From 2002 to 2004 Jen and I were missionaries to Oradea Romania. We worked with a wonderful ministry that placed abandoned Romanian orphans into homes with house parents who became parents to those children until they graduated. We worked with the dairy farm that was across the road from the 8 or so houses that the children lived in. Our job was to teach and train the Romanian workers in modern dairy farming practices.
We encountered many challenging things as we tried to work with the workers and train them in modern dairy farming practices. What became clear to Jen and I was that the Romanians point of reference of dairy farming was having 1 or 2 cows in the back yard that you sent out to pasture everyday and in turn received about a gallon of milk that they would harvest via hand milking. So for them, using automated equipment, following a breeding program, feeding fermented forages, and working with tractors, was quite the culture shock to them. Typically Jen and I would be the only people experiencing culture shock, but the farm became a point of culture shock to the workers as well. The farm was unique and unlike anything any of them had ever seen before let alone worked on. And quite honestly there were no dairy farms like this anywhere in the area and quite possibly the country. In short they lacked a point of reference that dairy farming could be different than their 1 cow in the back yard experience afforded them.
The fledgling Corinthian church that Paul writes to in the New Testament has a point of reference problem as well. The church was full of young followers of Jesus who were living in a city that was very cosmopolitan for that day. Every kind of belief, religion, trade, sexual practice, and philosophy was present in that culture. It was a smart city with a good economy due to trade. It became a melting pot for all sorts of people with all sorts of backgrounds that blended together to form a very "enlightened" culture that lacked a clear understanding of moral rights and wrongs.
Paul addresses these new church followers who are asking him, "Look, we love Jesus and have received him as Lord and Savior, but now what?" "We've been living a certain way for so long that we don't know another way is possible and if another way is possible, we don't even know what that looks like".
So Paul spends the book of 1 Corinthians addressing some of their issues like sexual immorality, law suites against each other, pride, and Christian marriage. He instructs them because their new lives needed to now be counter cultural to the way they had been living before they became Christians.
In short, just like the Romanians we worked with, the Corinthians lacked a point of reference that life could be different than what they were used to. They had never seen or experienced a different way than the way they had always known.
Having points of reference are quite useful in everyday life. Without points of reference we guess at how things might be different than they are. What life could look like becomes more of an abstract idea as opposed to a concrete idea. If a different life stays in the abstract, real change won't happen because the concept doesn't seem like it could be real. It will remain a fantasy, a "Pie-in-the-sky" kind of thing that only exists in fantasy land. The Corinthian Christians are not that much different than people coming to faith in Christ today. Thankfully there is hope for today's new Christians, and that is what part II of this blog will be about.
We encountered many challenging things as we tried to work with the workers and train them in modern dairy farming practices. What became clear to Jen and I was that the Romanians point of reference of dairy farming was having 1 or 2 cows in the back yard that you sent out to pasture everyday and in turn received about a gallon of milk that they would harvest via hand milking. So for them, using automated equipment, following a breeding program, feeding fermented forages, and working with tractors, was quite the culture shock to them. Typically Jen and I would be the only people experiencing culture shock, but the farm became a point of culture shock to the workers as well. The farm was unique and unlike anything any of them had ever seen before let alone worked on. And quite honestly there were no dairy farms like this anywhere in the area and quite possibly the country. In short they lacked a point of reference that dairy farming could be different than their 1 cow in the back yard experience afforded them.
The fledgling Corinthian church that Paul writes to in the New Testament has a point of reference problem as well. The church was full of young followers of Jesus who were living in a city that was very cosmopolitan for that day. Every kind of belief, religion, trade, sexual practice, and philosophy was present in that culture. It was a smart city with a good economy due to trade. It became a melting pot for all sorts of people with all sorts of backgrounds that blended together to form a very "enlightened" culture that lacked a clear understanding of moral rights and wrongs.
Paul addresses these new church followers who are asking him, "Look, we love Jesus and have received him as Lord and Savior, but now what?" "We've been living a certain way for so long that we don't know another way is possible and if another way is possible, we don't even know what that looks like".
So Paul spends the book of 1 Corinthians addressing some of their issues like sexual immorality, law suites against each other, pride, and Christian marriage. He instructs them because their new lives needed to now be counter cultural to the way they had been living before they became Christians.
In short, just like the Romanians we worked with, the Corinthians lacked a point of reference that life could be different than what they were used to. They had never seen or experienced a different way than the way they had always known.
Having points of reference are quite useful in everyday life. Without points of reference we guess at how things might be different than they are. What life could look like becomes more of an abstract idea as opposed to a concrete idea. If a different life stays in the abstract, real change won't happen because the concept doesn't seem like it could be real. It will remain a fantasy, a "Pie-in-the-sky" kind of thing that only exists in fantasy land. The Corinthian Christians are not that much different than people coming to faith in Christ today. Thankfully there is hope for today's new Christians, and that is what part II of this blog will be about.
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