Sealing the Deal

When my parents and I first visited my husband’s family in the Middle East, one of the hardest adjustments was learning to navigate the cultural protocol for accepting or rejecting something that was offered. Generally speaking, Americans are a very straightforward people. We like to be direct and get to the point. Middle Easterners, on the other hand, tend to be more circular in their thinking and communication, as I’ve written about in a previous post.

One of the main arenas where this difference plays out is hospitality. Middle Easterners are an incredibly hospitable people. When you visit them at their home, they will offer you all manner of refreshments. But when it comes to receiving such things, they consider it more polite to refuse the first time it is offered. Only after the second or perhaps third offering of “Would you like such-and-such?” is it considered polite to accept something. This means even if you really want that cup of coffee or piece of baklava, you turn it down the first time it’s offered, knowing it will be offered again—and again. It also means that if you really don’t want it, you’ll have to refuse it several times before the refusal is recognized as your genuine wish. Americans, by contrast, have no qualms about stating their true desires from the outset. “No, thank you” really means “No, thank you.” In the same way, when Americans offer something to their guests and are met with that “No, thank you,” they take it at face value and usually don’t offer again.

You can imagine the cultural clash that occurs when an American visits a Middle Eastern home or vice versa. In the first setting, Americans can easily come across as rude or can feel pressured by the repeated offers and finally give in, taking something that they really didn’t want in the first place. In the second, Middle Easterners are in danger of going hungry or thirsty if they don’t realize that a refusal on their part most likely won’t be met with a repeated offer from their host.

In our culturally-blended family now, when we say, “No, thank you,” we joke that it’s either “an American no” or “an Arab no.” And thankfully, my in-laws have come to understand that I’m not being rude when I say “yes” the first time, and I’m slowly learning to keep offering, even when my first offer is met with a “no.”

This cultural dynamic can also affect the process of buying and selling something. In the Middle East, Person 1 may ask how much something is, and Person 2 might say, “Oh, you can have it. No need to pay.” At which point, Person 1 will understand that Person 2 is being polite and avoiding the appearance of greed by not disclosing the price right away. Person 1 will then ask again and insist that he be allowed to pay. This cycle can go on and on for some time before Person 2 finally feels it appropriate to state the price.

It wasn’t until I moved to the Middle East that I really began to understand how deeply rooted this pattern of etiquette is, and it was then that I gained understanding of a passage in the Bible that had always confused and amused me. In Genesis 23, Abraham’s wife Sarah had just passed away, and he was looking for a place to bury her. He approached the Hittites, the people living in the area, and we pick up with him in verses 8-9 (ESV):

“And he said to them, ‘If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat for me Ephron the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns; it is at the end of his field.’” At first, with this translation, it appears that Abraham is asking to be given the cave for free, but we see from his next statement in verse 9, that he is really offering to pay: “‘For the full price let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place.’” So what did Ephron do? American readers like myself might expect him to simply state the price, which is why we are surprised and a bit confused to see he didn’t. Instead, he said in verse 11, “‘No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. In the sight of the sons of my people I give it to you. Bury your dead.” Ephron was clearly offering to give not only the cave but also the entire field to Abraham at no charge. Again, we American readers might expect Abraham to respond with something like, “Really? That’s so kind of you. Thank you so much” and accept the offer. But he didn’t. In verses 12-13, “Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. And he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, ‘But if you will, hear me: I give the price of the field. Accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.’” So Abraham repeated his offer, and what Ephron did next presents another surprise.

“Ephron answered Abraham, ‘My lord, listen to me: a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver, what is that between you and me? Bury your dead’” (vv. 14-15). Here Ephron still appeared to be offering the land to Abraham for free, but he slipped in there the value of the property. In my American mindset, I always thought that either he never intended to make Abraham pay for the land or he had been genuinely not wanting to charge Abraham at first, changed his mind because of Abraham’s insistence, but still felt bad about naming a price. After learning how Middle Eastern negotiation works, though, I see now that Ephron always had the intention of selling the land to Abraham for the full price. It just took going through the culturally appropriate process to get there.

So “Abraham listened to Ephron, and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants” (v. 16). They closed the deal, and everyone was happy. Ephron and Abraham were living and acting in the context of their culture—a culture that is still in existence today. And suddenly what seemed an oddity in Scripture made perfect sense.

This is just one example of how learning the nuances of a culture different from our own can increase our understanding and how, when it comes to studying Scripture, knowing the context of the place in which its events occurred helps us avoid misinterpretation. For more examples like this one, see other posts with the Cross-Cultural label here on An Iris Awaits.

PC: Rose Creger Tankard. Used with permission.

A Happy Heart

When I was a child, a ministry called Life Action came to our church multiple times to host week-long church events. On at least one occasion, their visit was extended as God was working powerfully in our midst. In fact, it is through the ministry of Life Action that both my parents came to know the Lord personally, and by extension me as well, since it was through their witness after their conversion that I, too, became a follower of Jesus.

During the sessions every evening, the adults would sit under preaching while the kids would have their own time of teaching and activities. It was during this time that I learned the definition of obedience, taught in a sing-song way with hand motions, which is why I still remember it today: “Obedience is doing what you’re told to do, when you’re told to do it, with a happy heart.” Remove any one of those phrases, and you don’t have true obedience.

Most of us 90s kids there knew that if our parents told us to do something and we didn’t do it, then we were being disobedient. But the next part was a bit uncomfortable. If we said we would do the thing and even intended to do it, but decided to do it later, after we had finished whatever we were engaged in at the moment, then we weren’t being truly obedient. In other words, delayed obedience is disobedience. I remember after learning this lesson that I tried to change my practice from delaying to either obeying right away or simply asking, “May I finish this chapter (or song) first?” (because let’s be honest, I was usually either reading or playing piano when the parental instructions came along). Most of the time, the answer was “Yes,” but when it was “No,” I had the choice to defy my parents in disobedience by delaying anyway or to stop what I was doing and obey. Making the right choice wasn’t always easy, but it was what I was called to do as a child who followed Jesus—to honor my father and mother.

However difficult that part might have been, though, it was nothing compared to the last part—“with a happy heart.” Sure, I might have been able to master the “doing what I was told to do when I was told to do it,” but was I happy about it? Or was I inwardly—or outwardly—grumbling that I had to stop my very enjoyable pastime and get up to unload the dishwasher or run upstairs to get something for Mom? The uncomfortable truth was that if I was just going through the motions but was doing so with a complaining spirit, I wasn’t being truly obedient.

That’s all well and good, you might be thinking, but what does that have to do with me, a 2020s adult? Well, everything, really. Because just as children are called to honor and obey their earthly parents, God’s children—of every age—are called to honor and obey Him. And for us, the definition of obedience is the same. “Obedience is doing what we’re told to do, when we’re told to do it, with a happy heart.”

Did you know that the Bible actually talks about the heart when it comes to obedience? Read these words from Romans 6:16-18 (ESV) and see if you can pick it out:

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Did you see it? “Obedient from the heart”—in other words, truly obedient. But how on earth were the recipients of Paul’s letter able to become obedient from the heart? And how are we to be able to always do what God tells us to do with a heart of happiness? I might sacrifice my time, have a difficult conversation, or go somewhere He is calling me to go, but am I happy about it? Or am I inwardly—or outwardly—grumbling that I have to stop my comfortable and enjoyable activities to do what He has instructed me to do?

I don’t know about you, but that war between my old self (my flesh) and my new self is an ongoing battle. But the fact that there is a battle should be of great encouragement to us. It means that our heart of stone has been replaced with a new heart (see Ezekiel 36:26). Before coming to know Jesus, our heart is unable to obey with happiness. We might be able to go through the motions, but we can never be truly obedient because our hearts are bent toward selfishness and self-righteousness when doing so. But when we surrender to Jesus, He gives us a new heart, and through this gift we are able to truly obey Him. We can honestly say with David, “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8, ESV).

God doesn’t just demand complete obedience from us. He also graciously gives us the tools necessary to obey. He literally changes our heart and puts His own Spirit in us, making it possible for us to be truly obedient. Through our new heart, inhabited by the Holy Spirit, we have a power indwelling us that is able to defeat our griping, complaining, feet-dragging flesh and give us the strength to choose willing and glad obedience to what is asked of us. So let’s not ignore or attempt to quench that power. Let’s not cheapen the gift made possible by Jesus’ perfect life, substitutionary death, and victorious resurrection by failing to apply it to our lives. Let’s live in the truth that we are freed from our bondage to sin and begin obeying God completely—with a happy heart.

PC: Eric Eanes. Used with permission.