Richards And O Brien: Chapter Analysis

Richards and O’Brien open up with detailed information about their professions, studies and families. This allows the reader to get a better understanding of the authors, so that interpreting the authors’ points of view becomes either agreeable or disagreeable. Afterwards, the authors describe the general ideas that will be covered in the different sections of the book and how deep the misreading actually goes between the different sections. Finally, the authors explain the importance of why the reader needs to understand how western views are different from eastern views and how theses views affect ones interpretation of scripture.

Section one of the book starts off talking about mores or customs that differ from western and eastern cultures.

Richards talks about how in his family they do refrain from cussing, however, one day Richards’ eldest son used a cuss word in front of another missionary. Richards was in shock, later he realized where his son had learned the cuss word. People are influenced by their surroundings and habits; this is what led Richards’ son to cuss. As western Christians, we are torn between fulfilling Christian values and completing western values. Western values leads us to forming compromises that way we feel as if we have fulfilled both Christian and western values. After mores, race and ethnicity become the next topic, here Brandon explains about his adopted son that is of a different race. The authors challenge the reader to understand the importance of diversity and realize their views about different ethnicities. Section one ends on the topic of language. In the United States, it can be hard trying to understand our language because of our complexity. The authors make it clear, out of the three topics covered in section one, language is the most obvious and insidious reason as to why we misread scripture. It is recommended that we read different translations to either get a better grasp on either the original language of the bible or the contemporary language.
Section two deals with topics that are considered just below the surface.

Topics include individualism and collectivism, honor/shame and right/wrong, and time. Beginning with individualism and collectivism, the authors share that before the modern area Christianity didn’t take root in Japan very well. Japan is a collectivized system and no person could make a decision on their own, but has to ask the rest of the family. Many eastern countries are collectivized and therefore everyone joins together on making decisions. The authors challenges the reader to understand that through the bible, there were many cases westerners read it as individualistic while actually collectivized. Next the authors talk about honor/shame and right/wrong, they also explain that this chapter was the most challenging to right because they themselves still lacked a good understanding of the difference. Here they connect back to the topic individualism and collectivism. Throughout this chapter they explain what scholar meant by honor and shame by comparing Western concepts of rights and wrongs. They follow with explaining how honor and shame worked through the bible. The authors then explain that because of the difficulty of understanding honor and shame, the best way to understand the bible more is to better understand the concepts of honor and shame. Finally, the authors close section two with the topic of time. Western culture is powered by time and therefore everything is on a schedule, whereas in

Eastern cultures procrastination is key. Richards shares that in Indonesia, fisherman have all the time in the world to catch fish, which is hard for westerners to understand because we like fixed deadlines. Throughout the chapter the authors explain the difference between kairos and chronos. Afterwards they challenge the reader to decide if the biblical author was using either kairos or chronos when a time was given and read it as both to see which sounds better in the context.
Finally, the final section of the book deals with subjects that are deep below the surface such as cultural consciousness.

Rule and relationships is the opening chapter of section three and discusses the changes of Western culture relationships with God. For the longest people believed that God created everything and was still developing the world, but in the nineteenth century the relationship between God and Earth became distant. People believed God had set Earth in motion and was going to watch as it finished. In other words God had removed Himself from being involved with anything that occurs on Earth. This separation led to the formation of rules, which Westerns try to follow as to please God. These rules became deeply entrenched in our lives and led to misinterpreting rules in the bible. The authors challenge the reader to read the rules in scripture less scrutinizing. Next, virtue and vice, these have made following Christian ideas difficult because we are to share our wealth, but the little red hen story says that people are to work for their share. The authors explain that to understand virtues and vices is similar to understanding mores in section one. They challenge the reader to be sensitive to the writings of scripture and be sensitive tot the writings of other Christians different in culture or age. Finally the last chapter of the book deals with finding the center of God’s will. Every person tries to get the bible to relate to himself or herself that way it is

better understood. Jeremiah 29:11 is not a verse about God helping one after high school to find a career, rather it is about God’s promise to the Israelites that they will return to the promise land after seventy year in Babylon. We come by this honestly because when Europeans came to the New World they were looking for individual improvement. The authors states Westerns are the blindest when trying to find the center of God’s will. Westerns search for God’s will but ultimately want a seat with our name on it. The authors challenge the reader to not read the bible as what does it mean to me and avoid deriving strict individual interpretations.
In the conclusion the authors explain that this book has hopefully shed light on misunderstanding. The reader learns that they need to embrace complexity because it can become tricky for passage to make sense, but if made simpler the passage becomes misinterpreted. Also the reader needs to beware of overcorrection and not make things all-or-nothing. Finally the authors challenge the reader to be teachable and embrace errors, this will help in making less misinterpretations of the bible. If it is still difficult read with a group of people and share your ideas and then interpret those ideas to have a better understanding.