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 nine on the cultural dimension of Planning.
Are you more Time-oriented or People-oriented in relation to planning and scheduling your life?
The main focus in the planning dimension is “How do you plan, and what is at the center of your priorities when it comes to planning?” It has two polarities: Time Orientation and People Orientation.
If you have a strong Time Orientation, you put time at the center of your scheduling. You might view time as “valuable”, “precious”, or “money”. As a result, you try to “leverage time”, “redeem time”, “make the most of your time”, and “get the best value for your time”. You fill up your schedule with tasks and meetings with minimal breathing space, and you might work to make sure that meetings finish within the designated amount of time that is scheduled. Ad-hoc events might be more difficult to manage.
If you are strongly People-oriented, you put people at the center of your scheduling. You are more flexible when it comes to time, and you might be more used to ad-hoc meetings and last-minute appointments. You might make last minute cancellations and shift things around to fit the people you have in front of you even if there were previously scheduled events and meetings.
The time of Jesus’ return
One of the big unanswered questions in Christianity is, “When will Jesus return?” When He ascended into heaven, two men in white appeared out of nowhere, telling the disciples that Jesus would return in the same way He ascended into heaven. (Acts 1:11) But when???
The Bible has a lot of references to these last days and even Jesus Himself talked a lot about it in the gospels. In the first century church, the expectation was that Jesus would come back in their lifetime, yet here we are, 2000 years later, and He still hasn’t come back. Many books have been written and studies done to explain when Jesus will come back and what all the signs given in the Bible would look like in real life.
In this musing we’re not making a prediction when Jesus will return. He will come soon! We will look at this event through the lens of the cultural dimension of Planning. Which side of the polarity is more prevalent? In his timing of Christ’s return, is God Time-Oriented or People-Oriented?
I think He is a bit of both in this situation. Of course, calling God time-oriented when He is outside of time is an interesting statement in itself. To God, “A thousand years is like a day and a day is like a thousand years.” (Psalm 90:4, II Peter 3:8)
God the Father has kept the timing of Jesus’ return to Himself (Matthew 24:36). The Bible doesn’t tell us when Jesus will return. Even Jesus doesn’t know his return date. What we can learn from studying the Bible is that there are certain events that need to happen before Jesus comes back. In a sense, the timing of Jesus return is a variant of Time-oriented, namely Event-oriented. Calendar time doesn’t rule the decision but events that need to pass. And in a sense, Relationship-orientation rules the timing too, but we’ll come back to that later…
When God created the heavens and earth, He had mankind in mind as the crown of his creation. He also knew the risk of mankind choosing against Him as satan had already rebelled when God created Adam & Eve. As He created mankind, He also created his plan of salvation with a progression of covenants between man and God, culminating in the sacrifice and victory of Jesus. If man fell, the full depravity of the fallen mankind needed to be revealed so man would willingly and knowingly embrace God’s goodness and trust in Him and his rescue plan. In the timing of this, God gave mankind a lot of freedom in how many generations it would take to figure this out.
In Matthew 24, where Jesus talks about his return, He lists a whole series of events that need to happen before He’ll return, but their timing is not static. We do have an influence on their timing. Our attitude towards God and his covenant has an impact on the timing of Christ’s return. Think about the story of Jonah, where God determined to postpone the judgment on the Assyrians because the king repented.
The relational part in the timing of Jesus’ return is in God’s patience with people who have not heard the good news of Jesus and God’s rescue plan; his patience with people who are unwilling to listen – He delays Jesus’ return and the judgement that comes with it for their sake. He waits until all tribes and nations on earth have heard the good news about Jesus (Matthew 24:14). Then, there is God’s waiting until the amount of people suffering for his name (Revelation 6:9-11) has been completed. Just as Jesus laid down his divine glory, came to earth, and suffered to set us free from sin and after his victory was exalted above all other beings, God invites his children to join into this suffering and then join in the glory that comes after it.
In conclusion, we don’t know when Jesus will return, but we’re supposed to expect Him to return any day. In the timing of Jesus’ return, God appears to be both Time-oriented (Event-oriented) and People-oriented.
Published March 7, 2025
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