Download - Making Sense of Culture
Making Sense Making Sense of Cultureof Culture
Making Sense Making Sense of Cultureof CultureChanging
Changing
1Understanding Culture:
The Starting Point*How God created each person
Gen. 1:26-27; Eccl. 3:11; Rom. 2:15
*How God designed mankindActs 17:24-28
1Understanding Culture:
The Starting Point• God created everything and everyone• All humans have the same ‘father’• God determines when and where we
live• God’s purpose in His design is that
people would seek and hopefully find Him
2What is Culture?• Artifacts, institutions and conventions by which
people define, sustain and enrich their lives
• Our non-biological heritage
• A group’s attempt to provide meaning and structure to living
• The social “soup” we swim in
Local CultureLocal Culture
Family RelationshipsFamily Relationships Courtship * Authority * Time Courtship * Authority * Time Social Structure * CommerceSocial Structure * Commerce
Manners * WorkManners * Work
Obvious Culture
Clothing * Language * Food Celebrations * Stories * Music
Art
Foundational Culture(worldview)
God * Death * Purpose Morality * Nature * History
Cosmology
Obvious Obvious CultureCulture
Local CultureLocal Culture
Foundation Culture Foundation Culture (Worldview)
2What is Culture?
3Why Cultures Change• Time• Internal Reasons
– Poverty, prosperity, war– Social/spiritual transformation
• External Reasons– Collision with other cultures/ideas
4The Christian Perspective• Christ and Culture (Relationship)
– Christ Transcends Culture– Christ Trumps Culture– Christ Transforms Culture
• Christ and Culture (History)– Missions (Acts 14:8-20; 15:1-35)– Bible translation
4The Christian Perspective• Christ-centered Education
– “. . . must emphasize the cost of discipleship, the absolute claim of God over our entire life, the necessity of a faith that issues forth in obedience, and our belonging to an alternative culture shaped by the kingdom of Jesus.”
5The Christian Response• Appreciate/Discern your own culture• Appreciate/Discern other cultures• God’s Purpose -> My Purpose
– Common Grace– Saving Grace
Making Sense Making Sense of Cultureof CultureChanging
Changing