In Wednesday’s paper, I read the following words:
There is strong evidence that identifying differences recently for improving race relations can further exacerbate the same differences.
- For example.
- Minneapolis and St.
- Paul have made costly diversity education a priority for decades.
- Despite this.
- The Minneapolis neighborhood recently announced that “integrated racism” continues to permeate its schools.
- While a 1994 People study for American Way found that “racial relations and tolerance.
- “St.
- Paul’s high schools are “collapsing.
- ” (Katherine Kersten.
- ” Diversity Training?Efforts are based on fake premises’.
- StarTribune.
- 10 January 1996.
- P.
- A13).
The situation isn’t good in churches either. I have heard humiliating and harmful comments in our own church about ethnic minorities. And a black pastor recently told me that one of his black members provoked a new white chief and said, “I have to. get bored with white people all week, I don’t want to have to do this in church on Sundays.
So it’s time for the church to put new energy into this problem and work on it. For this, I wish to establish a biblical basis in the form of eight thesis.
Acts 17:26
[God] brought the entire human race [bread ethnos – every ethnic group] to life on the entire surface of the earth, having set the previously established times and limits of his room.
Notice two things in this text.
First, notice that God is the CREATOR of ethnic groups: “God has made an entire human race”. Ethnic groups are not the result of random genetic changes. They came with God’s purpose and purpose. The text clearly states: “GOD created each ethnic group”.
Second, notice that God created all ethnic groups from a human ancestor. Paul says, “He created EVERY ethnic group IN ONE. ” This has a special impact when you consider why you choose to say this specifically to these Athenians at the airfield, the Athenians liked to boast of being Aboriginal, that is, they were born in their own land and were not immigrants from another place or ethnicity. (See Lenski and Bruce, ad. Loc. ) Paulo chooses to face this ethnic pride immediately. Did God create all ethnic groups?And he created them from a common ancestor. Thus, Athenians, they are made of the same cloth as barbarians and despised scythes.
Genesis 1. 27
Then God created man in his image, in the image of God created him; men and women created them.
When you put this teaching in Genesis 1 (which God created the first man in his image) with teaching in Acts 17:26 (which God created all ethnic groups from that first ancestor), what emerges is that all members of all ethnic groups are created in the image of God.
Regardless of skin color, facial features, hair texture or other genetic traits; Every human being in each ethnic group has an immortal soul in the image of God: a spirit with unique reasoning powers similar to God’s, a heart capable of moral judgments and spiritual affections, and a potential relationship with God that completely separates each person. of the animals god has created. Every human being, regardless of his color, form, age, sex, intelligence, health or social class, is created in the image of God.
In other words, finding your main identity being black or white, or any other ethnic trait, is like being proud to wear a candle under clear skies at noon. Candles have their place. But not to brighten the day. Color and ethnicity have their place, therefore, but not as the main glory and wonder of our identity as human beings. The main glory of who we are is what unites us in our divine humanity, not what distinguishes us. us in our own ethnicity.
Is this the most fundamental reason why?Diversity training: They usually shoot the foot in an attempt to foster mutual respect among ethnic groups. Do you pay more attention to what is comparatively less, and virtually no attention to what is infinite and gloriously larger?as individuals created in the image of God.
If our sons and daughters have a hundred eggs, will we teach them how to lay ninety-nine eggs in the called basket?A person made in the image of God? And an egg in the basket called “ethnic distinction. “
Over the centuries, some people have tried to prove that the black race is destined to be submissive because of Noah’s words about his son Cam, who was the father of African peoples. Let us examine the text of Scripture itself, and then I will give you three reasons why it does not determine how the peoples of Africa should be perceived and treated. Remember that Noah had three children: Sem, Cam, and Jafet.
Genesis 9: 21-25
Drinking wine, [Noah] got drunk and undressed in his tent; Ham, the father of Canaan, seeing his father’s nakedness, presented him to his two brothers outside, then Shem and Japheth took a coat, put it on their shoulders and, walking on their backs, their faces turned away, covered the unused father’s nudity. Waking Noah from his wine, he learned what his youngest son had done to him. Then he said: “Cursed or [is it?] Canaan; be a servant to your brothers’ servants?
Now notice three things:
Noah’s curse falls on Canaan
First, Noah seizes this opportunity of his son Cam’s sin and uses it to make a prediction about the prosperity of Cam’s youngest son, Canaan. Basically, the prediction is that the Canaanites would eventually submit to the descendants of Sem and Japheth.
Now, there are a lot of questions to ask here. But I only have time to highlight some that are relevant to our main point. Cam had four children according to Genesis 10. 6. ” The sons of [were] Cam: Cuxe, Mizraim, Pute and Canaan. “In general, Cuxe is probably the ancestor of the Ethiopian people; Mizraim is the ancestor of the Egyptians; and Pute is the ancestor of the peoples of North Africa, the Libyans. But Canaan is the only one of four children who is not an ancestor of African peoples. Genesis 10. 15?18 quotes the descendants of Canaan 😕 Canaan begat Sidon, his firstborn, and Het, and the Jebuseos, Amorites, Gergases, Heveos, Arquites, Seneanos, Arvadeans, Zematus, and Hamateus; all these peoples were from Canaan and its surroundings, not from Africa; and Noah’s prediction came true when the Canaanite nations were expelled by the Israelites because of their wickedness (Deuteronomy 9. 4-5). The curse, therefore, is not about the African people, but about the Canaanites.
Noah’s curse doesn’t treat people
Second, Noah’s foretold nation does not dictate how God’s people should treat the Canaanites individually. For example, five chapters later, in Genesis 14:18, Abraham, a descendant of Seven, meets a native Canaanite named Melchizedek, who was a righteous man. man and a “priest of the Most High God,” and who blessed Abraham. Abraham gave him the tithing of his loot. Therefore, even the fact that God commands judgment over wicked nations does not tell us how we should treat people in the same way nations.
God plans redemption for all nations
Third, in Genesis 12, God sets in motion a great plan of abandonment for all nations, to save them from this and any other curses of sin and judgment. He calls Abram to all nations and enters into alliance with him and promises: I will bless those who will bless you and curse those who curse you; Will all the families of the earth be blessed in you?Do all the families on earth include Canaanite families.
So what we see is that with Abraham, God puts into action a plan of redemption that overcomes any curse upon anyone who receives Abraham’s blessing, that is, the forgiveness and acceptance of God that comes through Jesus Christ, the posterity of Abraham (Galatians 3:13-14), which leads us to the fifth thesis:
Matthew 28. 18? 20
All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth; therefore, go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; teaching you to keep everything I commanded you, and behold, I am with you every day until the end of the century.
Make disciples of all nations?It is the same expression of Acts 17:26, where it is said that God of one created the whole human race – each ethnic group. Just as all ethnic groups were created in God’s image, God’s goal is to redeem the people of each ethnic group. Just because we were created in God’s image does not mean that we are saved. We are all distorted by sin. The ways in which we were created to reflect God’s glory and courage have been greatly ruined. Then God sent His Son, Jesus, into the world to die for us so that we could believe in Him and be forgiven, clean and restored, so that we might become trophies of His grace.
6. All believers in Jesus Christ, of every ethnicity, are united not only in a simple humanity in the image of God, but even more so, as brothers and sisters in Christ and as members of the same body.
Romans 12: 4: 5
Just as in a body we have several members, but not all members have the same role, we, although there are many of us, are a body in Christ and members of one another.
Christ’s body has a black hand, a white doll, a yellow arm, and a red shoulder. And the white doll can’t say to the black hand, “Don’t I need you?”(1 Corinthians 12:21). And the yellow arm can’t say to the red shoulder, “Because I’m not a shoulder, I’m not part of the body?”(1 Corinthians 12,15).
Another figure, besides a body, is a family
1 John 3. 1:
See what great love the Father has given us, to the point of being called children of God; and, in fact, we are children of God.
In other words, if our identity as human individuals created in God’s image is greater than all ethnic differences (see paragraph 3), then our identity as God’s reborn children is even greater than all ethnic differences. I would put it this way: the glory of our family’s likeness in Christ is much greater than our ethnic differences, as much as the ocean is greater than a sewing die.
Have we ever seen a great truth that we are more united by our humanity than separated by our ethnicity? But it is an even greater truth, that in Christ we have unity in unity. At the height of a common human personality in the image of God, we have a common personality redeemed in the image of Christ, and how much less should we be divided by our ethnic differences? [There is no] Greek or Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but is Christ all in all? (Colossians 3:11).
1 Corinthians 7:39
The wife is connected while the husband lives; However, if the husband dies, she is free to marry whoever she wants, but only in the Lord.
“Only in the Lord”. The Bible clearly commands us not to marry disbelievers; If we are already married to a disbeliever, we must remain married (1 Corinthians 7:12-13; 1 Peter 3:1-6), but if we are free to marry, we must marry only those who share our fidelity to Jesus.
This was the main point of the elder’s warnings about the marriage of those who belonged to pagan nations, for example, Deuteronomy 7. 3?4:
Nor will you marry the children of these nations; You will not give your daughters to your children, nor will you take away your daughters from your children; for they would cause your children to reject me, that they may serve other gods; and the wrath of the Lord would light up against you.
The question is not a mixture of colors, nor a mixture of customs, nor the identity of the clan, the question is: will there be a common fidelity to the true God in this marriage, or will there be divided affections?The prohibition in The Word of God is not against interracial marriage, but against marriage between a believer and a non-believer. This is exactly what we would expect if the great basis of our identity were not our ethnic differences, but our common humanity in the image of God and our new humanity in the image of Christ.
Let us remove from our mind any thoughts of contempt and heartbreak
Let us expel from our mouth any words or tone of contempt or disdain.
Let us leave our comfort zone to show our personal and loving unity with Christians of all ethnicities.
Let us be the salt and light of our hostile and terrifying society with courageous acts of kindness and interracial respect.
In short, let us look to Christ and be forgiven, pure, healed, and able to love.