Steve runs a Christian ministry in a tough neighborhood of the city of St. Louis, really tough. He tells about a father who gave his young daughter to a friend for sex. I shouldn’t say “gave” but sold. When the young girl was being led off, the father whispered in her ear, “This will help daddy pay the rent.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about culture. Not J.S. Bach versus Madonna but about the cultures in which we grow up, live and work. I’m too sheltered to be able to describe the culture in which a father prostitutes his daughter, but we know it’s profound and not easy to overcome. If you grow up in a home with an abusive or an addicted parent, you live in a powerful culture. There are unspoken rules, conducts and attitudes that subtly shape how you get along in such a home. Every home has its culture, and so does every neighborhood, every work place, every school, and every church. The culture of a place is not articulated in a plaque on the wall, in a constitution, or in a mission statement. It’s something you sense, you sniff out, and, this is key, you absorb. More and more I’m coming to realize that what you learn in a classroom is not as influential as what you experience in your culture.
This afternoon I meet my new class, the second year course in preaching. How hard it is to prepare words for the pulpit that will get through almost impenetrable walls of culture! To get through and bring help and hope in Jesus. The Word of God works, see Hebrews 4:12 or Isaiah 55:10-11. The problem is the preacher picking words that will get God’s Word into the heart. The devil is in the details, and in the culture.
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