What does the Bible say about RACE? (part 4)

…continued from What does the Bible say about RACE? (part 3).

Fast forward again to the New Testament, 1 Peter 2:9-10 KJV.

“⁹But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; ¹⁰Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.”

The word nation is translated from the Greek ἔθνος (ethnos) (Strong’s G1484), which refers to a multitude (whether of men or of beasts) associated or living together. It also refers to a multitude of individuals of the same nature or genus. The the Greek word γένος (genos) (Strong’s G1085) is translated as kind, kindred, offspring, nation and stock. All people who believe in Christ comprise this “holy nation” and there is no differentiation based on race or variations of color. We are the offspring of God Himself.

“Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.” Acts 17:29 KJV

Flashback
When Moses married the Cushite woman his brother Aaron and sister Miriam were not vexed because she was an Ethiopian (Numbers 12:1; Jeremiah 13:23), they were vexed because she was not an Israelite, and they were jealous of Moses’ authority.

Today there are Jewish people of light, medium and dark complexion living in Israel. Don’t you remember that thousands of Ethiopian Beta Israel were airlifted as an entire tribe of people from Ethiopia to Israel because they were in fact Hebrew people who kept the Jewish Law to the letter, who had been scattered.

I have said all of that to say this: God is not a respecter of persons and surely He is not more favorable to persons of one pigmentation and unfavorable to another! So why are we, God’s children, more sensitive to one particular pigmentation of people? If you believe you are right in doing so then you are saying you are better than God. Are you?

Sure racism exists in the world in many forms, and affects us on many levels, but why don’t we “go around it” as we like to say in Jamaica? Even if we are confronted with it on a daily basis, why do we feed on it’s negativity? I want to ask, why do we feed on road rage; why do we feed on sexual perversion; why do we feed on cheating or lying; why do we feed on hate; why do we feed on gossip; and why do we feed on sin? Is racism any different from any of these? Why indulge in it? Why not choose to indulge in something that is beneficial to every sphere of our existence?

Professor Smedley sums it up well from a secular scientific perspective. She says: “Race ideology was a mechanism justifying what had already been established as unequal social groups; it was from its inception, and is today, about who should have access to privilege, power, status, and wealth, and who should not.”

Let us remember the Biblical spiritual perspective. Satan uses the issue of race to distract people and to keep them preoccupied with this distraction. Let me say, ‘race’ matters ONLY in a secular context, when, and where, racism or ‘reverse racism’ exists. In a Christian spiritual context, I don’t believe ‘race’ is significant. With this in mind, how can we believe and perpetuate the illusion, dare I say the blatant lie, of categorizing people by shades of pigmentation into race?

As human beings we have one blood. The Holy Bible is crystal clear about this in Acts 17:

“²⁴God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

 ²⁵Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;

 ²⁶And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;

 ²⁷That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:

 ²⁸For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”

Blessings!!!

What does the Bible say about RACE? (part 3)

…continued from What does the Bible say about RACE? (part 2).

God said that all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth and He was going to destroy them (Genesis 6:5-7). God did as He said He would but saved Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives, and a boat full of animals (Genesis 7). Fast forward to Noah and his three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth, and to the re-population of the earth through them (Genesis 9:18-19). What is most interesting is that historically, Ham’s descendants include Egyptians, Sumerians, and Ethiopians, who were all of different pigmentations.

The re-population of the earth began with Noah’s family! Here we see one family directed by God and given a monumental responsibility. It is a Biblical fact that every pigmentation of people came from them. Look at how the scripture describes the division of their descendants in Genesis 10:5 KJV.

“⁵By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.”

This scripture tells us that this was how the habitable territories (isles) of the nations/people (Gentiles) were divided in the earth (lands). Man (every one) was divided based on their tongues, according to their families and in their nations. Let us examine these words from the Hebrew text.

Lands
The word lands is translated from the Hebrew אֶרֶץ (‘erets) (Strong’s H776), which refers to land or the whole earth but is also translated as country, ground, world and nations.

Tongue
The word tongue is translated from the Hebrew לָשׁוֹן (lashown) (Strong’s H3956), which refers to the literal tongue and the language uttered but is also translated as babbler and talkers.

Families
The word families is translated from the Hebrew מִשְׁפָּחָה (mishpachah), which refers to clan, tribe or nation but is also translated as families, kindred and kinds. This corresponds with the words gens-tribe (family) and genus-kind (species) as used in Jeremiah 2:4 and Genesis 8:19 respectively. A great way to understand the use of the word species here is, the human race is one specie whereas the lower animals in the ark were all different species. There were twelve tribes in the family of Israel.

Nations
The word nations is translated from the Hebrew גּוֹי (gowy), which refers to a body or corpus of people. It is used of both the descendants of Abraham as well as non-Israelites and is also translated as people, heathen and Gentiles.

We can reasonably conclude from this Biblical evidence that God had no intention of separating people by pigmentation. The Holy Bible tells us again in Genesis 10:

“³²These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.”

They grouped together naturally into bodies of people based on the way they talked and because of their family ties. We can also see from the scientific advances in genetics today, it is common knowledge, that the human race has one origin and cannot be divided by pigmentation because the genetic difference between individual humans is so minuscule – about 0.1%.

Fast forward again to the tower of Babel and to the subsequent division of the people by God Himself. The people had one language (Genesis 11:1) and as such anything they imagined together would be possible for them (Genesis 11:6). God thought that this was going to be a problem and decided to separate them by language (Genesis 11:7-9).

Language
The word language is translated from the Hebrew שָׂפָה (saphah) (Strong’s H8193), which literally refers to the opening of the lips (Exodus 6:12) but is also translated as language, speech (Genesis 11:7) and talk (Job 11:2).

God basically mixed up the language/talk/speech and this caused the people to separate into various groups. There was no separation by pigmentation and I do not believe that God separated families. I believe He maintained specific familial connections. Evidence of this is apparent in the genealogy of Noah’s son Shem and is seen from Genesis 11:10 onward. Focus is placed on this lineage because this was the line in which the Messiah Jesus Christ would be born.

Let us continue this study in: What does the Bible say about RACE? (part 4).

What does the Bible say about RACE? (part 2)

…continued from What does the Bible say about RACE? (part 1).

The word ‘RACE’ does not appear in the Holy Bible! From the Genesis 1 and 2 events to the time of Noah’s flood there is only one division of mankind: those who were of God and those who were not of God. There is no separation by race although many racist opportunists try to say there was.

The Holy Bible speaks about ‘flesh’ in the book of Genesis. Let us examine the scripture and the Hebrew word translated flesh.

“²¹And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;” Genesis 2:21 KJV

This is the first appearance of the word flesh in scripture. What is interesting is the different translations of the word. It is translated from the Hebrew word בָּשָׂר (BASAR) (Strong’s H1320), which refers to the body of both humans and animals, the human body itself, kindred, blood relations and mankind.

NOTE: There is one place in the Bible where the word basar is translated to skin; however, the context is self evident. No one can sanely and rationally use that scripture to say that the bible is referring to ‘color of skin‘ or ‘race‘ for that matter.

“By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin.” Psalm 102:5 KJV

The next place the word occurs is Genesis 2:23-24 KJV.

“²³And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. ²⁴Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

The first man essentially said that the first woman was his body, his kindred, his blood relation and the same ‘mankind’ that he was. He made no reference to color of skin and no reference to separation. Logic tells me that every descendant of the first man and woman must be the same regardless of pigmentation.

So where did this word ‘race’ originate? The Online Etymology Dictionary tells us that the modern meaning differs from the original meaning of the word. It says race refers to:

““people of common descent,” c.1500, from M.Fr. razza “race, breed, lineage,” possibly from It. razza, of unknown origin (cf. Sp., Port. raza). Original senses in English included “wines with characteristic flavor” (1520), “group of people with common occupation” (c.1500), and “generation” (c.1560). Meaning “tribe, nation, or people regarded as of common stock” is from c.1600. Modern meaning of “one of the great divisions of mankind based on physical peculiarities” is from 1774 (though even among anthropologists there never has been an accepted classification of these).“

Professor of Anthropology, Audrey Smedley (see link below) gives us a concise history of the word ‘race’.

“Contemporary scholars agree that “race” was a recent invention and that it was essentially a folk idea, not a product of scientific research and discovery.”

She also says:

“Race and its ideology about human differences arose out of the context of African slavery. But many peoples throughout history have been enslaved without the imposition of racial ideology. When we look at 17th century colonial America before the enactment of laws legitimizing slavery only for Africans and their descendants (after 1660), several facts become clear. 

1). The first people that the English tried to enslave and place on plantations were the Irish with whom they had had hostile relations since the 13th century. 

2) Some Englishmen had proposed laws enslaving the poor in England and in the colonies to force them to work indefinitely.

 3) Most of the slaves on English plantations in Barbados and Jamaica were Irish and Indians.

 4) Many historians point out that African servants and bonded indentured white servants were treated much the same way. They often joined together, as in the case of Bacon’s Rebellion (1676) to oppose the strict and oppressive laws of the colonial government.”

Historically, it is evident that the categorization “race” was a colonialist tool. I believe it goes far deeper than that and has more profound spiritual implications. See the link to Professor Smedley’s article on PBS,  read it, and let’s continue this study in: What does the Bible say about RACE? (part 3).

What does the Bible say about RACE? (part 1)

The inspiration for this post came from my 5 year old daughter. She does piano lessons with our pastor and I heard her practicing on her keyboard. I felt so inspired that I decided to introduce her to Art Tatum, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Duke and Satchmo.

She enjoyed them so much that I also decided to show her some old videos of these jazz artists on youtube. She was even more excited when she saw the videos and asked: “Daddy, why are they grey?” I thought about it for a bit, thought about the fact that we called it “black & white” when we were growing up, and marveled that she had not separated the two. I then explained to her that they didn’t have color televisions in those days. 🙂

I don’t know if the fact that my wife and I never discuss or differentiate between races has any bearing on my daughter’s perspective.

This experience inspired me to revisit my research on what the Holy Bible teaches about RACE. I went to the first mention of ‘man’ in the Holy Bible and examined the Hebrew text. The word man is first mentioned in Genesis 1:26-27 KJV.

“²⁶And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. ²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

Here we find the creation event of male and female man. I know, female-man sounds funny; so, what is man? The word man is translated from the Hebrew word  אָדָם (‘adam) (Strong’s H120). It is translated throughout the Old Testament as man, men, Adam and hypocrite. This word  אָדָם (‘adam) derives from the Hebrew root word אָדַם (‘adam) (Strong’s H119), which means red or ruddy, as is used for wine in Proverbs 23:31, crimson in Isaiah 1:18 and rubies in Lamentations 4:7.

The word ADAM in verses 26 and 27 above literally means MANKIND. In the context of the Hebrew there is no separation into Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Congoid and Australoid as some teach, only that mankind refers to the human race. According to Gesenius’ Lexicon of the Old Testament, “It has neither const. state, nor plural form; but it is very often used collect. to denote men, the human race.” What is interesting is the Holy Bible tells us that God went on to create male and female mankind and did so in the image of God. Mankind is therefore male and female and never a distinction of race. The next mention of man is in Genesis 2.

^“5And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. ⁶But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. ⁷And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

Here we find the account of how the first man was made. Specifically this tells us how his body was made and joined supernaturally with his created spirit. Man became a living soul. The word living is translated from the Hebrew word חַי (chay) (Strong’s H2416). It refers not just to life, living and alive but to vigorous, prosperous and fresh reviving life. The word soul is translated from the Hebrew word נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh) (Strong’s H5315). It consists of the mind, the will and the emotions, as well as the appetites and the passions. It is also translated as life, person, creature and man in other scriptures. Adam, the first man, became a vigorously alive person when his created spirit was infused into his made body!

Let us continue this study in: What does the Bible say about RACE? (part 2).