Do Cultural Differences Matter?

In my last blog, Mind the Gap, we reflected on the difference between our official theology and our functional theology—what we say we believe, and how we actually live.

That is worth pondering.

So is this.

This week, I have been thinking about cultural differences—how they shape the way we see life, speak, respond, and even suffer. These differences vary from country to country, and often from region to region within the same country.

Take the United States, for example. Historically, there have been marked differences between the North and the South, shaped by deeply rooted social, political, and economic realities. Even today, attitudes and assumptions can still reflect those older fault lines. In many places, language changes too. Accents differ. Names for everyday things differ. Slang shifts from one generation to the next. Even hairstyles and fashions tell their own story about the culture of a place and a people.

All of this matters more than we might think.

In our Saturday morning Men’s Sexual Issues Support Group, we have seen that cultural differences can also affect how people understand and respond to the trials of life.

Many of us tend to see temptation as a burden—something to dread, fear, or simply try to survive. And certainly, temptation is not light. Sinful patterns built up over many years, sometimes decades, do not usually disappear overnight when someone comes to Christ. The temptations may still come. The struggle may still be real.

But now, by God’s grace, we are no longer alone.

We have the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit helps us begin to recognise what are often called triggers—those situations, emotions, thoughts, or circumstances where the flesh seeks comfort in something or someone other than Christ. As we learn to identify these moments, we can call upon the Lord immediately, asking Him to strengthen us, steady us, and show us the way of escape.

And Scripture tells us that there is a way of escape.

We are all in the process of being conformed to the image of Christ and transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1–2). That process is often slow, humbling, and deeply personal. Yet it is also full of purpose.

Another truth we must face is this: our trials are not pointless.

James writes that we are to “count it all joy” when we meet trials of various kinds, because the testing of our faith produces steadfastness, and steadfastness, when it has had its full effect, leads us toward maturity (James 1:2–4).

Joy in trials?

That can sound strange, especially when the battle feels relentless.

But when we begin to understand that God may use trials not to crush us, but to deepen us—to make us more dependent upon Him, more aware of our need, more prayerful, and more like Christ—then joy becomes possible. Not joy because the trial itself is pleasant, but joy because the Lord is at work in it. Joy because spiritual growth is possible. Joy because our Saviour has not abandoned us in the struggle.

This is where cultural difference becomes especially interesting.

When we talk about these things on Saturday mornings, our brothers in Kenya often seem to grasp this instinctively. They may even smile as they speak about hardship and temptation—not because the struggle is easy, but because they appear to see more readily that God may be doing something through it. Some of us here in the U.K., by contrast, can view temptation almost entirely as an interruption, a burden, or a defeat. We can approach it as though there is nothing beneficial to be found in the battle.

But what if there is?

What if temptation, though painful, is also an opportunity—an opportunity to run again to Christ, to know His help more deeply, to grow in spiritual watchfulness, and to become more like Him?

That does not make sin good. It does not make struggle easy. But it does remind us that God wastes nothing in the lives of His children.

So yes, cultural differences do matter.

They shape how we interpret suffering.
They affect how we speak about temptation.
They influence whether we see trials mainly as burdens, or also as places where God may be doing holy work.

And perhaps that is something worth reflecting on.

Not to criticise one culture over another, but to humbly ask:

Are there ways my own culture has trained me to think more poorly about hardship than Scripture does?
Have I learned to see struggle only as something to escape, rather than also as something God may use for my good?
Am I resisting what God may be trying to teach me through the very thing I most want removed?

Something to reflect on.