Joining the first Hearers

Let us begin this section with an example, a story of my experience in the Netherlands.

I remember then that my friend who is Greek-Nigerian, but spent her entire life in greece, had a difficult time, and the first thing I said was OMG, “Sorry”, and she was stunned, saying to me, “But it is not your fault”, I became confused immediately, also. The challenge here wasn’t the word “sorry” but WHAT we understood that word to mean.

In Nigeria, Sorry doesn’t mean a confession of wrong always, it can also mean “I sympatize with you”, especially, when you are in a difficult situation such as you tripped. But that is foreign to Europe, as they see the word “sorry” more as feeling regret for the wron I have done.

The culture has shaped what we both “heard”, yet, same word was spoken.

Now, that means, words do not exist in isolation, they do not exist on their own, they are shaped by the culture and the people to whom they are spoken, and the bible is exactly thesame.

Let’s see two quotes that I love so much;