Dear friends,
This week, I am on the Kenya coast, just north of Mombasa. I am meeting with a group of 11 pastors who are being trained to be key trainers of other pastors in the region. This week, we are studying Genesis 1-11 and doing inductive methods and teaching various tools to help these pastors to understand and preach God’s Word well. The weather is alternating between hot and really hot, and each day by the time I get back to my room I’m pretty wiped out.

I thought I’d give you a small taste of one of the lessons I taught. From Genesis 1-3, we’ve been teaching about worldview, our basic system of beliefs and perspective on life, the world, God, origins, purpose and destiny, all of which guide our behavior. In order to show that people have different worldviews, which affect how differently they view even the same event, I shared this story:

A medical missionary working in India wanted to demonstrate the benefits of modern surgery to people who had had minimal contact with western technology. He invited a young Indian to be present in the operating room while he removed a large goiter from the young Indian’s aunt.
Immediately following surgery, the nephew hurried home and recounted the proceedings to the village elders. This is the account of the Indian nephew:
“I was taken to the temple of healing where, after being dressed in holy white robes and my face and head covered, I was led to the Holy of Holies and seated in a corner.
The presence of the gods in the sanctuary was so overpowering that not only I but everyone entering hid his face and covered his head. The doctor Sahib came into the Holy of Holies and washed his unclean hands for many minutes in a ritual of purification. Between washings he anointed his hands with oil.
Then there came into the room a priestess who sat at the head of the sacrificial altar and caused her to fall into a deep sleep.
When my aunt was deep in slumber, the doctor slit her throat from ear to ear as a sacrificial gesture, trying to appease the gods with her blood. He and his assistant priests wrestled with the evil spirits for a long time. The strain of battle was so great that Sahib’s forehead became wet with perspiration and a priestess mopped his brow many times. Finally the evil spirits were overcome so they rushed from the neck of my aunt, leaving her no longer possessed.”

Obviously, we have quite a different worldview from this young Indian. Can you find all the ways he interpreted aspects of the procedure differently than Westerners would? I found 12 of them. The challenge for us is to be careful, for we ALL have a worldview, and we must make sure that the Bible guides our understanding of the world and not the other way around.

Blessings to you this week. Pressing on by God’s grace. Eric