Culture is a significant, mostly unconscious influence in the way we see and perceive things. From the time we are born, we absorb habits of thought and behavior that have been put in us by the culture we are raised in. Without personal consideration and judgment, we accept them as correct. Gradually as we grow up, we realize that not everyone does things the way we have learned to do them. We start to see that whole groups of people of other races and places share ways of seeing and believing that are different from our own. In the world system set up by Satan, culture plays an important role in how he controls people. This fact is addressed in Romans 12:2: “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” A person, when first saved, has a mind full of the world’s culture, with all its wrong views of God and His will. Little by little, through the light of God’s Word and learning God’s mind, the thoughts of the believer are “transformed” so that he may think and act according to the good, acceptable and perfect will of God. And, as we consider in this issue, he learns to see God’s mind on how to properly view the cultural ways of believers and unbelievers that are different from the culture of his upbringing.