you spend studying Scripture.

Until you make a deliberate effort and train yourself to think like an Easterner…

Until you learn to recognize Hebrew thought patterns…

It’s gonna be all Greek to you (pun intended)…

Which means Asians (born and raised in Asia Asians, NOT Asian Americans) and other Easterners possess an inbuilt advantage when it comes to understanding God’s Word.

So this whole idea that the Bible is a book of mysticism …

And that culture and context is not important when reading it…

This notion is absolutely ABSURD at face value and is only used to promote false and manmade doctrines which the Roman gentile church has been doing since its very inception.

But you know what’s ironic about this whole thing?

The Bible actually gave birth to Western civilization.

Things have turned out exactly as Noah prophesied when he said:

“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Shem!
    May Canaan be the slave of Shem.
May God extend Japheth’s territory;
may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,
and may Canaan be the slave of Japheth.”
-Genesis 9:27

In other words, it is the EAST that gave birth to the WEST.

Talk about a paradox man!

Yet, such paradoxes are the highlight of Eastern thinking.

Over and out.