“Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
It is a real privilege to share with you again here at Lakeside. My wife Laura and I sincerely want to thank you for your 31 years of partnership in our ministry with Pioneer Bible Translators.
Over the years, people have asked me what the hardest thing is about being a missionary. One of the answers I have given is learning the language and culture of another people. It is a never-ending task, full of challenges, surprises, victories, and many embarrassing moments.
I remember one embarrassing moment from 22 years ago when I was learning French. We had arrived at the end of our time in Europe, and were visiting a church that was giving a sendoff to us and another missionary couple going to Africa. During the ceremony, they interviewed us on stage and at one point they took questions from the audience. One person asked a question that I thought I had a perfect answer for, so I volunteered to answer it. With amazing fluency, using complicated grammar structures and advanced vocabulary I dazzled the audience with my answer. It was only afterward that someone gently informed me that I had totally misunderstood the question and my answer made no sense. To this day I have intense feelings of embarrassment when I remember this. The audience has probably long forgotten me, but I can’t shake this memory.
Maybe you have some embarrassing moment in your past that haunts you. Maybe it was a time you struck out in the bottom of the 9th inning with the bases loaded. Maybe it was that speech you gave when you couldn’t remember what you were going to say. Maybe it was when you showed up to an event in jeans and everyone was wearing formal attire. Have you ever dreamed that you came to church in your pajamas? Why do we have dreams like that?
One thing I have never been embarrassed about is talking about the ministry of Pioneer Bible Translators. Our vision is to see Transformed Lives Through God’s Word in Every Language. We don’t just translate the Bible, but we disciple the Bibleless. We want to see networks of churches using Scripture to grow, mature, and multiply, transforming people’s lives and their whole community.
In our previous visits, we have shared about the rapid growth of Pioneer Bible Translators over the last ten years. We have expanded our ministry into 12 new countries. As I have been involved in the planning and training for sending workers into these new countries, I have learned more about their cultures. Many of these cultures are called honor and shame cultures.
Honor and Shame Cultures
This morning I would like to take you on a journey that I have experienced as I have learned about honor and shame. Because most of the cultures of the Bible were honor-shame cultures, we can gain many new perspectives on Scripture if we understand honor and shame. We can also better understand the depth of our relationship to God and what his Son Jesus did for us on the cross if we understand honor and shame.
The main verses that I would like to use this morning are found in Romans chapter 10. Romans 10:9-11, "That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
I have read this statement in the Bible many times, but as I have learned more about honor and shame, I have learned that shame in the Bible goes way beyond the type of embarrassment that I described when I made a language learning mistake.
If you are familiar with the story of Cain and Abel, you may remember that God rejected Cain’s sacrifice and accepted the sacrifice of his brother Abel. Scripture tells us Cain was angry and his countenance fell. Cain was more than just sad, Cain had lost face, he felt shame. He was also jealous of the honor given his brother Abel, so he murdered him. Honor and Shame can be a life and death matter.
In an honor-shame culture, your adherence to the expectations of the group determine whether you have honor or shame.
Think about the type of things that the Pharisees said about Jesus: “He is a friend to tax collectors and sinners.” For the Pharisees, Jesus’ behavior was shameful because he violated the cultural norms of not associating with the unclean.
The closest experience most of us have had to this type of shame was probably in junior high or high school. Wearing the right clothes, listening to the right music, being part of the right group, these were very important. Being cast out of the group was the worst thing ever.
Some of us parents have children that are going through this right now. As outsiders, we sometimes struggle to understand the rules and expectations that govern the sub-culture that our children live in. Not understanding the rules and expectations can make for frustrating experiences when you are in another culture.
Many years ago I was in an airport in an Asian country and saw a woman pushing a luggage cart full of luggage. At some point the cart got caught on a wall and the whole thing turned over, spilling suitcases everywhere. Now, because of my cross-cultural training, I was prepared for what happened next, but it was still shocking. The local people, instead of helping the woman, started laughing. They continued to laugh or just ignored her while she worked to put everything back on the cart.
One of my teammates with me started to rush over to help the woman, but I stopped her. Our sensibilities were screaming “Stop laughing at her, what is wrong with you, why aren’t you helping?” But I knew just enough about their culture to help me understand their perspective. By laughing they were saying “it is no big deal”. By helping the woman, they would have drawn attention to the seriousness of her plight. They would have been saying to her “You need help” and she would have felt shame.
My first missionary experience was 30 years ago in the South Pacific nation of Papua New Guinea. I learned early on that in Papua New Guinea, one of the most serious sins is the expression of anger. Why? Because the expression of anger leads to broken relationships.
Jesus said, Matthew 5:21-22, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment;"
Innocence and Guilt Culture
Most of us grew up in an innocence-guilt culture. We appeal to laws and justice to define morality. But honor-shame cultures rely on relationships and reputation to guide behavior. While serving in Papua Guinea there was an event in one of the villages with a Pioneer Bible Translators missionary that illustrates the difference between a guilt-culture and a shame-culture.
The missionaries lived in a remote village accessible only by a river. They hired a local man named Tangele to take their large fiberglass canoe up and down the river to provide transportation for them and get supplies, kind of like their taxi driver. One day someone came to their house to tell them that Tangele was doing a lot of business on the side, using their gasoline to make extra trips for his own profit. The missionaries’ house was built on stilts, and unknown to them a young boy was underneath the house listening to the whole conversation.
Soon the young boy ran through the village, to tell others about the accusation. This caused quite a crisis in the village and after many meetings led to a surprising conclusion. The young boy was made to perform hundreds of hours of community service, because he had shamed Tangele and his family. The missionaries also had to help pay for a reconciliation feast for the entire village. They also had to retain Tangele as their driver to restore his honor. Tangele’s guilt was clearly evident to all, but that was not the focus. The relationships were the focus. Honor was the focus. The actions which brought shame and disrupted relationships needed to be redressed.
I also don’t want to you to think that only people in non-Western cultures experience shame. In addition to the example I gave earlier of high school subculture, there are many other American subcultures where shame is prevalent.
Some rural cultures operate on group expectations to enforce behavior. Have you ever heard someone say “What will the neighbors think?”
Social media is also making us more of an honor-shame culture. In many circles, your worth or honor is based on your number of Twitter followers. Social media has also created a culture of public shaming in which people are punished for indiscretions or statements way beyond their supposed “crime”.
So what does the Bible say about honor and shame? Here is just a sampling of the hundreds of verses that refer to honor and shame:
Perhaps the most familiar is: Deuteronomy 5:16, "Honor your father and your mother, as the Lordyour God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lordyour God is giving you."
A large number of the Psalms deal with honor and shame: Psalms 25:1-3a, "To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. no one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame,"
Psalm 62:7, "My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge."
Hundreds of verses in Psalms declare the honor and glory of God. Here is just one example: Psalm 45:17 (NLT), "I will bring honor to your name in every generation. Therefore, the nations will praise you forever and ever."
Honor and shame are not just an OT concept, but appear throughout the NT: John 5:22-23, "Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him."
And then one of my favorite verses of Scripture: Hebrews 12:2, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
Also in Hebrews 2:9, "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone."
Because the Bible was written in the context of shame cultures, we shouldn’t be surprised that the themes that speak to an honor-shame culture can be found throughout. The words honor or shame may not always be used, but relationships and reputation are common themes, particularly our relationship to God, and his reputation or glory.
In Genesis 3, in the account of Adam and Eve we learn about the introduction of sin and shame. When they ate of the fruit of the tree, Adam and Eve sinned and they became aware of their shame. Their position of honor as stewards of the garden was taken away from them and their actions brought a curse and shame on all creation, and on us. Their close relationship with God, the source of all glory and honor, was broken because of their sin.
In Genesis 11, we see that people tried to gain honor for themselves by building a tower, instead of honoring God: Genesis 11:4, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth."
But God began a plan to bring all mankind back to himself, to remove sin and shame, to restore our relationship with him.
At a key moment of this salvation history, we read that God chose Abraham in Genesis 12. He told Abraham: Genesis 12:2-3, "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Abraham was to be given a great name and have a huge family. Part of his receiving a great name was because he was going to be responsible for restoring our relationship to God. Through his descendant Jesus, all peoples on earth are able to have a relationship with God.
Throughout Scripture we read about the descendants of Abraham, the people of Israel being God’s chosen people. They were given a special position of honor from which they were supposed to bless all nations. But again and again they rejected their God and worshipped shameful idols. But God’s plan to bless all nations could not be frustrated.
In the year 2000, my wife and I returned from Africa for a time in the States. Through the generosity of John and Nina Schramm, we lived for a brief time in Loami. While there, I was interested in how the town got its name. In learned that one of founders of the town had three different grist mills burn down. After the third fire, he is reported to have sat down dejected and said “Well low am I.” And that is how LowAmI or Loami got its name.
But whenever I hear the name Loami, I am reminded of one of the sons of the prophet Hosea in the Bible. Hosea 1:8-10, "After [Hosea’s wife, Gomer] had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, [she] had another son. 9 Then the Lordsaid, “Call him Lo-Ammi,for you are not my people, and I am not your God."
How would you like to be called Lo-Ruhamah or Lo-Ammi? Imagine roll call at school. David, [here!], Samson [here!], Lo-Ruhamah! [here]. Even worse is what the names meant, Lo-Ruhamah is Hebrew for “not loved.” Lo-Ammi is Hebrew for “not my people”. The next verse gives a more positive outcome: 10 “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’
God tells us through Hosea, that even though the nation of Israel rejected him, his plan to redeem mankind could not be frustrated. He continued to choose a remnant from his people, a remnant that would receive honor as “sons of the living God.” We’ll look later at how this theme is developed in the New Testament.
There are many other stories, customs, and even Biblical laws that make more sense when we look at them from an honor-shame perspective.
You may know that when an Israelite man died, his brother was to marry his widow to keep his name alive and to prevent her from suffering the shame and vulnerability of widowhood. Perhaps you remember the story of Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi whose husbands died while they were in a foreign land. When they returned to Israel, Boaz was the kinsman-redeemer, he married Ruth. It is easy to think of this as a love story, but to an honor-shame culture it is the story of God removing shame from his people. It is the story of God announcing his glory.
It is easy to think of this as a love story, but to the people of Israel, to an honor-shame culture, it is the story of God as kinsman-redeemer, of God removing shame from his people. It is the story of God proclaiming his honor and glory. And we know the rest of this redemption story. Not only did Ruth and Naomi have their shame taken away, but they had the honor of being the ancestors of King David and Jesus, the Messiah.
So we see the ideas of honor and shame are found throughout Scripture. As I have been on this journey of understanding more about honor and shame, I have realized that we all deal with shame regardless of our culture. At times, we all feel isolated, like we don’t fit in. At times, we all feel inadequate or worthless. Shame is sometimes appropriate, part of how the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin.
Scripture tells us that: Romans 3:23, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
Restoring Honor After Shame
Shame is sometimes our recognition that we have fallen short of God’s glory. However, much of our shame is false shame. Sometimes we feel like Job: Job 10:15, "Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head, for I am full of shame’"
Even when God forgives us, sometimes we feel shame because we listen to others who continue to condemn us. Sometimes we listen to our inner “shame voice” that tells us we are not worthy to be forgiven. But the good news is that Jesus takes away both our guilt and shame. He takes away the shame that we have before God because of sin. He takes away the shame that others try to put on us. And he even takes away the shame that we try to put on ourselves.
Remember the verses I shared earlier. Romans 10:9-11, "That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
“Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
There is a fable that I learned during our years living among the Toma people in West Africa that illustrates what Jesus does for us.
In ancient Toma culture, if someone had done something bad, such as stealing, they would attach a large piece of wood to his foot and then attach the wood to a tree. This public humiliation caused great shame. Guess what they called this? Being nailed to a tree. Does that sound familiar?
The Toma people have a fable about a spider. This spider did nothing but steal. Finally, one day, people nailed him to a tree in their manner. They put a bucket next to him and said that they wouldn’t release him until he had filled the bucket with his tears. Now have you ever seen a spider that could cry? Of course he couldn’t do it.
An old woman came by and said, “I’ll help you, but I know you’ll betray me.” The spider said, “No, no, I won’t betray you.” The woman filled the bucket with water and added some salt.
Then the spider called everyone and announced that he had filled the bucket with his tears. They tasted the salty water and released him.
As soon as he was free, he taunted them, saying, “I didn’t really fill the bucket with tears. That old woman filled it with water and salt.”
So they took the old woman and nailed her to the tree instead. They told her she had to fill the bucket with her tears. She couldn’t do it, either. She stayed nailed to the tree and starved. When she was about to die she cursed the spider, saying that from now on everyone would chase him with flaming torches.
So from the Toma perspective, the fable explains why the Toma people chase spiders with torches. But I have used this story to explain to Toma people what Jesus does for us.
Because of our sin, we deserved to be nailed to a tree. Jesus was nailed to a tree in our place. But unlike the woman he submitted to this shame willingly.
The Work of Jesus
Remember the verse from Hebrews 12:2, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
Unlike the woman, Jesus did not curse us. Instead his actions brought the blessing of salvation. We could never atone for our sin or remove our own shame. Jesus is the only one who could fill up the bucket of tears for us. He bore the shame of being nailed to a tree, and as a result he can remove our shame, restoring our relationship to God. Not only does Jesus remove our shame, but he restores our honor.
As a result of what Jesus did on the cross, he was crowned with glory and honor, and he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. We also share in that glory. 2 Thessalonians 2:14, "He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Part of the honor that we receive is because of our new relationship with God.
Earlier I gave several examples from the Old Testament of the special relationship that God had with the people of Israel. In the New Testament, this theme of being chosen for a special relationship with God is expressed most clearly in the passages about our adoption as children of God.
Ephesians 1:5-6 (NLT), "God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son."
God chose us to be his children. Because Jesus, his son, took away our sin and shame, we can be part of God’s family.
Remember that for an honor-shame culture that relationships and reputation are important. If we only think of Jesus dying on the cross as a way to remove our guilt, we’re missing something. The redemption story is not only about the removal of guilt or even shame, but also about the restoration of a relationship. God great pleasure is that we are blessed by a relationship with him, not just benefit from a transaction.
Our salvation is also about God’s reputation. Have you ever wondered about the passages in the Bible that include the phrase “for his name’s sake”? God blesses his children, not because we deserve it, but for the sake of his reputation, for “his name’s sake.” Because he is a merciful God, showing glorious grace, he is worthy of honor and praise.
I think it is appropriate to close this message about honor with a declaration of God’s glory.
Paul closes his letter to the Romans with the following prayer: Romans 16:25-27, "Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him– 27 to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen."