Racism at Grace - Part One

Last Sunday here at Grace as part of our Grace Matters message series we looked at the teaching of Paul in Ephesians 2 that dealt with the explosive racial issue of that day which occurred between Jews and Gentiles. You have to understand that the divide between Jews and Gentiles in that day was very deep and very extensive. It could be seen on many fronts. There was a religious divide in that the Jews knew the one true God and the Gentiles didn’t. There was a cultural or social divide in that the Jews practiced ceremonies and laws such as circumcision and dietary regulations that the Gentiles didn’t practice. And certainly there was a racial divide. The Jews blood line went back to the Patriarchs such as Jacob, Isaac and Abraham. The Gentiles bloodline went back to Esau Ishmael and others who were not the great Patriarchs.

Now you must also keep in mind that God had chosen Israel from all the peoples on the earth for His own special possession and had given promises to this group of people unlike He gave to any other group of people. So to a Jew in Paul’s day, that would mean that a Gentile would easily be seen as inferior. In fact, the Jews had an unflattering word for them. Just as we have degrading words today to describe people of other races that we erroneously see as inferior, so did they. Jews would have often referred to Gentiles as “the uncircumcision.” Now you might remember that back in the Old Testament God commanded all Jewish men to be circumcised as a physical sign marking that they were different than everyone else because they were His chosen people. So in the eyes of a Jew, the Gentiles were “the uncircumcision.”

Verse fourteen of chapter two tells us that Jesus brought us peace, which is mentioned four times in this passage. You see this word in verse 14. You see it again in verse 16. And you see it twice in verse 17. In other words, through the work of Christ, the division that existed so strongly due to race had been turned into peace. Notice what it said Jesus did in verse fourteen. He made both groups, Jews and Gentiles who were definite enemies, into one body by breaking down the barrier of the dividing wall. Verse 15 says that he abolished in His flesh the enmity that existed. There is so much that happened when Jesus died on the cross. One of these things is that when Jesus died on the cross He abolished every barrier between man and God as well as between man and man. Through the death of Jesus, Christ made it possible for Jews and Gentiles to be reconciled in Him. Reconciliation is when hostility is turned into friendship. For those who know Jesus, everything that made us enemies with each other has been abolished so that we can now be friends. We are one body in Christ.

This brings us to a topic that we haven’t really ever addressed here at Grace, at least not in the five years I have been here as pastor. Yet, it is a topic that is very real. And we are fooling ourselves, I mean really fooling ourselves, if we try to convince ourselves that it doesn’t exist right here at Grace. I am talking about the topic of racism. Be sure to log back on tomorrow and read my blog as I talk directly about the topic of racism here at Grace Church!