Context – Approaching God in the Old and the New Testament

Musings in CMi and the Bible is a 12-part series on each of the 12 Dimensions of Culture of the Cultural Mapping Inventory (CMi). You can find the overview article here. This is part five on the cultural dimension of Context.

“Is your culture formal with a high context where you need to know a lot of unwritten rules to become an insider, or is it an informal culture with a low context where how you behave does not matter as much as long as it is meant sincerely?“

Where is our relationship with God on this cultural dimension? Is our approach of and relationship with God a formal, high context relationship or an informal, low context relationship?

Some might say that the Old Testament relation between the Israelites and God was formal, has a high context, lots of pomp and circumstance and the New Testament relation between Christians and God is informal, and has a low context with little rules on how we approach God. Let’s see how this holds up.

Approaching God under the Old Covenant

In the Old Testament, there are indeed a lot of rules on how to approach God, and with each progressing covenant, there seems to be more rules.

Adam & Eve didn’t have any rules for approaching God; it was very informal. God’s Presence was in the garden, and they spent time together often. There was only one rule in their lives, “Do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:17)

By breaking the above command, Adam & Eve broke off their relationship with God and life changed for them. After the fall, Adam & Eve started to offer sacrifices to approach God, and communication with God became more formal. (Genesis 4:3-5, 26)

Fast forward to the covenant made with Israel through Moses and we see a whole system of ritual cleansing and sacrifices for the people to approach God and live under the shadow of his Presence as they now lived in a covenant relationship with Him. Detailed instructions were given for making the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, the clothes for the high priest and the other articles of the tabernacle. All of them were a copy of the heavenly tabernacle God showed Moses when he was on top of mount Sinai. Detailed instructions were given for the various sacrifices, how to make them and when to make them. Detailed instructions were given for how to behave and what the penalties were for misbehavior.

There was a lot of formality on how to live in God’s presence, but there were very little unwritten rules. They are all spelled out quite explicitly in the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. There were severe penalties for violating those rules, also spelled out in the same Torah.

In conclusion, we can say that the relationship between the Israelites and God was quite formal. It could be warm and passionate (like David expresses in his psalms) but still formal.

There was also an assurance from God’s side that He would bless the Israelites and hear their prayers if they honored the covenant and kept the laws for living under the covenant.

Approaching God under the New Covenant

In the New Testament God fully restores the relationship between mankind and Himself through the sacrifice (and victory) of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament covenant has been fulfilled, and the new covenant is symbolized by baptism and communion. There seem to be no rules or rituals needed to approach God. We can approach God as a child approaches its father.

How formal do we need to be when approaching God? Are there really no more rules then to approach God? Well, there are but they are a different kind of rules:

We are still expected to approach God with reverent fear for He is a consuming fire”. (Hebrews 12:28-29)
We are expected to lift up holy hands. (I Timothy 2:8)
Corporate worship is still stressed. (Hebrews 11) Though private prayer and worship is also important.
There is to be order in our corporate worship. (I Corinthians 11, 14)
We shouldn’t hide our sins or try to deceive God. It can have serious consequences as the story of Ananias and Sapphira shows. (Acts 5:1-11)

Our attitude and hearts should show that we take God seriously, take the sacrifice of Christ seriously and are respectful of Him. At the same time, we can approach God in a more informal way:

We have childlike access to God and can call Him Abba! (Father or Daddy) (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6)
Jesus calls us his friends (John 15:5)
We have confidence in prayer (Hebrews 4:16) and God invites us to pray persistent prayers (Luke 18:1-8)
We have unfettered access to God, no need to go to a temple or synagogue to make supplication or offer sacrifices first. In the prayer that Jesus taught his followers, “give us today our daily bread” comes before “forgive us our sins”.

Intimacy and reverent fear go hand in hand.

We can be confident that God is with us when we repent and choose to follow Jesus. Sin is still an issue, and God expects an ongoing repentant heart when it comes to sin. But if we choose to live in that covenant relationship with God, our relationship is indeed less formal than it would have been under the covenant of Moses.

More Context Examples

In everyday life, we might see similar differences where seemingly informal societies are actually quite formal, just in a different way.

I’ve spent 12 years living in Southern California, a place many would call informal in context. But below that laid-back, dress anyway you like attitude are quite a few expectations on how to behave and live. Men don’t have to dress up in a suit and a tie for meetings or church, but a certain dress-code is expected if you want to be part of the in-crowd in one of the Southern Californian subculture. Similarly, I always had some issues to really belong as I don’t surf and have little interest in (American) football, which is about 90% of the small talk for men when they socialize after church. (The remaining 10% being baseball.) There is an expectation that you are able to talk surfing and football and that is kind of formal context behavior too.

When you are in a seeming Informal-Context society and your behavior doesn’t trigger the results you expected, you might have to dig a little bit deeper into the culture and ask yourself which hidden rules you’re missing.

True Low-Context preferences are probably mostly found in places where multiple (sub)cultures mix regularly and in equal standing, like in expat circles or in colleges with a lot of out-of-town, out-of-state or international students.

Published September 22, 2025

Context – Approaching God in the Old and the New Testament