Reading the Bible Faithfully: A Call to See Beyond Our Individualist Eyes
Most of us don’t realize how much of our Western world we bring with us when we open the Bible. We come with habits, assumptions, and cultural lenses that shape how we understand what we read. And often, without realizing it, we interpret Scripture in a way that says more about our culture than about God’s Word.
In Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes: Patronage, Honor, and Shame in the Biblical World, E. Randolph Richards and Richard James offer an important and humbling reminder: the Bible was written in a collectivist world, not an individualist one. For those of us shaped by modern Western culture—where personal freedom, autonomy, and independence are celebrated—this means we may be missing a large part of the picture when we read Scripture.
The authors don’t simply criticize Western culture; they invite us to rediscover the world of the Bible—the world of kinship, community, patronage, honor, and shame. Their central argument is that to be faithful interpreters, we must be willing to step outside our own assumptions and listen to Scripture as it was first heard, in a world where people’s identities were shaped not by “I,” but by “we.”
The Problem with Reading the Bible Alone
Richards and James argue that modern Christians tend to read the Bible as if it were written for me—my growth, my personal relationship with Jesus, my story of salvation. But Scripture was not written for isolated individuals; it was written for communities of faith.
In the biblical world, identity was inseparable from one’s family, tribe, or city. To belong was to exist. To be cast out was to be lost. So when Paul wrote to the church in Corinth or when Jesus called His disciples to follow Him, those calls were deeply communal—they redefined people’s entire social world.
The authors remind us that salvation is not just about being saved from something but being saved into something—the family of God. To follow Jesus meant to join a new household under a gracious Patron who welcomes the unworthy, provides for the weak, and gives honor to those the world shames.
Faithful interpretation, then, is not about how Scripture affirms my personal journey but how it reorients my life within God’s people.
Rediscovering the World of Patronage, Honor, and Shame
To understand the Bible well, we must learn to see the relational dynamics of the ancient world. Richards and James highlight three major themes that Westerners often overlook:
Patronage – In the biblical world, life revolved around networks of dependence. Patrons provided resources and protection; clients responded with loyalty, honor, and gratitude. This wasn’t mere transaction—it was relationship. When God blesses His people, He acts as the gracious Patron who gives out of abundance, not obligation. When we respond with gratitude, worship, and obedience, we’re living within that divine relationship of grace.
Honor and Shame – In a collectivist culture, honor is not something earned individually but shared within a group. Jesus’ ministry constantly challenged the honor system of His day—not by rejecting it but by redefining it. He honored the humble and shamed the proud. His death on a cross—the most shameful form of execution—became the very means by which God’s honor and glory were revealed.
Kinship – Family was everything in the ancient world. The long genealogies of Scripture aren’t filler; they’re theology. They remind us that God’s story is generational, communal, and covenantal. When we come to faith, we are grafted into this larger story—a family defined not by bloodlines but by the blood of Christ.
Reading with these dynamics in mind helps us hear the Bible more faithfully. It draws us out of our isolated frameworks and into the shared identity of God’s people.
A Call to Faithful Interpretation
Faithful interpretation begins with humility—the humility to admit that we are not the center of the biblical story. The Bible wasn’t written to affirm our Western ideals of independence and self-expression; it was written to form a people who depend on God and one another.
Richards and James’ work serves as a call to repentance for how easily we privatize faith and domesticate Scripture. The goal isn’t to erase individuality, but to place it within its proper context: we find ourselves by belonging to Christ and His body.
In a world where faith is often reduced to a solo endeavor—“my quiet time,” “my truth,” “my calling”—we need this reminder more than ever. The Bible calls us back to the collective story of redemption, where the emphasis is not on me and Jesus but on us in Christ.
Reading as a People, Not Just as Persons
If our interpretations are to be faithful, they must also be communal. This means reading Scripture in community—with the church, across cultures, and through time. It means allowing voices from the global and historical church to challenge our blind spots.
When we listen to Scripture through collectivist eyes, we begin to see:
Sin is not just personal failure but communal brokenness.
Salvation is not just an individual rescue but a new creation of God’s family.
Discipleship is not a solo journey but a shared life of mutual dependence and honor.
As Western Christians, learning to read this way takes practice. It requires unlearning habits of isolation and learning to love Scripture as a shared inheritance, not private property.
Conclusion: Reading the Bible Together
Richards and James’ Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes is not just an academic study—it’s a pastoral plea for faithfulness. To read the Bible rightly, we must read it as its authors and first hearers did: as a community story of God’s redeeming love.
Faithful interpretation calls us to slow down, to listen, and to let Scripture confront our cultural assumptions. It calls us to see that the gospel isn’t just about me being saved, but about us being transformed into a people who bear the name and honor of Jesus Christ.
In the end, faithful interpretation isn’t about mastering the text—it’s about letting the text master us, together.