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A recent experience of teaching the Old Testament in Japan shows Eric Ortlund the value, as well as the transformative effect, of taking the context seriously in theological education.

I recently had an opportunity to teach a week-long seminar on the book of Job at Christ Bible Seminary in Nagoya, Japan. It was my third time teaching there and I hope to return on a regular basis. Japan is perhaps not the most natural country for an Old Testament scholar to be interested in – at least, not when the Middle East has so many sites and antiquities of direct relevance to the Bible, and not when Arabic has so many similarities to biblical Hebrew (Semitic languages have a remarkable ability to resist change).

But I started praying about ways to be involved in Japan when I learned, much to my surprise, that despite being a modern, developed country, Japan is the second-largest unreached people group in the world. Since 99.9 per cent of Japan’s 127 million people will never meet a Christian or know enough about Jesus to even have an opinion about him, ministry in Japan takes on special urgency.

It’s a commonplace that one has to know one’s audience to speak effectively. Speaking effectively to Japanese seminary students, however, presents special challenges. This is not bad: part of the goodness of creation is a nearriotous diversity in the world’s environments, its species, Old Testament meets Japan and the humans who rule it in God’s image; it is human sin and pride that insist on complete uniformity, and it’s when all the earth speaks one language that Babel is attempted (Genesis 11).

But any teacher or preacher who underestimates these differences inevitably miscommunicates, and Japan is profoundly different from any Western country. It actually took me a while to realise this. On the surface, Japanese airports, stores and cities look pretty Western; it was only until my second trip that I realised how completely different the cultural ‘code’ is, how different the complex set of expectations and interactions and cultural ‘scripts’ are. That’s when the culture shock hit!

One of the most pronounced differences – one which must be remembered constantly while teaching – is that Japan is a culture of obligation. One does one’s duty and respects one’s superiors regardless of personal feelings. I was told by my translator that if you are given a gift by a friend and then don’t see that friend for 10 years, it is expected that you bring a gift to your next meeting – and the gift should be of equal value. Individual expression, setting out on your own, ‘doing your own thing’, are definitely not valued in Japan. Even though Frank Sinatra’s ‘I Did It My Way’ is popular in karaoke, no one really does. This means that teaching the Pentateuch (for example) in Japan requires special care. In Western contexts, teaching the part of the Old Testament which has the most rules requires a defence of Torah, even for Christians. Our individualistic context, in which autonomy and personal self-expression are prized above all, finds rules confining and restricting; as a result, teaching the Pentateuch effectively must show how God’s rules are not arbitrary impositions but a means of extending and preserving the salvation and new life he has won for his people in the Exodus.

I read of one evangelist in Japan who speaks more of Christ purifying our dirtiness than suffering our sins – both explanations are entirely biblical, but the former has more traction with Japanese audiences.

One has to approach the same truth from a completely different angle in Japan: it can be easy for Japanese Christians to read the Pentateuch as if God is setting up a relationship of obligation with his people, as if God’s people discharge the debt they’ve incurred in the Exodus by obedience to the Torah. In contrast to this, the ‘good news’ of God’s law is that even his rules are a means by which he extends and protects his saving actions for his people so they can flourish. Even God’s law is, in other words, a means of giving to his people, not obligation. The meaning of the text does not change, but must be approached from a diametrically opposite perspective. Other examples of this sort multiply. Reading Ecclesiastes with students raised in a Shinto context has been especially eye-opening, since they assure me that a Shinto priest would probably agree with Qohelet’s diagnosis of life ‘under the sun’ as passing away and full of vanity. But while a Shinto response to this diagnosis would probably emphasize detachment and freedom from desire, Qohelet distinguishes himself by naming the vanity and shortness of life as themselves reasons to engage with life enthusiastically as a gift from God (Ecclesiastes 9:7-10).

The purity laws of the Old Testament register in a similarly interesting way: Japanese are extremely particular about cleanliness, in such a way that bleeds into social manners and how one’s character is assessed. Leviticus also (as part of the old covenant, in which God is physically present with his people) addresses both physical and spiritual purity as necessary to enter God’s presence. In fact, I read of one evangelist in Japan who speaks more of Christ purifying our dirtiness than suffering our sins – both explanations are entirely biblical, but the former has more traction with Japanese audiences. (The Japanese word for ‘sin,’ tsumi, literally means ‘crime’, and can be confusing for people hearing the gospel who have never been convicted in court.)

And every time I walk past the Shinto shrine near the seminary, I can’t help but notice how the outer courtyard (filled with beautiful cherry blossoms) leads to a building with a smaller room at the back where the kami (‘god’ or ‘spirit’) is enshrined. One doubts that there’s any connection to the tripartite structure of the Israelite tabernacle (outer courtyard, holy place, and most holy place), but it is awfully suggestive. One of the faculty at the seminary told me that ministry in Japan requires a very healthy doctrine of common grace. Whenever I see a Shinto shrine, I find myself agreeing.

But all this makes it sound as if the Western professor of Old Testament is expertly adjusting his teaching strategy to a different context. My experience has actually been that something more subtle and beautiful happens: without meaning to, and simply by being what they are, one’s Japanese friends (or Chinese, Indian or African) deepen you as a Christian. As one’s teaching is translated into Japanese, one finds oneself translated as well, and the better for it.

I mentioned purity laws above. Would it surprise you that after having been to a country where one changes shoes when entering a building or a bathroom, I became much more conscious of tracking ‘dirt’ inside and started to change shoes when I came to my office? And that I found the practice edifying in a way difficult to put into words? Or a more significant example: in a karate class, the instructor jokingly told us that even when he was wrong, he was right – but he was only half joking. Karate is not a democracy! Although Japan’s authoritarianism frequently runs to extremes, I found it liberating to be in a context where I always had to bow to the instructor – liberating because it gave much-needed distance from my own feelings. Regardless of whether I felt like doing it, I did. For an American raised in a culture obsessed with self and positive self-regard and self-expression, it was quite a relief to simply do what I was told. The implications for Christian discipleship are obvious and, for me, profound. One bows before the Lord Christ and does what one is told – no mess, no quibbling, no waffling.

But all this makes it sound as if the Western professor of Old Testament is expertly adjusting his teaching strategy to a different context. My experience has actually been that something more subtle and beautiful happens: without meaning to, and simply by being what they are, one’s Japanese friends (or Chinese, Indian or African) deepen you as a Christian. As one’s teaching is translated into Japanese, one finds oneself translated as well, and the better for it.

There is much darkness in Japanese culture which I haven’t had opportunity to talk about, but which one quickly comes across during visits: very high suicide rates, especially among young people; the phenomenon of karoshi (overworking oneself to death) or hikkimori (hermits who stay in their rooms for years, refusing to participate in the culture); the entrenched sexual sin (child pornography only recently became illegal, and attitudes toward it are still lax); the profound loneliness (‘cuddle cafes’ offer hugs and embraces with a stranger – nothing more – for a fee). In fact, a recurrent experience in Japan is a startling juxtaposition of pleasantness with darkness.

But even a culture formed with essentially zero Christian influence has been generous to me. I am reminded of something CS Lewis said, in his book The Four Loves, after Charles Williams died, which applies as much to other cultures as it does individuals:

‘In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s [Tolkien’s] reaction to a specifically Charles joke. Far from having more of Ronald... I have less of Ronald... In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious ‘nearness by resemblance’ to heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each of us has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest... The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall have.’

The happy effect of contextualizing the gospel is that one receives by so doing, and is a better Christian for it. Not only that, but the vision of ‘every tribe and tongue and nation’ worshipping before the throne (Revelation 7:9) becomes a little more tangible, and the God being worshipped more manifoldly beautiful, as each declares some aspect of his perfections.