An Ancient Speech about Honor and Shame
A speech about Dio Chrysostom reveals how honor and shame worked in the first century.
Author: HonorShame
resources for Majority World ministry
Biblical Field Studies in Turkey
I am part of a new training program based in Asia Minor for training people from the Majority World in the historical and cultural backgrounds of the New Testament. Since many subscribers this blog live and work in parts …
Shame-Conviction and Guilt-Conviction
Christopher Flanders (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is associate professor of missions at Abilene Christian University. He served as a missionary in Thailand for eleven years. This post is from his recent article This post is based on his article, “Bringing …
deSilva’s Classic Book, 2nd Ed.
David deSilva’s book Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity is a sort of cult classic in terms of honor-shame and NT backgrounds. I still remember reading the book on a camping trip in 2006 and thinking on each page, “This makes so …
Seeking God’s Face—A New HS Book with Practical Reflections
Jackson Wu and Ryan Jensen have authored a new book, Seeking God’s Face: Practical Reflections on Honor and Shame in Scripture. Many people will enjoy the devotional and challenging content. This post is one of the 101 practical reflections. …
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Adding “Guilt” to the Bible
Translation is difficult work. A major issue in translating texts is that the two languages reflect two different cultures, or ways of looking at reality. So words and concepts do not always translate perfectly across cultures. Translators must make many …
Developing Communities with Redefined Honor & Shame
Mark Baker’s new book, Centered-Set Church: Discipleship and Community without Judgementalism, will be helpful for anyone interested in developing healthy church communities. The problem is that many churches are really good at drawing lines. As a result, some people learn …
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Defending Shame
Guest Dr. Te-Li Lau is an Associate Professor of New Testament at TEDS and author of Defending Shame: Its Formative Power in Paul’s Letters (Baker Academic, 2020), from which this post draws. We live in an age where many consider shame …
Confronting Lying in HS Cultures
Ajith Fernando has published a recent article titled “Confronting Lying Biblically in Honour- and Shame-Oriented Cultures” (Evangelical Review of Theology, 2022) This a topic many people struggle to address with truth, wisdom, and love. As he has for decades, Ajith …
John Owen on Salvation from Shame
The 17th-century English Puritans had an intense commitment to biblical teaching on sin, salvation, and genuine conversion. They brought their attention to both the guilt-innocence and honor-shame themes in Scripture. Just as for the guilty sinner in the hands of …
Mercy in Honor-Shame Contexts
Charles R. Harle (MS, Oregon State University) lived and taught ESL for a year in China then for 18 years worked with colleges and universities in China to recruit, train and place native English speaking ESL teachers. The Oxford Languages …
Hospitality: The Theological Meaning
Hospitality—the welcome and provision of guests and strangers—was important in the ancient world. It remains an important aspect of honor-shame cultures. The previous post explained what hospitality accomplishes at a social level. This post introduces the NT teaching on hospitality. …
Hospitality: The Social Meaning
Hospitality is a significant aspect of honor-shame cultures. Many people know this through personal experience. When you visit someone from a Majority World culture, you receive a lavish and generous welcome. Besides the quality of hospitality, the quantity is also …
The 3D Gospel in 11 Languages!
The 3D Gospel is now available in 11 different languages. I am grateful for the global interest and eagerness of translators to complete the projects. Most interesting to me is the variety of cover designs. The visual styles reflect how cultures …
Paul & and the Power of Grace (Book Review)
John Barclay’s Paul & the Gift (Eerdmans, 2015) has been widely hailed as “the most important book” in New Testament studies in 40 years. Now, for the benefit of many, Barclay has published an accessible and practical version—Paul & the …
An Update about HonorShame.com
The tagline for HonorShame.com is “resources for Majority World ministry.” The aim of the website and blog has been to equip people with ideas and resources to better understand the pivotal roles of honor-shame in culture, theology, and ministry. From …
“Honor” in the New Testament
The main New Testament word for honor is timē. The word refers to the value of an object. In material transactions, the word means “price” or “a sum (of money).” For example The tomb that Abraham had bought for a …
“Shame” in the New Testament
The New Testament uses a variety of words to speak about shame. This post discusses main three roots for shame. This first pie chart shows the various Greek terms behind the word “shame” in the NRSV. The primary NT word …
Honor-Shame and Relativism: What Evangelicals Don’t Get about Donald Trump
Guest Dr. Stan Nussbaum is an independent mission coach, researcher, and author. His latest project is SYNC. No culture is pure honor-shame, pure guilt-forgiveness, or pure power-fear. All are mixes and all change over time. American culture is a guilt-forgiveness …
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Shame in the Old Testament
Shame is a hot topic in the Old Testament! To convey the concept of shame, the OT uses at least ten different words over 300 times. With many different words, shame is the proverbial ice in Eskimo culture. Several verses …