Quotes from E. Randolph Richards

Our emphasis on saving makes sense when we consider that most of us think of our options as either saving or spending. But the biblical witness and Christian tradition suggest that there's another option: sharing.

At some point in this generation, "Take up your cross and follow me" changed into, "Come to Jesus and he'll make your life better.

This misreading of Scripture arises from combining our individualism with a more subtle, deeply hidden and deeply rooted aspect of our Western worldview: we still think the universe centers around us.

Some of these proverbs sound as if they come from Scripture (and many people believe they do), like this one: 'God helps those who help themselves'-which is likely anti-biblical. God helps those who rely on him.

Before we can be confident we are reading the Bible accurately, we need to understand what assumptions and values we project onto the Bible:

Another reason Westerners are tempted to compromise is because we tend to view the world dualistically. Things are true or false, right or wrong, good or bad. We have little patience for ambiguity or for the unsettling reality that values change over time.

Our tendency to emphasize rules over relationship and correctness over community means that we are often willing to sacrifice relationships on the altar of rules.

In the West, it may help if the church started thinking more in terms of we than me.

Thinking critically about why you assume what you assume can make you sensitive, over time, to the cultural mores you bring to the biblical text.

Sin is corporate; it permeates the whole body. We don't like to think that way, but it's true. It leavens the whole lump and the honor of us all is at stake.

all questions of interpretation are, in the end, questions about application,

We like to say that generalizations are always wrong and usually helpful.

It is possible to be so worried about the time (chronos) for something—such as the return of Christ—that we miss the time (kairos) for something—such as living like citizens of the kingdom of God.

Alas, here is the bigger problem: maybe the reason we North Americans struggle to find makarios in our personal lives is because we don't have a word in our native language to denote it.

We can easily forget that Scripture is a foreign land and that reading the Bible is a crosscultural experience.

With the outbreak of the H1N1 virus, moderns have been reintroduced to the threat of pandemics. We have always been susceptible, of course, but most of us have short memories. When the next plague strikes, do we cite Psalm 91:5-7?

Western societies are, by and large, individualistic societies. The most important entity in an individualistic culture is the individual person.

Rather, members of collectivist cultures make decisions based on the counsel of elders—parents, aunts or uncles. The highest goal and virtue in this sort of culture is supporting the community. This makes people happy (makarios).

In Western individualist cultures, the decision to become a Christian is a personal and individual decision.

In collectivist societies, conversion is not strictly an individual decision, so it is often not an individual experience.

when we project our own cultural mores onto the original audience of the Bible, we may fail to apply the Bible correctly in our own lives.

Being family gave you obligations. Jesus and Paul's language about church as family was radical talk and not merely cultural convention.

If we're not careful, our individualistic assumptions about church can lead us to think of the church as something like a health club. We're members because we believe in the mission statement and want to be a part of the action. As long as the church provides the services I want, I'll stick around. But when I no longer approve of the vision, or am no longer "being fed," I'm out the door.

Associating with Christ but not his church is a distinction Jesus would never have made.