The Issachar Anointing

Challenge Prevailing Assumptions, Ideas, and Wisdom

The third Issachar Anointing principle for understanding the times is to challenge prevailing assumptions, ideas, and wisdom. I believe the men of Issachar were not in favor of Ishbosheth being the king instead of David, but it took them some time to convince the rest of the tribes. They did not accept the prevailing assumption that the heir to the throne should be Saul’s son.

One way of challenging the prevailing assumptions, ideas, and wisdom is to question the common questions that people ask. Change the questions to get new insights. Through socialization, we have come to certain understandings about our world. When we are daring enough, we push the boundaries of those understandings by asking questions. But the questions we ask are limited by those same understandings. The answer you get to a question may be correct in relation to the question, but not necessarily right within the world of understandings, including both your understanding and others’ understanding. That is why it is necessary sometimes to explore whether the question is even right to begin with.

Here is an example: an elder came to visit us, and my wife asked him whether he would like to eat kenkey or banku. (Each is a corn-based Ghanaian meal.) The question seemed appropriate within the understanding of my wife and the understanding of the elder. But within the larger space of understanding, this question limited the scope of the answer to two: kenkey or banku.

Since I knew that the elder’s favorite food was fufu (a plantain-based Ghanaian meal) with soup, I commented that the question needed to be changed. I asked the elder, “What type of food would you like to eat?”

When I questioned the original question and changed it, that act opened up the set of possible foods to choose from. Fufu with soup became a possible answer. And my wife remembered that she had pepper chicken soup that she could use for that meal.

Institutions have the habit of limiting the questions asked in order not to rock the boat, because they have limited answers. They allow variations on the questions, but not transformational new questions that open up the set of possible answers and could take the institution in a different direction. The answer that you get to a question will cause you to act or keep you where you are. Since the question dictates the set of possible answers, it is in the interest of institutions to limit the questions to the ones that provide self-preserving answers. Such institutions run the risk of becoming irrelevant. On the other hand, organizations that allow transformational questions increase their chances of reinventing themselves to flow with emerging times.

People in general are uncomfortable about questioning their socialized understanding or allowing others to question it. They are only comfortable asking the same types of questions they’ve always asked. Some people in authority have failed miserably because they refused to accept new questions about their understanding. Consequently, they did not see the changes in the times that new questions would have exposed.

Bill Lowe questioned the socialized understanding that computers were meant for organizations in a central computer center, and not for individuals on their desktops. Because of his innovative questioning, IBM was able to reinvent itself and stay alive during the desktop PC era. Other major computer companies who focused on company-size computers went completely out of business.

King Rehoboam failed as king and lost control over the tribes because he did not accept questioning of the socialized understanding of massive taxes imposed for forty years by his father, King Solomon.

When Sir Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravity, the story has it that he was sitting under an apple tree. An apple fell down. He could have assumed the apple fell down because it was ripe. But he asked the groundbreaking question about what force pushed the apple down.

When you push yourself to ask or accept questions beyond your space of socialized understanding, you will begin to see new trends or paradigm shifts that may be part of changing times. You must question the questions that you’ve been asking in your church, your community, your organization, your society, and your nation. You must develop transformational new questions. This will help you to challenge prevailing assumptions, ideas, and wisdom.

Examine Biblical Foundations of Dogma and Embrace New Biblical Insights

The fourth Issachar Anointing principle for understanding the times is to examine biblical foundations of dogma, which are beliefs and traditions, and embrace new biblical insight.

The church runs by Scripture and tradition. Tradition may change from generation to generation and from location to location to deal with the specific situations of a given generation in a given location. Scripture never changes.

Jesus was fond of questioning traditions because they are not Scripture and must change as appropriate. In fact, his major run-ins with the Pharisees were over his questioning the biblical foundations of their traditions. In a sense he was asking transformational questions of their practices. Those who understood his questioning came to understand the emerging times of grace. Those who didn’t eventually became irrelevant as they clung to dying traditions.

Consider the location of church services. In the months following Jesus’ ascension, the church met in synagogues. In the first century AD, services were held in homes. In later centuries, services were held in special buildings. In twenty-first century China, many churches hold services in homes. If you don’t understand the biblical foundations of church service location, you may be stuck in an old tradition and miss the changing times concerning church service locations.