June 4, 2024
And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.”—Revelation 5:9
God never mentions a group’s skin color in the Bible. … People groups are identified by where they were from geographically, their language, or their family line, but never by the color of their skin. God never makes mistakes, so I can only assume this is intentional and strategic. He never wanted us to classify groups of people by the amount of pigmentation in their skin. …
A person’s complexion is only mentioned a few times, and even then these are cosmetic characteristics and do not indicate God’s favoritism or cursing on them. An example is the term “ruddy,” which is used to describe Esau, David, and Solomon. Ruddy is reddish in tone, meaning healthy, fresh, or clear in appearance, but it is also used to indicate the tanning of skin. ...
There are between 25,000 and 35,000 genes in every human cell and up to forty trillion cells in the human body! Somewhere between 100 to 378 genes are involved in the production of melanin—the pigment responsible for skin color. Even when we use the highest number, it is tiny compared to the amount of genes in every cell. And this same melanin also determines our hair and eye color.
God, in His perfectness, put together a formula, so small it can only be realized under high-efficiency microscopes, just to create variety in His prized creation. It was no accident He orchestrated us in such a way that every human is unique. He programmed the genes from which all our variations come within Adam and Eve, the first humans. This was what He wanted. …
Every ethnicity is the beautiful handiwork of God’s creative mind. His abundance of creativity pushes beyond our human understanding. His very character is creative, so He cannot go against it. Diversity is God being His creative self, showing off to the world. A variety of skin colors gives Him glory for the vastness of His imagination! And we don’t have to look solely at humans to see evidence of this. Diversity is found in all of His creation. Trees. Flowers. Birds. Horses. Dogs. All glorify God. So variety, in skin color and all throughout the earth, should be celebrated. …
Colossians 3:11 states, “Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” And Romans 10:12 says, “For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
And notice what He leaves out. He does not categorize any of these groups by their skin color. Why? Because He loves every one the same. He made each beautiful and unique according to His infinite creative mind. As Christ-followers, we are called to be like Jesus, so we must work diligently to fight against labeling people by the color of their skin.—Kristen Terrette1
The first thing to understand in this discussion is that there is only one race—the human race. Caucasians, Africans, Asians, Indians, Arabs, and Jews are not different races. Rather, they are different ethnicities of the human race. All human beings have the same physical characteristics (with minor variations, of course). More importantly, all human beings are equally created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26–27). God loved the world so much that He sent Jesus to lay down His life for us (John 3:16). The “world” obviously includes all ethnic groups.
God does not show partiality or favoritism (Deuteronomy 10:17; Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11), and neither should we. … All forms of racism, prejudice, and discrimination are affronts to the work of Christ on the cross. Jesus commands us to love one another as He loves us (John 13:34). If God is impartial and loves us with impartiality, then we need to love others with that same high standard. …
May Galatians 3:28 be completely realized [in our lives], “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”—GotQuestions.org2
There is no specific scripture that explains why God created people with different skin color. No more than why the creation of different heights, or facial features. No more than why the creation of thousands of species of animals, birds, fish, insects, flowers, etc.
But there is an implied understanding of God’s personality through His design of this world: diversity. God loves diversity. Imagine when God first created this universe. Why create one color when you can create many? Why create one animal when you can create many?
There is uniqueness. Every single one of us, here on earth, from the past, the present, to the future, is unique. God is the greatest of all artists, sculptors, composers, and creators. He is the creator of all of creation. Notice how all the colors in this world combine in infinite forms, to create art and beauty. And sounds of infinite combinations in tone, create art and music.
Our skin tone is just one of many building blocks He uses to create beauty in diversity and uniqueness.—Colin Wong3
I believe that one of the most destructive things to unity and our relations with others is the temptation to fall prey to labeling. We do it when we impose a uniform, usually negative quality on a whole group of people. We label people according to a few attributes, or lack of them, and in the process, we ignore many other elements of the unique person that they are. That can hinder our discovering many valuable qualities about them.
If we label people, whether we think a person or group is uniformly left or right, liberal or conservative, religious or secular, or belongs to one religion or another, Black or White or every color in between, young or old, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, we create in our minds an image that colors the way we see them in everything. How we label people by their beliefs, opinions, characteristics, or affiliations is often based on whether or not we agree with them on some issue.
Labeling others is wrong because each person is a unique individual. People may have some things in common with others, but they also have many differences in how they feel or think or believe, as well as different motives for their actions. Labels are most destructive when we are reacting emotionally because we are far less likely to think things through, pray things through, and set aside our own preconceived ideas.
Labeling can ultimately result in prejudice, hatred, reactionary responses and oppression, poverty, brutality, mob violence, war, and devastation. As Christians who believe that each person was created in God’s image, we must make a conscious effort to look at each person we come in contact with as a unique person with strengths, qualities, and the potential to become all that God created them to be. When we choose to recognize God’s imprint in someone and the respect that they deserve as an individual creation of God, we are living the principles Jesus sacrificed so much to exemplify.
As someone recently expressed, “The measure of your love for God is how much you love others, your neighbor, the man on the street, even your enemy.” As Christians, we love Jesus and we want to help others, and we all want to follow Jesus the best we can. We want the truth, and we want to “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). We want to learn all we can in the process. We need one another and God most of all in order to learn the most we can. We need to respect the fact that we each have something to contribute that can enhance our overall understanding.
Jesus said, “If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto Me” (John 12:32). Others have to see Jesus in our lives, in our words and actions, and in our love for one another. We don’t have to be the same, but we need to see our commonality through God’s Spirit that is in each of us.—Maria Fontaine
Published on Anchor June 2024. Read by John Laurence. Music by Michael Fogarty.
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