If you get in a car accident by making a hasty lane change, you will probably remember your driving instructor telling you: “Always check the blind spot before you turn!” Words of wisdom.
We might read a phrase like “the Kingdom of Heaven” in the Bible and, based on our perspectives and presuppositions, assume it refers to a place people go when they die. But when we check our cultural blind spots and respect the way biblical authors use “the Kingdom of Heaven,” we quickly see that it is a place, but it’s more than we assumed. This Kingdom also represents a way of living—a life of loving God and people. And we can live within this Kingdom anytime and any place that we honor Jesus as King by living in his way of love for God and others. This reality changes everything, and we could easily miss it because of our cultural blind spots!
To hear the Bible’s message (instead of our own), we want to read its letters, poems, and stories within their literary and ancient cultural context. If we keep the author’s culture in mind, we can appreciate when authors show how Yahweh’s laws challenged social norms or how Jesus’ teachings inverted the honor-shame and social status hierarchies of his day (e.g., Matt. 18:4; Luke 22:26; John 4:7-30; 1 Pet. 4:12-16). Almost certainly, we will miss these revealing truths if we only read with the expectations of our own modern cultures.
