By Tyson Thorne
After decades of political bodies all around the world telling us that skin color doesn’t matter – “we’re the same on the inside” they told us – suddenly they’re messaging has changed and today skin color is the only thing that matters. The group Black Lives Matter is offended when you remind them that all lives matter, and the US congress kneeled in their support of BLM. Many metropolises are offering relief funds to citizens – but only to non-white citizens and the federal government has talked about reparations to black families whose ancestors were slaves in America over 180 years ago.
With all this talk about skin color one might wonder, what does God think of all this? We can know by reading the Bible. Let’s start by asking a few basic questions. What color were Adam and Eve? While many speculate they were black because of the region of the world we think Eden was located in, the Bible doesn’t tell us. How about Abraham and Sarah? King Solomon? What about Jesus, or any of the disciples? You would think we would know what color Jesus is, wouldn’t you? The truth is, no we don’t. The Bible doesn’t tell us the skin color of any of its figures, with possibly two exceptions. First, King David is described as having a “ruddy” complexion, and Solomon describes a woman (who might be fictional) as having dark skin in his love poem Song of Solomon. This lack of information speaks volumes about its importance; it isn’t.
But we have more than an argument from silence to show us what God thinks. Saint Paul says this in Galatians chapter 3:
For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith… There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female—for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to the promise.
In other words, the distinction that matters is if you are in Christ Jesus or not. Skin color, nationality, financial status, and even gender are all unimportant in God’s eyes when compared to one’s spiritual state.
If skin color is entirely unimportant to God, then it ought to be unimportant to us. And I’m not just talking about “racists”, I’m talking about all the hyphenated-Americans out there, too. Our race is nothing to be proud – or ashamed – of. It is important to point out here, I think, that I’m not talking about culture. Too often people associate skin color with culture, and they are entirely separate entities. Cultures can be adopted by people of any color, skin color isn’t a choice. Unlike skin color, cultures can be -- and should be – judged on a regular basis. For a quick example, we can see that Germany in the 1800’s had a hard working and innovative culture. The nations culture in the 1930’s and 40’s not so much. We’ll go into more detail on that another time, but it’s important to draw that distinction here.
Why the change in the narrative then? Why did we move from the right message, that skin color doesn’t matter, to the wrong notion that pigmentation is a distinction required to be made for the cause of social justice? It’s hard to say with certainty as there are many possible reasons, but all of the reasons are political in nature and none of them are innocent or even relevant in the land of the free and the home of the brave. As Bible-believers we have an opportunity to correct the record and stand for the freedom of all, not just those who look like us.
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