A Guide to Culture: 1 Cor. 13

If I speak with the tongue of a national,
but have not love,
I am only a resounding gong
or a clanging cymbal.

If I wear the national dress
and understand the culture
and all forms of etiquette,
and if I copy all mannerisms
so that I could pass for a national,
but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor,
and if I spend my energy without reserve,
but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love endures long hours of language study
and is kind to those who mock his accent.
Love does not envy those who stayed home;
love does not exalt his home culture,
is not proud of his national superiority,
does not boast about
the way we do it back home,
does not seek his own ways,
is not easily provoked into telling about the
beauty of his home country,
does not think evil about this culture;
love bears all criticism about his home culture,
believes all good things about this new culture,
confidently anticipates
being at home in this place,
endures all inconveniences.

Love never fails.

But where there is cultural anthropology,
it will fail;
where there is contextualization,
it will lead to syncretism;
where there is linguistics, 
it will change.

For we know only part of the culture.
And we minister to only part.
But when Christ is reproduced in this culture,
then our inadequacies will be insignificant.

When I was in America I spoke as an American,
I understood as an American,
I thought as an American;
but when I left America
I put away American things.

Now we adapt to this culture awkwardly,
but He will live in it, intimately.
Now I speak with a strange accent,
but He will speak to the heart.

And now these three remain:
cultural adaptation, language study, and love;
But the greatest of these is love .

<from Images, a Navigator newsletter, Nov. 1997>