Nature and Culture
Nature: state or condition/quality of something as God made
Culture: man-made way of life
Rev. James Young Lee
We are part of nature as of being created by God.
Mankind, however, also creates something to make life better.
Even though man is not a creator but still creative due to the fact that being created after the image of the Creator God.
I call God's creation Nature and man's Culture.
Nature is established perfectly at His creation and not changing.
Culture, however, is changing due to the people and the trends of the times.
So, we, the human being lives in nature and culture at the same time in such a way of being balanced between the two.
In the history of Israel we see natural and cultural aspects of life.
Kings and priests are responsible for daily cultural life of all Israelites.
As a part of being nature, prophets are responsible to make sure their life, their culture is within the nature of God.
Even though the culture of Israel is based on the nature of God, sometimes, or so many times, their culture has been depraved from God's nature.
Whenever these happen, prophets stepped in and reminded or warned them for the depravations.
We see the same pattern of the effort to make balance between nature and culture in other societies.
In oriental worlds there are naturalist and culturist.
Confucius(공자, 孔子) and his followers are focused on the culture; how they maintain the order of society.
Laotzu(노자, 老子) and his followers, on the other side, more on the nature: how they live in balance and harmony with nature.
Most of us live within the boundary of culture.
Since the man, the author of the culture is part of the nature, culture should be based on nature.
But as much as the man has very strong tendency of him/herself, culture reflects the tendency of the author.
We may say that culture has its own life; its way of changing and evolving dynamics.
So, sometimes or so many times, the author of the culture became slave of the created culture.
The idolatry in the history of Israel, or of other people, is a good example of being enslaved by their own creation.
They cut the trees and make images of idols and worship them while they enjoying the warmth of the fire which was made with the remnant of the same tree. (Isa. 44:15, It is man's fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it.)
They enslaved themselves to mere things they made.
This happens when the people follow after their own lust, desire, and pride.
And all people are subject of their own stupid self-centered sinful nature. (Col. 3:5, Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.)
So, every culture without knowing the true nature of the Creator and the Created is destined to distortion or depravation.
I was wondering how the chosen people Israelites were so quick to leave their God who delivered them from the bondage of Egypt with such mighty miraculous happenings, and fell into the sin of idolatry so many times in their history.
I realized later, when I began to see the hidden implications or dangers of culture, why they were so vulnerable to those non-sense idolatries, wrong doings and mistakes.
They were disobedient to God in the name of CULTURE.
They were disobedient to their Creator and Savior in the name of what they made.
They were excusing themselves by saying, "Everybody is doing it these days."
The problem is that we are the same.
How do we guard ourselves from this same wrong doings?
We must go back to and remind ourselves the NATURE of the Creator and the Created.
There are the cultures of Christian life.
But we have to know and follow the "God-intended" nature of Christian Life.
There are the cultures of worship.
But we have to know and follow the "God-intended" nature of worship.
And so on.
We have to remember that there are bad Beings out there (or in here) trying to influence our culture as they want to be for their own interests, profits, and gains (1Pe. 5:8).
They do what they want to do in the way of the culture and by the name of the culture.
We have to know the nature of their culture should be based on the Nature which God intended originally.
So we need to be prophets in terms of listening to God, or at least, need to hear and learn the prophets to examine ourselves not to loose balance between the right culture and God's Nature.
Certainly we could do that when we are faithful to God's Word, the Bible, which gives us teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness (2Tim. 3:16) with a sharp and alive perspectives on culture and nature.
You may read and think about Matthew 11:7-9 for this message.