“So, Lord,... Master,... we are wanting to get something straight here. We are realizing that You are teaching us a new way to interpret reality, and we want to get our facts and our theology straight. As You know, there is a battle going on about such subjects as this one. This man has been here for a long time, and a while back we heard some liberals and conservatives, or I mean, some Sadducees and Pharisees, discussing this issue. We want to know the truth, straight from You. Honestly, Lord, sometimes You seem like a liberal, sometimes like a conservative, so it seems like we are just going to have to ask You this kind of question about each individual case. So, tell, us, why is this guy blind? Somebody obviously sinned for him to be blind, and since he was born blind, we are wondering who the guilty person is. We want to have our theology straight, Lord, so that we can have the right answer to give if we ever get involved in a debate like the one we saw.”
The disciples of course were incapable of seeing the deeper basis of their question. It would take them months or years before they would understand that they were unconsciously assuming that this man was being punished for sin, and that God was the one punishing him. They were wanting to figure out a very superficial issue, while their underlying worldview on matters of sickness and sin and punishment was unaltered, and would have remained unaltered if Jesus had answered their question with one of the options that they presented Him.
“Jesus answered, ‘It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.’” John 9:3.
Guys, disciples, listen to Me. You need to learn to understand reality in a completely fresh and new way. I will not answer this question based on the options you have given Me, because you need to see that there are other reasons for this man’s condition. In the future, I do want you to be able to correctly interpret situations like this one, but I am not interested in you reducing a human life to a theological debate. This is a chance for the glory of God to be revealed. That is what I want you to see from now on.
Then, in the moment when the hearts of the disciples were open to learning, Jesus demonstrated what He had just said. He let them witness a powerful experience that could not fail to get them emotionally involved in what was happening, so that in the future, blind, lame, sick people would bring up powerful images in their minds, and they would do as He had done.
“When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing.” John 9:6, 7.
Jesus was not trying to help his disciples know how to live life by choosing among the best options that they saw available. He spent His life working to lead them to full conversion, to the point that they could interpret life according to His truth. He told them they must become as little children, learning to interpret reality all over again. Jesus was not seeking to help people know how to live life as they know it in the best way, He came to give us true LIFE, a whole new way to live, different from anything we have known before.
We often struggle in our Christian lives because we are trying to live by the teachings of Jesus, without understand that His teachings are not good rules to apply to life, but are rather His way of re-writing our worldview, so that our entire understanding of life will be transformed. He lived a human life on earth, in full view of the society He lived in, and filled His teaching with stories, so that we could have the best possible opportunity to see life through new eyes, to have an entirely renewed approach to reality.
As missionaries, we spend a lot of time studying about worldview. A correct understanding of the worldview of the people we are working with is the key to being able to present the gospel to them effectively. We study about worldview on a theoretical level, and as AFM missionaries at least, our first years in the mission field will be filled with seeking to understand the culture and worldview of the people we are serving, before we ever begin to actively do any evangelism.
The study of worldview and culture has been a great source of eye-opening experiences for me in the last months, and in an attempt to share what I have learned, and to deepen the impression of the lessons I have learned, I write this series. I hope you enjoy it, and that you are challenged to think in ways you have not thought before. I hope that these blogs may be a tool that God uses to draw you closer to His will for your life, and that you are inspired to study more deeply into these subjects. I will present very little if any original material, but I will try to season the theory with personal stories. The material I intend to share is primarily a rehash of high points from AFM Summer Training, and in writing this material, I am heavily plagiarizing the material that was presented by Erich Baumgartner, Dale Goodson, and John Kent, as well as material in books I have read. The books include Anthropological Insights for Missionaries, by Paul Hiebert, and Worldwide Perspectives (now Pathways to Global Understanding) by Meg Crossman.
May your worldview be exposed, challenged, and expanded as you read, is my prayer!
