In our Perspectives class this week, the instructor was raised in Korea. One of the things that she talked with us about was the difference in cultures - specifically those cultures that value individualism versus those that are a "collective culture".
She stated that the US is probably the most individualistic culture in the world. We have sayings that emphasize this, like, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease."
She compared this to her own culture, where one of the popular sayings is, "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down" -- you don't want to stand out from the crowd.
She said that, in Korean, though there is a word for "my", it is almost never used. It is not "my car" or "my house" or "my food" but always "our". In these types of cultures, it is less common that an individual would come to faith in Christ; rather a community, or a family, would come to faith. The culture of the Bible was much more a collective culture than the US, and therefore, we see stories like that of Cornelius (Acts 10) and the Philippian jailer (Acts 16) where the whole household / group / family came to faith.
I just found this interesting... I am often so caught up in my own experience that I have a hard time conceptualizing how it could be quite different within a different culture - whether at a different time, or just separated by space.
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