Reconciliation between ethnic groups is an inescapable theme of the Bible.
God’s promise to Abraham is that he would be the father of many gowy (nations/people), and that every people group on earth might be blessed through him. Generations pass from Isaac to Jacob to Moses, with ages beyond that following as Israel is ransomed out of Egypt and re-rescued by judges, governed under corrupt kings, and humbled through eras of foreign rule.
Granted, we do see the future family of God foreshadowed through Rahab, Ruth, and Jonah… yet the Lord’s presence is largely focused within a single Jewish nation. Another four centuries pass between what is a single page dividing our Old and New Testaments, and God is silent as the kingdom crumbles again and again. Has Yahweh finally given up on these stiff-necked sons of Adam?
Then Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Church all happen… and what follows is an explosion unraveling two millennia of segregation. Once, we watched whole cities put the sword as the just punishment for their sins, out of God’s jealous protection over Israel. Now we witness the true King who would rather die for His enemies than kill them, so they might be forgiven for their sins and adopted into Abraham’s lineage through a like-minded faith. We’re one unified body, in which ethnic identity (along with gender, socioeconomic status, age, and any other distinction whether of biology or culture) does not affect our worth and belonging.
This is the Good News, and despite how sappy or controversial I will sound for writing this, it does in fact cause significant change to our planet. That said, my question is “how does this affect our own world today?”.
