What does the Bible have to say about interracial marriage?
Hi, welcome to today's little lesson, and this is a very special Florida beach at sunrise
edition of Little Lessons.
I've very blessed to be on a part of the Gulf Coast beach that's reserved exclusively for
the sea turtles, so they can lay their eggs in peace and quiet without disturbance, so
there's no development and no high-rise condominiums here, no houses, got a two mile stretch of
the beach all to myself this morning.
It's a delight to be here with you.
So we're gonna talk about interracial marriage.
What does the Bible have to say about that?
And I actually have a book or two in my Christian library at home that present arguments claiming
that God is opposed to interracial marriage.
And those, the scriptural basis for their arguments are found in the Old Testament,
God's warnings to Israel against intermarrying with the seven nations in Canaan's land, which
the Israelites were called to go in and dispossess them, of course.
You probably know the story.
I don't think those scriptures are really good arguments against interracial marriage.
I think they're good arguments against inter-kingdom marriage.
That is, you know, the people of God shouldn't be marrying the people of Satan, as Paul wrote
to the Corinthians, you know, "What fellowship does light have with darkness?"
And so for a believer to marry an unbeliever, it's trying to mix light with darkness, and
that's probably not gonna work, alright?
I've always told those professing Christians who are contemplating marrying an unbeliever,
"You better be careful 'cause you're gonna have big, big, big, big trouble with your
new father in law, the devil."
Alright?
And so we have to of course question the authenticity of the faith of any Christian who would even
consider marrying an unbeliever.
Because you know, you have really virtually nothing that's important that's in common.
And what would be attractive about an unbeliever, you know, to a believer, other than the fact
that they're creating in God's image and potentially can become a believer, you know, I don't know
what else there is.
So those arguments that have been made in the past by professing Christians against
interracial marriage based on a few scriptures in the Old Testament, you know, cautioning
the Israelites from marrying the Canaanites, I don't think there's any application there
whatsoever.
And in fact, I think there's a lot of indication that, you know, to even say that interracial
marriage is somehow wrong or sinful in God's eyes, there's a lot of scripture that would
stand against that very close-minded, narrow-minded viewpoint.
Because, you know, we're all created in God's image and all believers in Christ are equal
in Christ.
They have equal standing before the father, through the death and the sacrifice and the
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In Christ there is neither male nor female nor slave nor freeman nor Scythian nor Greek,
you know, Paul writes.
And so to try to make some kind of a differentiation based on scripture of races, and then going
beyond that and saying it's wrong for races to mix in marriage even though both parties
are believers, oh my goodness, you know, that's kind of an old, outdated idea that you know,
it's a little, we ought to be ashamed that that even exists anywhere within the realm
of Christendom.
Certainly doesn't exist in my mind, and I don't think it exists in anyone's minds who's
read, for example, in Revelation chapter five that one day before the throne of Jesus, the
lamb of God, there's gonna be worshipers from every tongue and tribe and nation and ethnic
group.
All the peoples of the world whom Jesus told us to go and make disciples of all the nations
of the world.
And I do think that it's somewhat of an indictment against the church and against churches in
particular that are comprised of one single race of people.
You know, they say that Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in the week, at least
in the United States of America.
And there is some degree of truth about that.
Above all people, we taught to be the most accommodating to one another, regardless of
the color of our skin or our ethnicity or our cultural heritage.
So in no way am I ever gonna say that God's opposed to interracial marriage.
Now, there are some considerations, if you're considering marrying someone of a different
culture.
You know, that can present special challenges, as you try to live harmoniously and you both
come from very different backgrounds.
But that has really nothing to do with race.
Okay?
And I'm a longtime subscriber to National Geographic magazine, and I'm certainly not
endorsing everything that National Geographic might stand for, but a few months ago they
had a special issue that was devoted just to the issue of race.
And they had a beautiful one of those multi-page foldouts where you had the two pages, you
know, but each one of those two pages would fold out and then you've got really a four
page spread.
And across that four page spread they had the faces and the upper body that the shoulders
of about, I'm gonna guess 50 to 70 people.
And all different skin tones, from the very darkest black of some, I think they were Sudanese
people, to the whitest, fairest Scandinavian skin, you know.
And then everything in between.
Male and female, young and old, and so forth, and it was a beautiful mosaic.
A beautiful college of the peoples different skin tones and pigments.
And every one of them was marked with a number.
Actually, what's called a Pantone identification number.
And if you're a graphic artist of course you know what the Pantone colors are in the graphics
art field.
They have come up with all these different shades of every color and every hue and so
forth, and you can buy the Pantone booklet that's kind of like a deck of cards that just
opens up.
And you can ruffle through thousands of different shades of different colors.
And they all have a corresponding number.
And in the brown and the tan and the white section, you know, there's a gazillion of
them.
So as they put all these photos in this issue of National Geographic on the spread, they
had the identifying Pantone color and that was the identifying background behind the
person so that they blended in rather nicely, their skin tone, with their background.
Their skin was the exact same Pantone color, you know, 6842F, as the background.
And so you got to see all these different shades of skin that exist and it just made
it so clear that the whole idea of black and white, oh my goodness, you know, an incredible
way oversimplification of the thousands of different shades of skin color that exist,
and the article brought out the fact that, you know, if you're in the Homo sapiens species,
99.9% of your DNA is the same with everybody else.
And your skin color just makes up this tiny fraction of a variation in what you are as
a person.
So it's time to just, you know, put the race stuff aside.
And particularly for Christians, oh my goodness, you know, come on.
Come on.
Alright?
Alright, well, I'm out of time, thanks for joining me on this special edition of Little
Lessons.
It's been a delight to be with you.