PH 5-minute Bible teaching
Exploding racism
We concluded the book of Ruth recently, and noted several important moral lessons that accompanied the overarching theme of the book – that Jesus was coming. One of those moral lessons included a stark teaching on the topic of racism, ethnocentrism, and ethnic prejudice.
As an increasing number of people are wringing their hands these days over widely discussed data showing that the majority status of white people will soon fall under 50% in the United States, there’s never been a more appropriate time for believers to learn and heed the instruction we see in these 4 short chapters. Here it is. If you want the audio-only version, just click here.
If you want to see the full sermon associated with this clip, you can find it here.
Transcript: Prejudice
Wed, Sep 20, 2023 : Peter Heck
(Begin transcript)
Ruth was not an Israelite. We've stressed that she was a Moabitess. She is an ethnic outsider, she is looked down upon, certainly by the people, you see that with the kinsman redeemer. He doesn't want Ruth, he doesn't want any involvement with Ruth. And with good reason. God's people were forbidden to marry foreign wives, you go to Ezra, you see that in the law, Ezra 10:11. Do not take foreign wives for yourself.
And so we've embedded in the hearts and the minds of these blind and hard hearted people, the idea that this was all about race and ethnicity. So why in the world, if God forbid marriage to foreign wives, would God use a marriage of Boaz to a foreign wife to bring about the lineage of his son? Well, what that should signify is that God's teaching us something. He's doing something here that we're not fully understanding what's going on. God is always moving.
And I think you see in these pages, God is moving in such a way to lay the dynamite that is going to explode any foundation for racism, or prejudice, or discrimination or ethnocentrism. He's blowing it to smithereens with this whole story of Ruth.
We've said before that the Old Testament is a shadow of things to come. You know, the phrase, you should memorize it: the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament what? Revealed. You got it? Okay. So what is the shadow that you're seeing in these laws of Israel? Don't marry a foreign wife. What is the shadow here? It's not race, it's faith. It's where they have placed their faith.
Why is the marriage to Ruth okay when God had forbidden marriage to foreign wives? It had nothing to do with skin color or race. Why was the marriage to Ruth okay for Boaz? Well, Boaz said it in chapter two. Where had Ruth chosen to seek refuge? Under the wings of the Almighty, she had chosen to call him Lord and follow Him, and therefore she isn't foreign. She's part of God's family. It's about faith.
You remember last week, I was reading to, we read real quickly from First Corinthians, chapter seven. About how if you, if you can't control yourself, you should get married. Those urges? Well, Paul isn't done talking, with these instructions in chapter seven. I'll just read it to you real quickly. You don't have to flip verse 39 of chapter seven. “A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives.” Sorry, Jen. “But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes.” Look at this, “but he must belong to the Lord.” That's it. That's God's instructions, God's expectations. Don't misunderstand this to be a racial thing. It has everything to do with “don't be unequally yoked.” Marry someone who was in the faith and has surrendered to Christ. That's what you were to do.
And how does God prove it doesn't have anything to do with race? The blood of a Moabite woman, the blood of a Moabite, flowed in the veins of Jesus, it was there. And the blood of Jesus that was shared on Calvary, that flowed from Calvary, it was for the Moabites. It was for the Israelites. It was for the Americans. It was for the Australians. It was for the Africans. It was for anybody and everybody that has ever been born or ever would be born on earth. That's what Revelation tells us. What does it say?
“You were slain, and by your blood, you ransom people for God from every tribe, and every language and every people and every nation.” That has to be the testimony, that has to be where our heart is, as Christians. And I wonder sometimes how much it is. I see a great deal of concern in our culture, about the shifting ethnicities. We talk a lot about that, people that are obsessed with politics, there's so much discussion of this. Almost a fear, “oh, you realize whites aren't going to be the majority anymore in America. We're going to be, we'll still be the biggest group, but we're going to be under 50% really soon. We’ll be the biggest minority that there is.”
And I listened to people say that and I say, “So? What does that even matter?” Why are we talking about that don't cling to such a worldly thought. Scripture is telling us, the book of Ruth is all about the fact that skin color and all of that doesn't matter in the eyes of, our citizenship is in heaven. Our citizenship is there, regardless of what our ethnicity is, regardless of whether you are black or white or brown or anything in between. We as believers are all exiles. We are all foreigners. We are all strangers in a strange land. Our brotherhood is with one another. In Christ, a follower of Jesus of any ethnic group is a closer relative to me than my blood brother who rejects Jesus.
Jesus said it himself: “Whoever does the will of God. He is my brother and my sister and my mother.” That's the way Christians will think, it's what Ruth is teaching us that our perspective needs to be.
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