“Eternity in their Hearts”, a book about the tribal people of Papua New Guinea, made the point that there is a bridge to understanding the gospel built into the traditions, proverbs, and beliefs of each people group. Something that can be used to help the people understand the Gospel. It’s a very interesting concept, no doubt.
So today after our house church meeting we were talking about how one of the girls had broken two glasses. One of the new believers quickly reacted by informing me of the deeper implications of these broken glasses when he said, “Then we’ll avert two consequences.” So they taught be today that if someone breaks a glass cup then supposedly that means that a consequence (literally an evil event or problem that could or could not be the result of an action of my own) that was going to happen being sent from God will be averted. Basically that broken cup by being without fault and being broken will take upon itself the one of the consequences of my own (though not all of them).
That is a pretty loose but interesting example of how Christ was broken though he was innocent and took on his body the consequences of our sin. I shared the story from Papua New Guinea with the believers. We were all happy to have found an imbedded illustration in the culture to help people understand what Jesus did for us.