I received a text from a friend Lindsey with Nourish Move Love asking if I knew what the Bible said about racism and equality. She wanted specific passages and bible verses. She recognized that many amidst the George Floyd murder are offering books and articles to read but little have gone to the Source. The true Source of knowledge. Our foundation.
My first response was, nah… no thank you, hot topic, staying away. I’m super under-qualified for this and if I’m honest with myself, I’m addressing subconscious biases. But then I thought more. While I haven’t personally experienced racism as a white person of privilege, as a follower of Christ I am called to carry the truth of the Gospel and live like Jesus. So while I feel super inadequate to tackle the subject of racism today, I know that as believers, we are called to speak against racism and to stand for justice and reconciliation. This is why you turn to God’s Word, to find out what our Heavenly Father and our Savior say so we can do our best to model that.
And may I point out, Jesus himself wasn’t even white! And if he were a racist, the message of the Gospel would have stayed in Jerusalem and I would be living in darkness like many of you still would be.
Racism has always existed, yes even in the Bible. But we don’t see it manifested in Black versus White. We see it as Jews versus Gentile. Jews versus all non Jews. And there are some amazing passages where God calls his people out of their comfort bubble and across race and cultural lines. We’ll look at four passages quickly. Very quickly in fact or this will become a novel and not a blog post. But you can dive deeper in and I urge you to. We also add video links to help you do that. Then we’ll provide you with 10 bible verses that show the Gospel message is for all. And while we could add 1,000 more on love, we’ve tried to provide verses that share specifically and point to the importance of salvation for all.
If you can’t dive into it all at once, you can follow this reading plan as we’ve separated out below.
PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN/WOMAN AT THE WELL
If you are familiar with the Bible, you know there is a major rift or stronger yet, hatred, between the Jews and the Samaritans. They were segregated to the extreme. They wanted nothing to do with each other. Jews wouldn’t even walk through or near their city. You can read all about why it started here. But we know that there was major racial tension which dated all the way back to the exile in the Old Testament.
But Jesus came and broke through that “barrier” and He did so intentionally.
There are many, but two passages come to mind when Jesus speaks of and to the Samaritans. First is the parable of The Good Samaritan.
The passage starts out by an expert in the law asking Jesus how to inherit eternal life, and Jesus says love thy neighbor. The “expert” then asks who is my neighbor” and Jesus’ response with this parable.
Read Luke 10:25-37
To put it into “today’s terms.” A white woman from the suburbs is seriously hurt . Her church people stroll by without even noticing her. The worship leader who is adored pretends to not even see her and looks off in the distance. And then her faithful pastor glances but walks on the other side paying no attention. And there she lies in pain and agony.
But then a black man from the other side of the tracks comes and took compassion on her. He dressed her wounds, picked her up, and carried her to the local store. He bought food for her and gave her something to drink and said wait here until I can find help for you.
Jesus says, that black man is your neighbor.
Then Jesus adds, be like him. Not like the one who appears holy but the one who showed mercy.
See him as a neighbor.
And don’t just see him as a neighbor. Do better and be like him; He who gave you mercy and love. The one who might look different but was inside more like Jesus than all those others who walked by.
The second passage where we see Jesus break through the barrier of Jews vs Samaritans is one of my favorite passages of all time. The woman at the well in John 4. It is said that this Samaritan woman was the first person Jesus told that He was the Messiah. This is instrumental to show that Jesus loves all race and is not a racist.
Pastor Tony Evans has a wonderful sermon on this very topic. I urge you to watch here. There are so many great points, quotes, insights and truth. Take 45 minutes and listen. But there is one point in his sermon that taught me a lot; How Jesus spoke approached the conversation. He went to the well for a divine appointment with her. But what does he first ask? To have a drink of water. His Jewish lips on her Samaritan cup. They don’t talk to each other. Associate. Jews call them dogs. Yet he asks to drink from her cup.
It’s at his 18 minute mark. Here are his words. “
He hadn’t given her any bible yet, he hadn’t preached to her yet, hasn’t witnessed to her, she doesn’t even know who he is yet. All she knows is that he’s a nice man. That’s all she knows. A lot of folks want to tell people about Jesus without drinking out of the cup. I want to get your soul to heaven, I just don’t want to deal with you on earth. I’ll witness to you, but I won’t eat with you. I’ll witness to you, but I won’t drink with you. Jesus hasn’t even talked about who he is yet, but he demonstrated by his touch. His sociology gave his theology validity to what was to come.”
GREAT COMMISSION
God made a promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 That promises stated :
“I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.[a]
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.
Pay special attention to the end of verse 3; “all peoples of the earth.” But the Jewish people forgot that part of the promise. But like Jesus does, He was very clear that His message and gift of salvation was not just for the Jews. In fact the last words to His disciples that we call The Great Commission referenced that promise
Read Matthew 28:18-19
“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
All nations… not just Judea. Don’t stay in Jerusalem. All the nations.
Then we see in Acts 1 right before Jesus was taken up to Heaven:
Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
To Samaria – the group of people who have segregated, oh yeah and not just to them but to the ends of the earth. ALL people from everywhere.
PHILIP AND THE ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH
Quick context: Stephen was just stoned to death in Jerusalem and the Church was persecuted and scattered. Then we are introduced to Philip,
Acts 8:4 “Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said.
Then we see how God used Philip to break through race barriers and bring the Gospel message to an Ethiopian Eunuch.
READ ACTS 8:26-39
God had a divine appointment planned for Philip and man-oh-man did this divine appointment change the course of history and destroy walls of race and cultural differences. Here Philip, a disciple of Jesus, walks alongside the Ethiopian Eunuch, hops in his chariot, engages in teaching, conversation, Q& As and then a baptism. The writer Luke used this passage to indicate that salvation extends to Ethiopians and Blacks.(Byron) God shows no partiality. His message is for all.
PETER AND CORNELIUS
I feel like a little background is needed to show the prejudice and separation between these two groups. Jews vs Gentiles. And for those who might not know what a Gentile was, it’s any non-Jew.
According to William Barclay:
it was common for a Jewish man to begin the day with a prayer thanking God that he was not a slave, a Gentile, or a woman. A basic part of the Jewish religion in the days of the New Testament was an oath that promised that one would never help a Gentile under any circumstances, such as giving directions if they were asked. But it went even as far as refusing to help a Gentile woman at the time of her greatest need – when she was giving birth – because the result would only be to bring another Gentile into the world.
If a Jew married a Gentile, the Jewish community would have a funeral for the Jew and consider them dead. It was thought that to even enter the house of a Gentile made a Jew unclean before God. Ancient Jewish writings tell us of a Gentile woman who came to a rabbi. She confessed that she was a sinner and asked to be admitted to the Jewish faith. “Rabbi,” she said, “bring me near.” The Rabbi refused and simply shut the door in her face.
But the Gentiles could give as bad as they got from the Jews. Gentiles despised Jews as weird traditionalists, and believed that they were evil plotters who worshipped pigs. After all, they thought, Jews refused to eat pork, so they must worship pigs!
Barclay continues to write:
All of this changed with the spread of the gospel. Christianity was the first religion to disregard racial, cultural and national limitations.
Which brings us to Peter, a Jew and disciple of Jesus, and Cornelius, a Roman Officer.
Read Acts 10
This passage is extremely instrumental in God’s call for the Gospel to cross cultural and racial barriers, so let’s walk through it together.
Cornelius is God-fearing and is praying to God. He receives a vision. Not a dream nor did it actually happen, but a vision. A vision so intense that he later describes it as a man standing next to him. This vision tells him to go find a man named Peter in Joppa.
Peter at this same time is praying on his roof and falls into a trance. He receives a vision of a large sheet coming down from the heavens by the four corners of the earth filled with all kinds of animals, reptiles and birds. A voice said to Peter, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” Peter responds, “No! I have not eaten anything impure.” For it was Jewish custom and tradition to stay away from certain foods. But a voice calls out to him, “What God has made clean do not call impure.” And just in case Peter didn’t get the message from God, he told him three more times.
At that time, the men from Cornelius came to his door asking for Peter. A Gentile, worse yet, an officer in the Roman army, wanted to hear the Gospel message from Peter. Peter never did anything like this before. Yet Peter knew God was trying to tell him something that he did not know yet. God was expanding Peter’s heart and mind.
Peter invited them in and lodged them. You know the angels were still there hovering over that house, protecting them all for snoopy neighbors as it was custom for a Jew to leave the Gentiles to sleep on the streets or show them an Inn down the road. But Peter invites them in and lodges them. Which means to “entertain as guests.”
The next morning they head off to Cornelius’s house. Peter invites a few other Jews with. I imagine he realized something crazy and out of the ordinary was about to happen and he needed other Jews to verify the events that would follow.
I also wonder at the time of his leaving, if Peter was reminded of where his feet were standing. In the city of Joppa. In the Old Testament in Joppa, Jonah disobeyed in this city and jumped shipped to be swallowed by a whale when God called him to bring his message to the Gentiles. Here we see Peter listening to God, willing to re-examine his traditions and prejudices in light of God’s word. (Guzik)
Then we get to the meat of this passage. Verse 27. Peter went in. He entered the house of a Gentile. Something Jewish customs and traditions strictly prohibited. By entering a Gentiles home, Peter showed a change of heart and mind and learned what the vision of the sheet had meant. He even shares with the large group that Cornelius has gathered the reason behind God’s orchestration and meaning behind the vision. He states, “You know it is forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner, BUT God has shown me that I must not call any person impure or unclean.” Then he asks Cornelius why he sent for Peter and Cornelius explains his vision.
Then the group waits for Peter. His message. The Gospel.
The foundation for Peter, “the rock upon whom the church will be built” understands now that the Gospel should now be spread and go forth across culture and racial barriers and unto the Gentiles.
Acts 10:34-35 states, “Now I truly understand that God doesn’t show favoritism, but in every nation the person who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
This statement goes completely against the prevailing Jewish thought at the time, “that God did show partiality to the Jew and against the gentile.” And because Peter understood now that God shows no partiality, he preached the Gospel message and Cornelius and his family were saved.
Amen.
Exploring 10 bible verses that address racism
Now What?
So where do we go from here? We learn from these bible passages. They aren’t just lessons. They aren’t just stories. They are history. They are His Story. You see how they responded and do likewise. When it says God shows no partiality, it means he shows no partiality. And if we are to be like Christ as it says so many times in the Bible, it means we are to be like him, showing no partiality.
Like the Good Samaritan, we help those in need no matter their background. Like the woman from the well, we sit down and drink from her cup as Jesus did. We should be the Philips of the world sharing the Gospel with those who are eager to listen and learn no matter their skin color. We are to head God’s command and be a part of the Great Commission and be like Peter ready for a change of heart and mind. Ready to follow God’s word rather than customs and traditions.
The Bible is very clear on its stance against ANY type of segregation. Find that same stance. And realize it might be a battle to stand firm in this message of equality across the board but it is a fight worth fighting because it is a fight against evil. And evil will fall. Jesus will reign. Where will you be standing?
“There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.” - Ephesians 4:4-6
and if you need more scripture than the passages we have explored. Dive into these 10 bible verses.
Romans 2:11 - For God shows no partiality.
Galatians 3:28 - There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
John 7:24 - Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
Acts 10:34-35 - So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
Colossians 3:11 - Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Matthew 28:19 - Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Acts 1:8 - But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Revelations 7:9 - After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.
James 2:9 - But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
Romans 10:12 - For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.