One of the core classes we take in school is history. Was this a subject you enjoyed or not? How much of it do you remember? Why is it so important that it is a required subject? What actually is history and how does it help us better understand the Bible?

We hope you’ve enjoyed this series on communal culture in the Bible. Here is a quick recap of what we’ve covered.

Who do you eat with? Meals in the ancient world were more than just what was on the table – who was at the table was even more important. Jesus’s controversial choice of dinner guests drew mixed reactions. What does it mean to be invited to eat with Jesus?

What is a name? Why do you have the name you have? Is there any significance to it? In the Bible, names were more than just a label. What does it mean to be renamed or to lose a name? What does it mean to carry God’s name well or in vain?

What determines how you act? Are you more driven by a sense of whether the action is right or by what people will think? In this episode we look at a key difference between Eastern and Western cultures and how it influences how people in the Bible acted. This is a huge cultural contrast that is easy for Westerners to miss.

There are a lot of differences between the Eastern, Hebraic mindset and our modern Western ways of thinking. In this episode, we get an overview of some of these contrasting perspectives, focusing on differences related to community.

What is culture? Why study biblical culture? Different cultures bring different assumptions to life and act in different ways. In our first video, we provide an introduction to understanding biblical culture. How have we gotten our images of what the Bible is like? Which are correct and which are wrong? How can we be more responsible readers of the Bible and engage it more faithfully?