A Brain’s Reading Guide to the Gospels

My point here is that culture is an architect of many of our mental biases. Since Jesus lived in a collectivist culture, this cultural blueprint is crucial not just to understand His interactions but the stories He told in parables. It is important to understand cultural elements of the Ancient Near East, because the stories would be foreign and misconstrued without that knowledge. It is additionally important to understand how their collectivist identities biased how they heard Jesus’ teachings and read the Gospel narratives. Perhaps then people with modern individualist identities can read the same Gospels from another cultural perspective. To explore this, we will read one of Jesus’ most famous stories – the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Use this moment to take a pause from this book and read Luke 15:11-32.
There are many cultural elements I have heard in sermons over the years that add meaning to this narrative that I would otherwise be ignorant of. Many of these details and more are explained in pastor and author Timothy Keller’s book on this parable, The Prodigal God. The detail about the father running matters (patriarchs did not run in this culture, as it would have been shameful) because it gives us more insight into his character and what that tells us about how God feels toward us. Information about the robe and ring that the prodigal son received matters (worn symbols of family identity) because of what it reveals to us about his restoration into the family again. The laws of inheritance between the brothers matter to understand why the older brother remained so upset when the younger one returned (he would have to give over part of his own inheritance to welcome him back). Without these details, I can still understand the main message Jesus taught about God and His people. However, each insight adds nuance and color to make certain aspects of the story come alive and provide a richer and deeper understanding.
In addition, understanding how individualist and collectivist cultures would hear, pay attention to, and respond to this story also matters. From an individualist lens, I would be biased to focus on the character of the prodigal son most, choosing to go after his own ambitions in the world. I would focus on the personal mistakes that he made that led to the dire state of eating pig food. I would think about the degree of humility he had to show to return home in shame, but also how his status in the family was redeemed. In some ways, the prodigal son’s story feels like a classic tale of going out on one’s own to chase the American dream. The story of redemption, then, becomes about how the father in this story, an allegory for God, accepted the prodigal son, regardless of the mistakes he made. If I transport myself into the story in place of the prodigal son, it would make me feel like I could come to God and receive forgiveness for my sins. In short, I would be tempted to read this story as being all about me, the prodigal son, the awful situations I get myself into, and God’s assurance that He will always welcome me into the fold. From this perspective, the emphasis and actions of the older brother never really matter that much.
In comparison, from a collectivist mindset, the focus of the story hovers around the whole family unit in which the younger brother forms just one piece. Collectivist eyes would immediately pick up on the younger son’s sins not once he got to the country and squandered his wealth, but when he broke up the family in the first place by demanding his early inheritance. They would see the father’s decision to let the son go as shocking to allow a split of the family on behalf of one selfish and disobedient son. They would focus on the father and son’s reunion as the restoration of the family, not just the restoration of the one prodigal. God, then, would not just be seen as pursuing individual sinners and bestowing mercy and forgiveness on them, wiping clean the sins they have committed. God would also be seen as champion of the family unit, and if we expand the metaphor out from there, a champion of the nation of Israel and even the whole world. The father’s actions from this perspective suggest to us a God who gives us freedom but desperately wants His whole creation reunited and made whole again.
The older brother’s actions have more weight and significance from a collectivist mindset. Because he refused to take part in restoring family harmony, collectivist eyes would see his language and actions as selfish and hurtful. From a collectivist perspective, the older brother’s stance and actions are just as damaging as the younger son’s choices. When we consider the religious leaders to be on Jesus’ mind when describing the older brother, we realize this was an incredible indictment of their actions, that they were just as responsible for the problems of the world as the ‘sinners’ were. In the end, every character in the story was asked to sacrifice something about themselves to make the family whole. The father character (God) already demonstrated sacrifice, but the future choices of the younger son (sinner) and older son (religious leader) remained as unanswered questions. This is what Jesus left his listeners to ponder, and this focus on the group is something we might completely miss if reading from individualist eyes.