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The
Detroit Metro area is truly a “melting pot” of the world’s ethnic groups.
“Ethnic” is de-fined as “sizable groups of people sharing a common and
distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic, or cultural
heritage.” Everywhere you go throughout our area you see men and women of
various races and nationalities. Restaurants serving the food of cultures
around the world seem to be on every corner. It is a wonderful thing to
see the many diverse ethnic groups living and working together in peace in
one community. But, can those who live and work together, worship
together? Sadly, in many cases not. Many churches are unnecessarily made
up of one ethnic group (that is, the reason they are meeting separately
from others is not a language barrier). Is this the way that Jesus
wants it to be?
When Jesus
ran the money changers out of the temple, He said, “Is it not written, ‘My
house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?’ But you have
made it a robbers’ den.” (Mk 11:17) Jesus was quoting from Isaiah 56:7,
one of many O.T. passages promising that worshipping God in the days of
the Messiah would not be limited to the Jewish nation. All peoples would
be able to participate together. In another passage Isaiah predicted that
it would be too small of a job for God’s Servant, the Messiah, to give
help to Israel. God would also make Him a light to the nations so that
His salvation might reach to the end of the earth. (Isa 49:6)
These prophecies were in
keeping with a promise that God made to Abraham hundreds of years before
when He told him, “In you all
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the families of the earth
shall be blessed.” (Gen 12:3) God chose Abraham to begin a distinct race
of people (the Jews). He set apart the nation of Israel for a time to use
them to accomplish His purpose.
A
teacher of mine gave me this illustration. When he was a child in rural
KY in the 1920’s, his teacher brought a special treat to the class each
Friday, a basket of apples. One student was cho-sen to carry the basket
of apples and to pass them out to the class. For a moment, the privileged
boy or girl who was selected had all the apples, but only for the purpose
of giving them to the class so that all could enjoy. God chose the nation
of Israel to be His special people. For a “moment” they were privileged,
as God used them to bring Jesus into the world to die so that all men
might enjoy the remission of their sins.
Once Jesus
came through the Jews, God no longer had a special physical nation, but a
privileged spiritual nation, made up of both Jew and Gentile. Jesus was
the peace between Jew and Gentile. He made both groups into one, breaking
down the wall that divided them (Eph 2:11-18). Now there is neither Jew
nor Greek. All are one in Christ Jesus- all are Abraham’s spiritual
off-spring, heirs according to promise (Gal. 3:27-29). This is the plan
of God, the mystery once hidden, but now revealed in the gospel (Eph
3:1-6).
How is
it that men of all nations who call themselves “Christians” cannot
worship together in the same congregation, but are separated from one
another because of ethnic differences? What must Jesus think! |
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It
wasn’t easy for Christians of different ethnic backgrounds to worship
together in the 1st century. In the first congregation at
Jerusalem, some were Hellenistic Jews (having adopted the Greek culture),
while others were living by the Jewish culture. Widows of Jewish culture
were getting needed attention, while those of Greek culture were being
neglected (Acts 6:1). The Jews had an especially difficult time accepting
that the Gentiles could also be God’s people. Only God’s supernatural
power could convince Peter to preach to the Gentiles and could convince
his critics that “God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that
leads to life” (Acts 10:1-11:18)
Even
then, the problem of Jews and Gen-tiles accepting one another was far from
over. Many Jews said that they would only accept the Gentiles if they
become “Jews” (by circumcision and keeping the Law of Moses). But God
made it clear that those who would only accept the Gen-tiles if they lived
like Jews were wrong (Acts 15). Later though, even Peter stopped eating
with the Gentiles once those he thought would disapprove arrived (Gal
2:11-14). It seems that many did not understand the full import of the
gospel- that ethnic differences do not matter. They should have become
all things to all men- adapted themselves to the ethnic practices of the |
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Jew while with them and
to the ethnic practices of the Gentile while among them- so by all means
some souls could be saved (1 Cor 9:19-22).
Christians of
the 21st century need to understand what many 1st
century Jewish Chris-tians did not. Although men have ethnic differ-ences,
their deepest spiritual need is the same. The Gentile without the Law of
Moses had the same problem that the Jew did who had the Law- SIN! All men
have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and will perish without a
Savior (Rom 2:11-13, 23). But there is “good news” (“the gospel”), God’s
power to save both Jew and Greek (Rom 1:16). The grace of God has
brought salvation to all men through the blood of Jesus (Tit
2:11-14). So all Christians should accept one another, “just as
Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.” (Rom 15:7-12)
May
Christians never judge one another on the basis of the color of skin,
nationality, or culture that they may be truly one in their religion (Jn
17:20-21), each one putting on the new self and renewing himself in Jesus’
image, “a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew,
circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free man,
but Christ is all and in all” (Col 3:9-11). |
