A Biblical Case for Cultural Adaptation in the Church

Or was the Apostle Paul a Hypocrite?

Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash

Let me start by saying that I believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God. My intention here is not to undermine what the Bible says, but to seek to “correctly handle the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

This is the first of what I expect to be a three-part series seeking to untangle “Biblical Christianity” (which is my worldview) from “Cultural Christianity”. For clarity, here are my definitions of these terms:

Biblical Christianity is a world view that makes the Bible the ultimate authority for all matters relating to God, spirituality and living as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Cultural Christianity places cultural norms and beliefs above the Bible, often by focusing on scriptures that support pre-existing cultural views, whilst rationalising or ignoring scriptures that disagree with those cultural beliefs.

It can be remarkably hard to differentiate between what is cultural and what is truly Biblical thinking. This is made even more difficult by the way the Bible itself appears to encourage us to adapt to cultural situations, hence the focus of this article.

Was the Apostle Paul a Hypocrite?

There are some puzzling events in the apostle Paul’s ministry that I believe can shed light on how we should respond to culture:

“Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer but whose father was a Greek. The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.” (Acts 16:1–3 NIV)

Why did Paul circumcise Timothy? Did Paul not strongly warn non-Jewish believers from getting circumcised? Should he not have stood on his principles and on the word of God; should he not have “walked the talk”?

To make the accusation of hypocrisy even louder, Paul rebuked Peter in his letter to the Galatians:

“When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

“When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?” (Galatians 2:11–14 NIV)

Then there was the time when Paul reported to James and the elders in Jerusalem all that God had done through his ministry among the Gentiles (Acts 21:17–25). They instructed Paul to go through a ceremonial purification process in obedience to the law, which Paul obeyed. Having preached to the Gentiles that obeying the law could not bring about the righteousness that God requires, why did he then go against his own teaching?

What are we to make of these biblical events? Do they expose hypocrisy on Paul’s part, or was there something else going on; and what can we 2,000 years later learn from them?

Here are my thoughts on these questions, but I would be interested to hear from others who see these scriptures differently:

1)Paul’s primary concern in his life and ministry was that nothing would hinder the gospel. For example he wrote:

“If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more? But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 9:12 NIV)

2) Paul saw getting Timothy circumcised and ceremonial cleansing as secondary issues that could be a stumbling block to the Jews they came across. Therefore he carried them out so that they would not hinder the message of the gospel to the Jews, or to the Gentiles through Jewish opposition.

3) He criticised Peter in Galatians, because in that gentile environment he saw Peter’s actions as hindering the gospel to the gentiles.

4) Paul’s behaviour in each event seems consistent with this explanation:

“Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” (1 Corinthians 9:19–22 NIV)

5) Therefore Paul was not a hypocrite, rather he was pragmatic. His primary concern was to win as many people as possible for Christ, through the gospel. He was a man of principle: the principle of compromising his own freedoms in order to serve all people. He was willing to compromise on lesser principles, and outward behaviours, in order to not hinder the gospel in any given situation or culture.

6) The actions and principles that Paul adapted, to suit the different cultures he was facing, were secondary but not minor issues. In many ways they were at the heart of his message of good news to the Gentiles that salvation comes through faith alone in Christ alone. The Mosaic Law was effectively in competition with the gospel, and yet Paul would rather obey the law so as not to alienate those under the law, in order that they would be willing to hear and consider the gospel.

If my thinking is correct, then there is a Biblical case for Christians to make cultural adaptations and consequently some important questions arise:

1. How can we remove barriers to the gospel in our culture?
2. What secondary Biblical principles should the Church adapt to avoid them becoming a hinderance to the gospel?
3. What Biblical principles should the Church make a stand on so that the Church stays true to its calling?
4. How can the Church adapt to the culture of the people it seeks to win for Christ, whist staying true to its Lord and without slipping into moral relativity?

These are complex questions with no easy answer. Perhaps a good place to start is for the Church, and all of us within it, to adopt the attitude of a servant to those in the world. What would that look like?

The second part in this series is called “Objective Moral Truth and the Church”.