I’m always so thankful to hear stories from people as they discover ways that honor and shame impact their ministry. I recently received the following message from one reader who lives in Indonesia.
I had a fun “wow” moment this week that I wanted to share with you. I am an American recently moved to SE Asia. Today my language tutor (a believer) told me that there are two words in his language that mean “to forgive.”
One of them has the connotation of forgiving with all the consequences removed while the other does not. The second is used for example with your children, “I forgive you but you are still going to experiences the consequences for your choice.”
The first is used to describe God’s forgiveness. I mentioned that was really interesting to me because in a Western Christian culture, we rarely describe God’s forgiveness as removing all consequences unless we are talking about salvation specifically. For example, you fornicated, God forgave you, but you still have an STD as a consequence of your disobedience. He replied, “Well, you have to understand that when we say God forgives us and removes all consequences, it means he takes away all of our shame.”
I was quite floored by how even in the language structure itself there is an understanding that the consequences of sin is shame. Very foreign to me coming from a guilt/innocence angle of the Gospel, but I am learning….
The verbs are memaaf – to forgive, and mengampuni – to forgive with no lingering consequences if you want to look into them further.
I know others have had similar experiences. If you do, send them my way. I would love to hear them.
Photo Credit: CC 2.0/en.wikipedia.org
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