The present gospel

As I mentioned in my last post, nomadic people, especially hunter/gatherer cultures live their lives in the present tense more than the rest of us.

I recently read an article about an extreme example. The Pirahã people in the Amazon are confounding the expectations of linguists because their language doesn't appear to use any of what has been considered "universal" grammar. Besides lacking embedded or subordinate clauses their language appears to only have a present tense. They don't talk about the past or the future, because to them there is only what is and what isn't. There are many other difficult peculiarities in the language. Three generations of SIL trained linguists have spent their careers trying to do Bible translation for the Pirahã, and they haven't cracked it.

It got me thinking. Grieving honestly, the last missionary lost his faith in God and his marriage over this stuff.

So much of what we think of when we want to explain "the gospel" is tied up in either the past; the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus, or the future; the hope of heaven. But these have no relevance to the Pirahã people, the concept of time just doesn't interest them.

So, what does the Gospel mean in the present? It's an interesting thought experiment for us. It might be the key to reaching the Pirahã, and it would probably be meaningful to other hunter/gatherer cultures too. It would not surprise me at all that there is something God wants to teach us through examining our faith in the Present as the nomads would.

Jesus' teaching on the what the Kingdom is like are all in the present tense. Good news for right now includes forgiveness, joy, provision, security. The Holy Spirit is living in us right now. Our salvation has been secured (past) and sealed (future) but we are walking in it, working it out, in our daily lives. We are tempted to think of the Gospel in the "ticket to heaven" sense or imagine ourselves holding a "get our of jail free card" that we will hand over at the pearly gates. But, when you think about it, there is very little of that future promise that is not offered to us here and now. Jesus is alive now. The Kingdom is both now and "not yet".

Hunter/gatherers have a concept of time that just doesn't align fully with ours. But, I'm not sure ours fully describes the Biblical one either.