Cultural Compasses | Sunday, September 11, 2022

When the LORD your God has cut off the nations whose land the LORD your God is giving you... you shall separate three cities for yourself in the midst of your land, which the LORD your God is giving you to possess. You shall prepare roads for yourself... that any manslayer may flee there. (Deuteronomy 19:1–3)

God has hidden pointers toward Himself in every culture on earth—and the cities of refuge are one of them.

A Guest Speaker and "Cultural Compasses"

Twelve years ago, almost to the week, we were blessed at Cross Connection Church to host a fascinating guest speaker. At the end of August 2010, we were about to begin a 15-week graduate-level class on Christian missions called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. Nearly a hundred people from our church and others in the area were enrolled. Perspectives is an eye-opening journey through the Scriptures and church history, considering the work of Christian missions and the remaining task we have in finishing the Great Commission of Matthew 28.

The class is meant to change your perspective—not only about what God's mission is in the world, but about how you, as a child of God, are to be involved in His mission. Each week a different speaker, an expert in their field, comes to teach. The speaker we selected to open the class was not just an academic but a practitioner—he had been out in the field. His name was Don Richardson. Don passed away a few years ago. When he came to us at about 75 years old, he spoke on the subject of what he called cultural compasses.

According to Don, cultural compasses are artifacts within cultures that point people, like a compass, to God. He would tell you these compasses are given to every culture in the world. In every place, among all peoples with their languages and customs, God has intentionally built into the people, their culture, and sometimes even their language, these compasses directed to Him.

Eternity in Their Hearts

Don would point you to a 3,000-year-old book to support this view. Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 3:10–11:

I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts.

God has given us a purpose and placed into every human being an understanding of these things. He has designed us with a moral law hardwired into us, but also an inclination toward love and toward eternal life. He has built into our hearts and into the cultures of man compasses that point individuals to Him.

What we have before us in Deuteronomy 19 is, I believe, one such cultural compass for the Hebrew people, directing them toward the Messiah.

Homicide, Manslaughter, and the Need for Refuge

When the children of Israel came into the Promised Land, they were to govern themselves according to God's law. There would be no active law enforcement, no police officer. If a crime was committed, it was in the people's hands to deal with prosecution. In many cases, especially homicide, capital punishment could be the penalty.

But homicide is not always intentional, premeditated murder. Sometimes an unlawful death comes about unintentionally—what we would call manslaughter, the unlawful killing of a human being without malice or forethought. It happened; it's unlawful; it's not the way things should be—but it wasn't premeditated. Deuteronomy 19 gives direction from Moses, and ultimately from God, on how Israel was to deal with homicide when it was determined to be manslaughter.

Many of God's laws were revolutionary reforms to the contemporary customs of that time. In the ancient Near East at the time of Moses, if a death occurred due to someone's actions, that killer would typically be put to death by a relative of the deceased—what the Bible calls the avenger of blood. This relative would, in effect, hunt the killer down: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Often there was no time or opportunity to determine whether the death was intentional or unintentional.

Cities of Refuge for the Manslayer

For God's people it was to be different. Within Israel there were to be cities of refuge for the one guilty of manslaughter:

This is the case of the manslayer who flees there, that he may live: Whoever kills his neighbor unintentionally, not having hated him in time past... as when a man goes to the woods with his neighbor to cut timber, and his hand swings a stroke with the ax... and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies—he shall flee to one of these cities and live; lest the avenger of blood, while his anger is hot, pursue the manslayer and overtake him... and kill him, though he was not deserving of death. (Deuteronomy 19:4–6)

In God's economy there were limitations within His law, especially regarding capital punishment, and provisions if homicide was determined to be unintentional. But Moses adds the other side:

But if anyone hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, rises against him and strikes him mortally, so that he dies... then the elders of the city shall send and bring him from there, and deliver him over to the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. (Deuteronomy 19:11–12)

If a person dies at the hands of another, the judges must determine whether it was premeditated murder or manslaughter before the avenger of blood acts. If manslaughter, the manslayer may stay in the city of refuge and live. If murder, the killer is given over to justice.

The Cost and Care of the Cities

If you were with us in August of 2020, you'll recall that in Deuteronomy 4 we saw three cities of refuge already established on the east side of the Jordan River. Three more were to be set up on the west side as Israel entered the land—and if the nation grew, more would be needed. These cities were spaced so that they were no more than a single day's journey from anyone who needed to flee.

Picture the man in the woods whose ax head slips and kills his partner. As soon as the death is known, the brother or father will come as the avenger of blood. There will be a manhunt. So the man flees to a city of refuge. The roads to these cities were kept prepared, markers pointed the way, the cities were provisioned, and they were maintained by the Levites, the priestly tribe.

When you consider this provision—six cities, with the potential for more—there is a substantial outlay of resources committed to it. Taxation in Israel was relatively low and geared largely toward the tabernacle and the welfare of the poor, yet the people were financially responsible for keeping roads cut and ready and the cities provisioned. These cities were clearly a big deal to God. Yet the Old Testament gives us almost no account of how often they were actually used by manslayers. So what is the purpose of this costly provision?

A Compass Pointing to God's Mercy

Beyond the practical considerations, I want to suggest these cities were a cultural compass directing Israel to God—just as Don Richardson described. In his book Eternity in Their Hearts, which I highly recommend, you discover that other people groups had very similar customs. This was not entirely unique to Hebrew culture; it is a compass God has placed in the hearts and cultures of people to direct them to the Lord.

As I shared two years ago, this provision teaches us that God goes to great lengths to provide mercy to the guilty. The one who fled to the city of refuge was guilty of homicide, yet God expected great care and expense to be apportioned to provide him refuge and mercy. Not only is God concerned to deal mercifully and justly with the guilty, but He wants His people to do the same.

King David recognized that the city of refuge points to God:

I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him I will trust." ... Because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you. (Psalm 91:2, 9–10)

We Are All Guilty Manslayers

It becomes clearer still when you realize that each of us is ultimately guilty of unintentional homicide. Unintentionally and unaware, you and I have acted in such a way that we caused someone to die. Because of my sin and your sin, Jesus died upon Calvary's cross. We have no hope but to flee for refuge from the coming wrath of His avenger of blood—His Father. But where do we flee? There is no Bezer or Hebron for us. Hebrews tells us:

...that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast... where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever. (Hebrews 6:18–20)

Israel's cities of refuge were markers posted to direct us to Christ.

The Whole Law as a Compass

It was not only the cities. Paul tells us the entire law did the same:

Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. (Galatians 3:24–25)

All of Israel's commandments were given to direct them to Jesus and to show them their need for Him. You cannot be justified by the law.

And there are many other cultural compasses in Israel's history. The manna pointed to Jesus, the bread that came down from heaven. At the end of Exodus 15, when the bitter waters at Marah were made sweet by a tree cast into them, that tree pointed to Jesus. The spotless lamb of Leviticus, offered for the sin offering, pointed to Jesus—so that when John the Baptist saw Him he said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

The Bronze Serpent

One of my favorites is in John 3. Nicodemus, a religious leader, comes to Jesus by night, and Jesus tells him he must be born again. When Nicodemus asks how, Jesus points back to an obscure event in the wilderness:

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:14–15)

In Numbers, Israel murmured against God, and venomous serpents came and bit them. God told Moses to lift up a bronze serpent on a pole, and whoever was bitten would live if they looked at it. It was faith, their trust, that brought life. There are beautiful typological pictures here: bronze is a symbol of judgment, and the serpent is an image of sin—so you have judgment upon sin lifted up on the pole, just as Jesus, lifted up on the cross, bore judgment upon sin. Our trust in Him brings salvation. It was a cultural compass pointing forward to Jesus.

Compasses for the Gentiles

But what about non-Jewish peoples? Are there cultural compasses for other cultures? While ministering to Gentiles in Lystra, Paul declared:

...the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them, who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons. (Acts 14:15–17)

God is not as hidden as we sometimes assume. He has left His fingerprints throughout creation—the heavens declare His glory; His invisible attributes are clearly seen (Romans 1:20). We see His handiwork in astronomy and biology, in conscience and consciousness, in the very fact that we know good from evil and beauty from ugliness.

God is knowable, and He has made Himself known. Some people imagine a God out at the edge of the universe whom they can never reach. That is not what the Bible reveals. As Jeremiah 29 declares:

You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)

This was spoken to the exiles, but it applies to every lost soul.

Paul at Athens

In Acts 17, Paul came to Athens, a city given to every manner of pagan idolatry, dominated by the Acropolis with its temples to Athena, Apollo, and others. Given the opportunity to speak to the intelligentsia on Mars Hill, Paul declared:

Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you... He has made from one blood every nation of men... so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said. (Acts 17:22–28)

Paul looked for the cultural compasses in Athens—the altar to the unknown God, the words of their own poets—so that he might direct people to the one true God. Now He commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day to judge the world by the man He raised from the dead.

The Peace Child

If you pick up another of Don Richardson's books, Peace Child, you'll see the beautiful way God revealed Himself through a cultural compass to a tribal people in New Guinea called the Sawi. In 1962, Don, his wife Carol, and their newborn son Stephen went as missionaries to this head-hunting, cannibalistic people. Don spent months learning their language and culture so he could introduce them to Jesus.

But he encountered a problem. The Sawi highly valued treachery—turning on someone you've drawn close. When Don shared the story of Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss, they cheered and made Judas the hero. How do you share the gospel with people who think Jesus is the dupe and Judas the hero?

When tribal warfare made it dangerous to stay, the people, who did not want Don and his family to leave, told them about an old custom—the peace child. Don writes in Eternity in Their Hearts:

If a Sawi father offered his son to another group as a peace child, not only were past grievances thereby settled, but also future instances of treachery were prevented—but only as long as the peace child remained alive. Our ready-made key of communication then was the presentation of Jesus Christ to the Sawi as the ultimate peace child... Once they realized that the One Judas betrayed was the peace child, they no longer viewed Judas as the hero, for to betray a peace child was, to the Sawi, the worst possible crime. Since those days, approximately two-thirds of the Sawi people have laid their hands by faith upon God's Peace Child, Jesus Christ.

In their former custom, recipients laid their hands on the given son and said, "We receive this child as a basis for peace." That custom was a cultural compass pointing a people who had never heard the gospel to Jesus.

Compasses in Our Own Day

These compasses are littered throughout Scripture and culture—and I would suggest there are cultural compasses in our culture today. We just have to look. As Christians we must be good biblical anthropologists, looking at culture through the lens of Scripture to see how the connections are made between the gospel story and the stories we tell ourselves.

Consider that our culture highly values love as the greatest virtue. Why? Because the impulse comes from God who made us, whose very nature is love—"God is love" (1 John). Every earthly form of love leaves us wanting; only the love of God is genuine, pure, compassionate, sacrificial, and not self-seeking. An honest search for love guides us toward Him.

I was thinking about this message this week and then heard someone mention a cultural compass in the 2012 film Marvel's The Avengers. Boil the storyline down: a supernatural, Satan-type being wages war in the heavens, rebels against the gods, comes to earth desiring to be worshiped by all, possesses people's minds, and turns them against one another—because he cannot defeat them himself. That figure is Loki, and it sounds like a significant compass pointing back to the storyline of the Bible. Consider the dozens of superhero films, our biggest blockbusters for twenty years, where good fights evil, the hero is defeated to the point of death, only to resurrect and defeat the villain. Consider our deep inclinations toward liberty, justice, virtue, enlightenment, and eternal life. Where does all of this come from? He did not leave Himself without witness.

Seekers of Seekers

I highlight all of this to remind you that God has called you to seek for seekers. When we are found by Him, we ought then to become seekers of the lost. The Gospel of Luke says Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10), and that ought to be my mission if I am His follower.

If you make it your mission to seek for seekers, you will not have to look far. They are at your work, on your school campus, in your neighborhood, perhaps even in your own family. When we look for cultural compasses, we are doing a biblical anthropological study of culture, recognizing that God has placed eternity in every heart. We find the on-ramps for the gospel and share the good news.

And the good news is this: there is a superhero. There is One who lays His life down for others, who gives genuine, merciful, sacrificial love. There is One who gives refuge—a Redeemer who is just and good and beautiful and true, who gives liberty and eternal life. He is the Peace Child. His name is Jesus.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I thank you so much for this passage in Deuteronomy that speaks about these cities of refuge. I thank you that you have made provision for us to find refuge, to find your mercy and your grace. Lord, I pray that you would open our eyes to see in our culture the compasses that point people to you, so that we can direct them to you through the gospel. Help us to make those connections, and give us the boldness to share the good news with those people. There are so many seekers, and you are a seeker of seekers—so help us to be seekers of seekers as well, seeking those who are lost. Because we once were lost, and now we have been found by you, Jesus Christ the righteous. We praise you, Jesus, and we thank you for your word for us. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.