This is the last in a series of five blog articles on the question: whether the Bible is sexist and racist? The subject was introduced in Part 1. We tackled sexism by looking at the overarching theme of the Bible on men and women in Part 2 and by looking at how Jesus treated women in Part 4. We tackled racism in Part 3 by looking at the overarching theme of the Bible on diversity. Finally, we view racism and diversity through the life of Jesus and His followers in this part 5.
Jesus doesn’t tackle the issue of racism or diversity directly, but He lived in a complicated time. He was Jewish, living in a tight-knit Jewish community, which was governed and ruled by foreigners, the Romans. The Jews had a history of living alongside foreigners and were at various times throughout that history governed by them against their will.
Many of the foreigners were very closely related, like the Samaritans, who were of Jewish descent, and the Canaanites before them. The northern kingdom (Israel) and southern kingdom (Judah) split and became foreigners to each other.
The Jews in Jesus’s day believed there were only two types of people: Jews and everyone else (Gentiles). They seemed to have forgotten that the very first words God spoke to Abraham, when He chose to bless Abraham and his progeny, was that God would make a blessing to all the nations. (Genesis 12:1-3) God didn’t choose them simply to bless them, but to bless all nations through them.
Jesus was that blessing. Jesus is traced back to Abraham. He is from the line of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is the root of Jesse’s seed, father of David. Jesus is the Promised One.
Jesus also claimed to be God in the flesh, so, how Jesus viewed others is the key to understanding what the Bible says about racism and diversity.
Continue reading “Is the Bible Sexist and Racist? Part 5 – Racism”
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