Honor/Shame and Right/Wrong
On one occasion, I (Randy) was counseling an Indonesian couple in which the husband had just been caught in adultery. I was surprised that the wife’s greatest pain seemed not to be the personal betrayal. In her words, the most basic concern was, “Where can I put my face?” He had “wronged her”—to use my term—by “shaming her”—their term. This confuses us Westerners. In fact, the entire issue of honor and shame over against right and wrong (innocence and guilt) is a bit of a mystery to us. As authors, we must confess that this chapter was one of the more challenging to write. English just doesn’t have good words to describe this system, and our cultural values run almost in the opposite direction. Conceptually, the topic under discussion in this chapter is closely related to the subject matter of the last chapter. As will become clearer below, individualist cultures tend also to be right/wrong (innocence/guilt) cultures, while collectivist cultures tend to be honor/shame cultures.[1] That means we’re getting deeper into choppy waters. Here’s what we propose: we’ll define what scholars have meant by honor and shame by comparing them to the Western concepts of right and wrong.[2] Then we’ll show how honor and shame worked in the ancient worldview by offering some Old Testament and New Testament examples.
We argued in the previous chapter that the formation of the individual self is a central value in individualist cultures such as that of the United States. An important part of mature selfhood, for us, is knowing the difference between right and wrong. Ideally, then, we choose the right and avoid the wrong. This sense of what is right and what is wrong is expected to be internal, within the heart and mind of each person, and people are expected to choose right behavior on the basis of the conscience. Rules and laws are established to guide people in the right path. But ultimately the goal is that people will internalize the code of conduct so that it becomes not a matter of external influence but of internal guidance. We even have a verse for this. Actually we don’t, but we (mis)paraphrase Paul and say: Christ’s law should be written on our hearts and not on tablets of stone (2 Cor 3:2-3). Our point is that our decisions to act rightly are not necessarily made with other people in mind—to please others, for example—but on the basis of an objective and largely individual sense of right and wrong.[3]
Things have not always been this way in the Western tradition. In biblical times, it was an honor/shame world. Emperor Nero loved to sing, but singing referred to singing in public. An old Greek proverb reasoned, “Hidden music counts for nothing.”[4] Likewise, ancients avoided doing evil not primarily because they were concerned about right or wrong, but because others were watching. For this reason, the mythical “ring of Gyges” was considered the one temptation that no man could resist. The ring made its bearer invisible. With it on, a man could do whatever he wished without others knowing. You may recognize this storyline; J. R. R. Tolkien used it in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The movie didn’t explain, though, why humans found the “one ring” so tempting. Plato knew. “No man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice” if he was free to act without anyone’s knowledge, Plato wrote; “No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market.”[5] The suggestion is that ordinary humans do right only if others are watching. Plato argued that humans could (and should) resist the temptation of the ring; he argued for an inner motivation for moral conduct. Plato set the Greek world, and later the Western world, on a path that would lead toward each person having an inner (individual) voice to distinguish and choose right from wrong.
This inner voice is strengthened by the concomitant Western habit of dichotomizing everything, usually into good or bad. In fact, it is more basic than that. We tend to view everything as an “either-or.” Aristotle’s use of syllogisms and, ultimately, the dualism of Descartes have conditioned Westerners to polarize choices into two opposing categories.[6] (Many readers will be trying to decide if we are right or wrong about this!) Eastern thought, influenced by the Tao and Confucius, the yin/yang, tend to strive for harmony rather than distinction, stressing more a both-and perspective rather than an either-or. Thus, I (Randy) teach my sons to be individuals, make up their own minds, stand out from the crowd, stop listening to the group. I punctuate my lesson with an American aphorism: “Take the road less traveled.” My Chinese pastor-friend, by contrast, teaches his sons to live in harmony, to blend in, to listen to what the group is saying. Likewise, he quotes a time-honored Chinese aphorism, “It is the tall poppy that gets cut down.” Both fathers want their children to know what is right, but my sons are to listen to their hearts, and his sons are to listen to their community.
Because Westerners—especially Americans—assume we should be internally motivated to do the right thing, we also believe we will be internally punished if we don’t. American literature offers a sterling example of the Western assumption that internal guilt will convict a wrongdoer of his crime. In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” an unnamed narrator tells the reader how he killed (for no real reason) the elderly man who lived with him, dismembered him and then buried him under the floorboards of his own bedroom. It is the perfect crime: he leaves no evidence, so he is sure to get away with it. But he is undone by his guilty conscience, which manifests itself in a hallucination that the old man’s heart continues to beat in his ears from beyond the grave. It’s a gruesome illustration, we know. But it makes the point. In the West, we know right from wrong objectively, and we typically assume that our wrongdoings will find us out because our consciences won’t let us rest until we confess.
Things work differently in shame cultures. In shame cultures, people are more likely to choose right behavior on the basis of what society expects from them. It is not a matter of guilt, nor an inner voice of direction, but outer pressures and opinions that direct a person to behave a certain way.[7] Rules and laws are less a deterrent for bad behavior than the risk of bringing shame on oneself or one’s family. In fact, one should not regret actions that, in the words of Dayanand Pitamber, “have been approved by those considered significant. When a person performs any act in the interest of the community, he is not concerned about the wrongness or rightness of the acts.”[8] If a person commits violence that is approved by the community, then he has no reason to feel shame (and certainly not guilt). A critical value in this sort of culture is preserving “face,” or the honor associated with one’s name. As Duane Elmer notes, the Thai word for being shamed, for losing face, literally means “to tear someone’s face off so they appear ugly before their friends and community.” Likewise, the word among the Shona of Zimbabwe denotes, “to stomp your feet on my name” or “to wipe your feet on my name.”[9] If a person from a shame culture commits a “sin,” he will not likely feel guilty about it if no one else knows, for it is the community (not the individual) that determines whether one has lost face. This may seem unbelievable to many of you. You may think, Is that even right? Surely, the person “deep down inside” feels at least a twinge of guilt. (In our experience, no, they do not.) Paul considered himself “faultless” even though he was persecuting Christians (Phil 3:6). It was only when he was confronted by another that he realized his sin (Acts 9:1-5); this was also the case with Peter (Gal 2:11-14).[10] In a shame culture, it is not the guilty conscience but the community that punishes the offender by shaming him.
For example, in 1997, a government minister of Malaysia, Ting Chew Peh, hoped to crack down on littering in his country. They put in place a fine of four hundred dollars (U.S.) for those caught tossing rubbish. But that wasn’t the main deterrent. Offenders would be required to pick up trash while wearing a T-shirt that read, “I am a litterbug.” Ting Chew Peh “hoped public shaming would deter others.”[11]
The risk of shaming can likewise affect the way that entire governments act. After the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, Westerners rushed to help. The hardest-hit region, Aceh, has always protected itself from outsider influence. (Most Westerners would call this isolationism.) In this case, preferences had to be put aside. I (Randy) had never dreamed I would ever set foot in Aceh; yet, within weeks of the tsunami, I was leading medical teams there. Acehnese people were gracious and grateful. After a few months, though, the Acehnese government fretted over how their people would respond to so many foreigners everywhere. They worried the people might conclude their government wasn’t protecting them properly from foreign influence. There was risk of shame. So the Acehnese government demanded that foreigners leave. They didn’t want the foreigners to leave. They didn’t expect them to leave. They made the demand in order to save face, to show that they cared about their people.
Indonesian vice president Jusuf Kalla needed to show that he honored the wishes of the Acehnese provincial government, so he demanded all foreigners leave the country by March 26, which was three months away. He didn’t actually want the foreigners to leave, nor did he expect them to. Asians understood all this. Malaysian defense minister Najib Razak, speaking for the countries of Southeast Asia, noted the timetable and later commented that foreign aid would remain as long as needed. From his perspective, everyone has saved face, everyone wins and everything is fine.
Well, not quite everything. Americans didn’t understand. People in the United States were stunned and outraged, asking: How dare they kick us out? Don’t they want us there? America’s government demanded an apology, and a power struggle began. Indonesia wanted and needed us there. If Indonesia stood firm, they would lose aid they desperately needed; if they gave in to the United States, the Acehnese provincial government would lose face. Ultimately, they apologized, to their shaming. Even after the apology, many Americans thought that the Acehnese were ungrateful, which represents a cardinal sin in many Western cultures. No one won.
To summarize, in an innocence/guilt culture (which includes most Western societies), the laws of society, the rules of the church, local mores and the code of the home are all internalized in the person. The goal is that when a person breaks one of these, her or his conscience will be pricked. In fact, it is hoped that the conscience will discourage the person from breaking the rule in the first place. The battle is fought on the inside. In an honor/shame society, such as that of the Bible and much of the non-Western world today, the driving force is to not bring shame upon yourself, your family, your church, your village, your tribe or even your faith. The determining force is the expectations of your significant others (primarily your family). Their expectations don’t override morals or right/wrong; they actually are the ethical standards. In these cultures, you are shamed when you disappoint those whose expectations matter. “You did wrong”—not by breaking a law and having inner guilt but by failing to meet the expectations of your community. For our discussion here, the point to notice is that the verdict comes not from the inner conscience of the perpetrator but from the external response of his or her group. One’s actions are good or bad depending upon how the community interprets them.
As is clear from all this, non-Western and Western cultures have a difficult time understanding each other. Western readers of this book likely think the non-Western view of honor is strange and convoluted. Our non-Western friends find us equally confusing. Westerners like to think of ourselves as holding to the moral high ground that is found within ourselves; non-Westerners often view us as insensitive.
The vocabulary for honor and shame is difficult for Westerners to keep straight, not least because though we still use the terms honor and shame, we use them differently.
First, shame is not negative in honor/shame cultures; shaming is. Technically, in these cultures, shame is a good thing: it indicates that you and your community know the proper way to behave.[12] You have a sense of shame; if you didn’t, you would have no shame. You would be shameless. This is different from being shamed. When an older American asks, “Have you no shame?” they mean, “Don’t you know the proper thing to do?” When one is censured for not having a sense of shame, for being shameless, then one is shamed.
We know that all this can be confusing. But remember that languages tend not to have words for ideas that are not considered important. Since honor/shame isn’t important in English, we are lacking in the words we need. Make no mistake, though: shame is important. It was why the Jewish officials killed Jesus. They didn’t kill him for going around preaching “love one another” or for healing the sick or for performing miracles. They killed him because he had taken their honor—a limited resource (more on that below).
This all means, of course, that how we view immorality—whether we view it as wrong or as shameful—affects the way we read the Bible. In a landmark essay, theologian Krister Stendahl demonstrated that the introspective conscience of Westerners is alien to the biblical authors.[13] Beginning with Augustine, Christians understood Paul’s conversion as a troubled conscience weighed down by the guilt of sin but transformed by the soothing message of Christ’s forgiveness. Paul “saw the light,” not so much literally as internally. Luther encouraged Western Christians to come to Christ via our own consciences properly convicted from our reading of God’s law. Today, we often skip over Paul’s statement that his life was blameless according to the law before he met Christ (Phil 3:4-6). Paul shows no sign of a troubled conscience before or after his conversion. Yet we don’t know how to have a conversion without inner guilt. Doesn’t Jesus promise a Paraclete (“Advocate”) that will convict the world? Absolutely (Jn 16). But what goes without being said for us is that “conviction” must be internal. In fact, we might (mistakenly) assume that is the only way the Spirit might work. Actually, the Spirit uses both inner conviction (a sense of guilt) and external conviction (a sense of shame). While the ancient world and most of the non-Western world contain honor/shame cultures and the West is made up of innocence/guilt cultures, God can work effectively in both.[14]
When you know to look for it, the honor/shame aspect of the cultures of the Bible becomes apparent in many ways. We have enough space to consider only a couple examples. Scholars generally agree that the Holy Spirit convicted biblical characters through external, not internal, voices. A very familiar Old Testament story of how God convicted an unrepentant sinner illustrates well how our assumptions about an introspective conscience can cause us to miss what’s really happening.
The prophet Nathan was the tool of the Spirit to convict David of his sin with Bathsheba (2 Sam 12). That much we usually get right. Nevertheless, we commonly misread this story because we miss the undercurrent of honor and shame. We typically assume that David was aware of his sin but stubbornly refused to repent. Then, when Nathan confronts David—or, in a sense, tricks him—David’s conscience is pricked, he gives in to his inner conviction and he publicly repents. It is far more likely that David had not given the matter a moment’s thought. Remember, we Westerners tend to be introspective, but biblical characters were generally not. From beginning to end, the entire story of David and Bathsheba is steeped in honor and shame language, and this explains why Western readers often find some parts of the story confusing.
The way the narrator opens the story is telling: “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem” (2 Sam 11:1).
David was not where he was supposed to be. He was lounging at the palace, while Joab was doing the kingly role of leading the army. (Joab’s role will come up again.) Already the issue of honor and shame is introduced. David is not acting honorably as king. Then matters get worse. “One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her” (2 Sam 11:2-3).
Women (then or now) don’t bathe in places where they could be seen publicly. We might assume Bathsheba had been engaged in a ritual Jewish bath, but the text never says, or even suggests, that she was Jewish (her husband was a Hittite).[15] Furthermore, we are unaware of ritual purifications done at night. Since it is evening (remember, David had been in bed), it is likely it was dark and therefore Bathsheba had provided sufficient lighting—sufficient for bathing and sufficient for being seen while bathing. We may assume Bathsheba was aware that her rooftop was visible from the palace, notably from the king’s balcony. In antiquity, people were cognizant of their proximity to the seat of power. Even today, White House offices are ranked by their distance from the Oval Office. We would be unlikely to believe a White House aide who said, “I just stepped out in the hallway to talk. I didn’t realize that the president of the United States walked down this hallway every day at this time!” Likewise, we would be skeptical if Bathsheba asserted, “Oh, I didn’t realize that was the king’s balcony.” We think the story is told in a way to imply she intended to be seen by the king. Her plan works.[16]
David likes what he sees, so he asks a servant to find out who she is. The servant responds to the king’s question with a question: “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” (2 Sam 11:3 nasb).[17] This sort of response is customary in an honor/shame culture. The servant responded with a question because it would shame the king for a servant to know something that the king doesn’t know. So he informs the king by posing a question, giving David the opportunity to answer, “That’s correct.” Everyone saves face.
Then David has Bathsheba brought to his palace, where he sleeps with her. Then she goes home. When we find out she’s pregnant, we may be tempted to think, Uh oh. Now David is in trouble. There’s no hiding what he’s done now (2 Sam 11:5). But that’s not really the point. David is the king; he could have paid Uriah for the woman. But David isn’t interested in acquiring Bathsheba as a wife or concubine; he wants to save face.
Most Westerners will likely misread here. First, we’ll assume a measure of privacy that didn’t exist in the ancient world. David’s adultery with Bathsheba was not a private affair. He asked a servant to find out who the woman was. As soon as the king sent a servant to inquire who the woman was, everyone in the palace would be talking. Then he sent messengers (plural) to bring her to the palace. The entire palace would know that David sent for the wife of Uriah.
Also, the narrator wants us to know that the real conflict is between David and Uriah. The story quits referring to her as “Bathsheba” and switches to “the wife of Uriah” (“Mrs. Uriah”). In fact, it is quite possible that the narrator never tells us her name. Bathsheba means “daughter of an oath” or probably “daughter of Sheba.” Likely, this term references her appearance and origin—she is from Sheba—rather than her name. The story centers upon Uriah, the named and undisputed victim in the story. The wife of Uriah came, spent one or more nights and then was sent away. (The text pours on shame by saying she was “sent away,” not “she left.”)
Everyone in the palace knew about it. “The wife of Uriah” is shamed, since David didn’t keep her. When she sends word that she is pregnant, it is public news. Everyone knows. Everyone will also know that David sent for Uriah: “So David sent this word to Joab: ‘Send me Uriah the Hittite.’ And Joab sent him to David” (2 Sam 11:6).
Now, we may not know why he sent for Uriah, but everyone else would have. David is asking Uriah to let him off the hook. If Uriah comes home and spends one night with his wife, then the baby is “technically” Uriah’s, even though everyone knows otherwise. Honor would be restored (among the men). Bathsheba may be the unhappy victim—either because she was assaulted originally or, more likely, because she was sent away afterwards. For our purposes here, though, we should note David’s concern is not whether adultery is objectively right or wrong. He doesn’t appear to be nursing a guilty conscience. While in our Western culture, a “guilty conscience” can go without being said, in David’s culture, honor and shame did not need to be stated overtly. The hints and innuendos were sufficient. David’s concern was not soothing a guilty conscience but protecting his honor as king.
It is quite likely that Uriah had already heard the gossip by the time he returned home. Supplies were constantly flowing between the city and the army. Everyone wanted news from home. If Uriah had no friend or servants in the city to fill him in—which was unlikely, since his house was so prominently located—he would have found out what was going on somehow. Uriah was no messenger or courier; he was a soldier. Kings did not summon random soldiers. Before you keep that appointment, you would want to know why. If the king intended to execute you, you would want to know so that you could fail to show up for the appointment. In any case, it is clear from the story that Uriah finds out what’s up before he sees David: “When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, ‘Go down to your house and wash your feet.’ So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him” (2 Sam. 11:7-8).
The story tells us exactly what David is doing. He tells Uriah to go home and he sends Uriah payment (“a gift”) to let David off the hook. We don’t know the reason—perhaps Uriah loved his wife or perhaps the gift was too small—but Uriah won’t play ball: “But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house. David was told, ‘Uriah did not go home’” (2 Sam 11:9-10).
Uriah’s reason for sleeping at the palace entrance was to make a public statement. Everyone, including David, knows now that Uriah is not letting David off the hook. The narrator doesn’t want us to miss this: “David was told.” So David ups the ante; he calls Uriah back for another conference. The very act of a mere mercenary soldier—remember, Uriah is not an Israelite—having a second audience with the king is a veiled threat. He asks Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?” (2 Sam 11:10). It is likely that Uriah is angry. His response shames David in three ways. First, Uriah notes that everyone (with one exception) was where they were supposed to be: in the field with the army. “Uriah said to David, ‘The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!’” (2 Sam 11:11). Even God (symbolized by the ark) was there. Everyone was there, that is, but David. Second, Uriah notes the one in the field commanding the army—doing David’s job—was Joab, not David. This was all the more poignant because Uriah was a paid solder, a Hittite mercenary. He has less reason to fight for Israel than David had. Lastly, Uriah indicates to David he knows exactly what David wants and will not cooperate: “and make love to my wife.”
So David switches strategies and tries to get Uriah to pass out drunk. He can then have the unconscious Uriah tossed into the front door of his house. But that doesn’t work either. “Then David said to him, ‘Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.’ So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home” (2 Sam 11:12-13).
Now it is clear to everyone, including David, that Uriah will not give David an honorable way out of this mess. It was customary for Mediterranean kings merely to seize whatever they wanted. King Ahab wanted Naboth’s vineyard, for example, so he took it (1 Kings 21:18). You may recall that David himself refused to do this on another occasion (2 Sam 24:24). In this case, David takes the low road. He refuses to pay Uriah to divorce his wife; instead, he arranges for Uriah to be killed. We know the story, but the narrator wants us to notice that more than Uriah (or other mercenaries) died as a result of David’s decision: “some of the men in David’s army fell” (2 Sam 11:17).
Nonetheless, the text gives no indication that David felt any inner remorse. We misread when we think David had a guilty conscience. David’s honor is restored; Bathsheba moves in so the baby is David’s. Bathsheba probably got what she wanted. Only Uriah suffered, and David likely considered it Uriah’s fault. Uriah had failed to play along. He had shamed David and David retaliated. Probably in David’s mind, he had made Uriah a fair offer. C’est la vie, we might say. David summarized the episode this way in a message sent to Joab: “Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another” (2 Sam 11:25).
We want you to see that the honor/shame aspect of David’s culture determined his conduct. At every step, he did what was typical for a Mediterranean king at the time in a situation like this. And according to the honor/shame system of David’s day, the matter was resolved. It is likely that David never gave it another thought. He was not likely tortured by a guilty conscience. There was no further recourse. All parties were satisfied or silenced.
Everyone is satisfied except the Lord. Note how the narrator words it: “After the time of mourning was over, David had her [Bathsheba] brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord” (2 Sam 11:27, emphasis added).
Although David had acted appropriately according to the broader cultural standards of his day, God held him to higher moral standards. Even so, God worked through the honor/shame system to bring David to repentance. The culture of David’s day didn’t have a way to bring up the matter. We Westerners might assume that God’s Spirit would eventually convict David’s inner heart, like Poe’s tell-tale heart. That’s because Westerners are introspective. We respond to internal pressure. But David doesn’t appear to be experiencing any inner pressure. No matter; God is not stymied by culture. God had introduced another element into ancient Near Eastern culture: a prophet. Instead of a voice whispering to his heart, a prophet shouted at his face. Either way, God speaks. Since David’s culture used shame to bring about conformity, God used shame to bring David to repentance. “Then Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man!’” (2 Sam 12:7).
The moving story of David’s subsequent repentance has stirred the hearts of believers for thousands of years. We have David’s words of repentance:
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.
Surely I was sinful at birth. (Ps 51:3-5)
Actually, David’s words of repentance might trouble you a bit. First, David says he sinned only against God. Well, it seems to us David sinned against Bathsheba, Uriah, Joab and certainly the Israelite soldiers who were killed just because they were nearby. In fact, it seems there are plenty of people against whom David has sinned. Second, David confesses his sin as “from birth.” We were thinking more like one moonlit night on a palace stroll. In David’s day, kings had the right to do the things David did. Kings (and governments today) take property from citizens. They send soldiers to war, where some die. David was within his cultural rights. He broke no laws. Well, he did break one: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” (Ex 20:17 kjv). David had transgressed God’s laws, not his country’s. Thus, when he says, “against you, you only, have I sinned,” David is admitting that he is accountable not only to the expectations for a king but that he is also accountable to God.
This story illustrates three things powerfully. First, what goes without being said about sin and how God deals with it can lead us to miss important factors in the biblical text. If we assume David thought like a Westerner with an introspective conscience, we’re likely to miss the point altogether. Second, God does not consider the matter closed just because David and the rest of the Israelites might. While culture determines how we understand the consequences of sin, God’s will and commands are universal. It doesn’t matter if our culture says it’s okay if God says it isn’t. Third, this story makes it quite clear that God is capable of working through all cultural systems and expectations to bring sinners to repentance. Perhaps God has used your conscience to bring you to repentance in the past. We’re not belittling that experience. (It was and is our experience too.) Likewise, though, the power of the honor/shame system should not be underestimated. It is at least as powerful, and some would argue more powerful, than our Western worldview of guilt.[18] So does God work through shame-based or guilt-based methods? We think the answer is both.
God worked through the honor/shame system, but we would err if we implied this was merely a system. God himself is concerned about honor/shame even if we Westerners are not. Throughout the Old Testament, God is concerned about the glory/honor of his name. The psalmists talk about this a lot: “You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!” (Ps 22:23, emphasis added); “Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me” (Ps 50:15, emphasis added).
God is also willing to honor those worthy of it. “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless” (Ps 84:11, emphasis added). “He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him” (Ps 91:15, emphasis added).
It is also interesting that Bible characters often appeal to God’s honor to get him to act on their behalf. When the Israelites make the golden calf, God is angry. “‘I have seen these people,’ the Lord said to Moses, ‘and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation’” (Ex 32:9-10).
Moses makes a two-pronged argument to persuade God to change his mind: (1) think about what the Egyptians will say about your name; and (2) you swore on your name and you don’t want to get a bad name! Moses doesn’t appeal to God’s sense of justice (“it wouldn’t be right”) but to his sense of honor (“you will be shamed”): “Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self” (Ex 32:12-13).
In the same way that God used shame, through Nathan, to bring David to repentance, so also New Testament writers employed honor/shame cultural assumptions to compel Christians to good works. Although Plato predates the New Testament, his influence had not yet shaped Palestinian culture. It was still an honor/shame society.
During what we commonly refer to as the “white throne judgment,” all the misdeeds from our past will be displayed for all to see: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Cor 5:10).
For us, this is a bummer, but it’s not devastating. I’ve always imagined this as watching a film reel of my foibles (some of them worse than others). Then when that uncomfortable formality concludes, it’s off to heaven for eternity for me. Not so bad, in the grand scheme of things. For Paul’s first-century hearers, though, this news would have brought them to their knees. This judgment is described as a public honor/shame event. (God has the time to judge us all privately and individually, if he so intended.) Paul is applying a shame motivation to get the Corinthians to live worthily of the grace-gift God has given them. The very next line Paul writes is, “Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord” (2 Cor 5:11). What is it we are fearing? That the Lord will expose all our sins to the entire community of faith. He is warning them that although they might not currently feel guilty about their sin, there will come a day when they will be publicly shamed for their misdeeds before God and everybody. Paul is trying to “scare them straight.”
During his earthly ministry, Jesus worked within the honor/shame system. In the ancient world, there was only so much honor to go around—it was a limited good. Everyone was scrambling for more. Jesus’ opponents understood this well. Public questions were never for information. If one wanted information, you asked privately, as we often see Jesus’ disciples do (Mt 24:3; Mk 9:28). Likewise, Nicodemus came at night because he didn’t want his question misunderstood. He was looking for answers from Jesus, not honor. But public questions were contests. The winner was determined by the audience, who represented the community. If you silenced your opponent, you gained honor and they lost some. Even though scholars often refer to this as the “honor game,” don’t underestimate its seriousness. As we mentioned above, this is why the Jewish officials killed Jesus. They had been challenging Jesus publicly (Mt 12:1-7, for example), and every time they “lost,” they lost honor. They were tired of it, and they wanted their honor back. In one of these “honor games” with Jesus, the Jewish leaders asked him, “Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” (Mt 22:17). We often fail to notice the two most important parts of the story, even though Matthew highlighted them.
First, Jesus’ conflict with the Jewish leadership begins in the previous chapter: “Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him” (Mt 21:23). The questions are posed in the most important public place in all of Israel. There couldn’t be any higher stakes in the honor game.
The second point Matthew makes is at the end of the conflict story: “No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions” (Mt 22:46).
Jesus won. The leaders then decide to kill Jesus. Honor is at stake here. They cannot just go down to the assassin’s booth at the market. Sticking a knife in Jesus in some Jerusalem alley would make him a martyr. They need to publicly disgrace Jesus in order to get their honor back. They need him executed as a criminal. This honor stuff is pretty serious. Some Middle Easterners still kill over honor.[19]
It is within this context that we must understand the fact that Jesus encouraged his disciples to be humble: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor” (Lk 14:8). If you are not humble, you could suffer a terrible fate: “for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place” (Lk 14:8-9). Our English versions don’t translate this well. This final sentence is better translated as, “you will go with shame to the least important seat.” Even so, for most of us, it is merely the fate of having a lousy seat for dinner. For Easterners, you would be shamed in front of everyone. In Jesus’ day, the loss of honor affected all areas of life. Arranged marriages might need to be reshuffled: perhaps your son isn’t worthy of his daughter after all. The bakers’ guild might kick you out, even though your family has been members for generations.
Why does this matter for reading the Bible? If we misunderstand what’s happening in the story, we might wonder why a story is included in Scripture at all. What is the possible application, for example, of a story that simply records the bad behavior of its characters? In stories of right/wrong, we can identify the bad guys and the bad actions. Sometimes in Scripture it is harder. We sometimes see “sin” where the narrator did not intend it—or worse, we don’t see “sin” when the narrator was waving it in front of our faces. In the outrageous story in Judges 19 of the Levite and his concubine, we likely misread many parts. We see “sin” in several parts of the story: unfaithful concubine (v. 2), sexual assault (v. 22), rape (v. 25), cruelty (v. 28) and desecration of the dead (v. 29). We wouldn’t want to dispute any of these sins, but we likely missed some the narrator considered more important. The man repeatedly shamed the woman’s family by taking her from her parents but never giving her a full marriage (vv. 1-3) and later insulted her father’s hospitality (v. 10). Also, what the man had feared would happen in Jebus, a non-Israelite town (v. 12), actually happened in an Israelite town. Israelites were not being their brother’s keeper; they were no longer considering each other to be family (vv. 15, 22). They were not looking out for each other. When the story concludes (v. 30), everyone who saw it was saying to one another, “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Just imagine! We must do something! So speak up!” (Judg 19:30). We today assume they are outraged over the chopped-up body. If so, it’s hard to imagine the purpose of including the story in the Bible. Just for shock value? Surely not. It is more likely that bystanders are expressing outrage over the fragmented state of Israel. If they won’t stand together and defend each other, they will end up as chopped apart as that poor woman. With the tribe behaving shamefully, the people’s hope and the promise of God seem to be unraveling. The story is included to illustrate how bad things have become among God’s people, to show the dire need of the people’s return and the Lord’s intervention.
Non-Western honor systems and Western guilt systems are both used to encourage appropriate behavior and to discourage inappropriate behavior. Because the Bible was written by Middle Eastern authors in cultures that traded in the currency of honor and shame, we need to be sensitive to the language of honor and shame in Scripture if we hope to learn how to live faithfully as Christians. As we saw above, Paul used shame to discourage bad behavior. But he also used honor/shame language positively. In Ephesians 4:1, the apostle calls his listeners to “live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (see also 2 Thess 1:11). The word worthy should alert us that honor/shame language is being used. In the verses that follow, Paul mentions specific behaviors that fall in this category. But his point is to identify righteousness as conformity to the expectations of God’s community. The thought that should guide our conduct is that we are representatives of both Christ and the community that bears his name. As such, we must be careful to live in such a way that brings honor, and not shame, on Christ’s name and his family.
We deceive ourselves when we think sin is individual and independent of a community’s honor. Our individualism feeds the false sense that sin is merely an inner wrong—the private business between me and God, to be worked out on judgment day. Paul thought otherwise. He considered sin yeast that influenced the whole batch of dough (1 Cor 5:6). The church in Corinth was having problems with the fellowship meal and the Lord’s Supper. Slaves got off work at 5 p.m. Some of the wealthy, it appears, were arriving early and eating choice meats and drinking strong wine before the poorer members arrived. This division of haves and have-nots struck against the very heart of Christian fellowship. Paul exclaims,
In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? (1 Cor 11:18-22)
As far as Paul is concerned, the Corinthians were eating the meal of Christ in an unworthy manner, which brings judgment. He adds, “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 11:30). When we find what appear to be jumps in the logic, usually something went without being said. We misread when we fill that gap with something that goes without being said in our own culture. In this case, what went without being said in Paul’s day was that communities were “permeable.”[20] What we mean is that bad things could soak into people (and groups). Ancients didn’t understand the world like we do, but they were good observers. When one person in a group caught a cold, often others in the group got sick. When one person in a group began bad habits or behaviors, often others in the group did as well. We might say that one scenario follows biology (viruses) and the other sociology (one bad apple spoils the whole bunch). Nonetheless, contamination happens.
Paul warned the church about the same thing. If you allow this “infection” in the Christian fellowship, it will spread. We often misread this passage. We fill in a value from our own culture: that is, “everyone pays for their own sin.” Thus we assume the ones who are getting sick or dying are the ones who were eating unworthily. Paul never says that. Life seldom works that way. The actions of some have dishonored the entire community. Paul argues, “Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing?” (1 Cor 11:22). Their actions were shaming the church of God and therefore God was defending his honor (Mal 1:6-7)! God was smiting the church for not defending her purity (Mal 2:2). He was not meting out early individual punishment for a few. 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.
Let’s return to the betrayed wife who had no place to put her face. We are all confident the husband sinned—we get that from the Ten Commandments. Why it was sin depends upon the culture. (Actually, it is sin because God said so, but our culture then explains to us “why” God didn’t like it.) The greater challenge is then how we become ministers in this place of sin. Honor/shame isn’t just an academic issue, a peculiarity of ancient worldview. While I (Randy) was developing ministerial training in Indonesia, the issue of counseling came up. It seemed like a no-brainer, but the matter unraveled quickly over issues I had never considered. First, as we have noted, there is no privacy in Indonesia. Everyone knows everybody’s business. When couples are disagreeing with each other, there are usually other folks in the house. Also, the neighbor’s house is only a couple of feet away. Unless they are whispering in the bedroom, others will hear. In villages the walls of houses are made of split bamboo, and you can even hear whispering. There are just no private issues. Second, a couple cannot go to see the pastor without everyone knowing a visit occurred. Third, a couple is very unlikely to go to see the pastor until the entire village knows. More significantly, they are unlikely to think they have a problem until someone else tells them. When neighbors tell the couple, “You two are arguing and need help,” then they become aware of relationship problems. It is the village’s problem. The couple will live there in the future, whether or not they are together, so it affects village life. This cheating husband’s sin had an impact on the entire community. So in what way was “private counseling” appropriate for that couple?
The further we move down the iceberg of culture, the more difficult it becomes to prescribe practices for uncovering our presuppositions. This may be the most challenging chapter yet. We recommend you see the Resources for Further Exploration for suggested readings on this topic. You’ll begin to see honor/shame language in the Bible when you are more familiar with the concept. In the meantime, pay attention to where stories take place in Scripture. If an event or conversation is taking place publicly, there’s a good chance that honor/shame is at stake, such as in the story of Ruth and Boaz. As we mentioned above, the key difference between the questions Nicodemus and Jesus’ disciples asked and those asked by Jerusalem’s Jewish leaders was context: Nicodemus and the disciples questioned Jesus privately (see, for example, Jn 3:2 and Mt 17:19). The Jewish leaders questioned him publicly. You might object that the primary difference was motive: Nicodemus and the disciples were asking sincere questions, while the religious leaders were trying to trap Jesus. That’s true. But context indicates motive. Private questions were not honor challenges. Public questions were.