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Beyond Colorblindness: Reading Scripture’s Ethnic World Through the Lordship of Christ · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Picture a river crossing in the ancient Near East, specifically
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  the Fords of the Jordan River. It is absolute chaos.
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  Yeah, a massive civil war is just broken out.
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  Right. And the losing side is
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  desperately trying to retreat across the water to safety.
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  You have this massive military blockade set up by the
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  victorious army, the Gileadites. And they are actively hunting
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  down the fleeing Ephraimites. Yes, but here is the detail that
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  should stop us in our tracks. These two groups are ethnically
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  identical. I mean they are both Semitic
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  tribes. They are both descendants of
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  Joseph. Exactly.
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  I mean if you line them up side by side, you could not tell them
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  apart by looking at them. So the Gileadites implement a
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  linguistic test. When a man approaches the river,
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  they ask him to say a single word.
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  They ask him to say shibboleth. But the Ephraimites have a
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  regional dialect. They physically cannot pronounce
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  the sound, so they say sibboleth.
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  And that single phonetic difference, you know, literal
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  slip of the tongue, results in the execution of 42,000 men on
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  the banks of the river. Welcome to reformed thinking.
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  I am your host, and today we are laying that ancient, violent
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  reality right next to our modern debates about culture and
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  ethnicity. Yeah, our mission today for this
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  deep dive is to examine how Christians should read the
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  ethnic and cultural details embedded in the biblical text.
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  We want to do this without bringing 21st century baggage
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  into Bronze Age conflicts. So we are analyzing 2
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  theological essays that tackle this interpretive crisis head
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  on. The first text is titled Beyond
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  Color Blindness, which argues against ignoring the very real
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  ethnic and cultural realities present in the Bible.
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  And the second is a direct, robust critique titled
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  Exegetical Clarity versus Cultural Isagesis that one
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  argues that applying modern sociological concepts to
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  scripture corrupts the text entirely.
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  Right now, setting the table for you, our listener, we need to
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  acknowledge the elephant in the room.
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  Oh, absolutely. These two essays are tackling
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  issues that are highly electric in our current cultural moment.
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  They touch on modern social justice and critical race
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  theory. So our goal for this session is
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  to impartially report on the arguments presented in these two
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  specific sources. Yeah, we are not taking a
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  political side or endorsing a specific platform.
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  We are simply laying out the ideas for you as the original
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  authors wrote them, examining the theological arguments they
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  present. So let us look at the first
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  diagnostic lens provided by our sources.
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  The first essay argues that Western readers often suffer
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  from a specific condition. It calls this double blindness.
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  And the author suggested on one side, people assume ethnicity
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  and culture never factor into the Bible at all.
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  Yeah, they read it like a sterile document, like everyone
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  is just a detached soul floating in a vacuum, completely stripped
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  of their geographic or cultural context.
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  Right. And then, on the other side of
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  this double blindness, people force modern racial categories
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  onto ancient texts. They read modern political
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  grievances right into the narrative.
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  The first text argues we have to take off both sets of blinders
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  to read the text faithfully. If you miss the cultural
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  tension, you miss the full weight of the gospel overcoming
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  that tension. But the counter argument to that
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  modern framing comes fiercely from the second source.
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  This source grounds its critique in the sufficiency of Scripture.
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  It actually sites the Westminster Confession of Faith,
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  right? Yes, specifically chapter 1,
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  paragraph 6. The argument here is that the
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  whole council of God concerning all things necessary for His own
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  glory, man's salvation, faith and life is expressly set down
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  in Scripture. Therefore, injecting secular
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  sociology or modern identity politics into biblical
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  interpretation is textbook ice Jesus.
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  That is spot on, and for those unfamiliar with the term,
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  isagesis means reading your own meaning into the text.
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  Exegesis, on the other hand, is drawing the original intended
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  meaning out of it. The critique argues that we do
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  not need sociological frameworks to understand sin or
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  reconciliation. The Bible is entirely sufficient
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  to diagnose the human condition. The author insists that relying
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  on external frameworks corrupts the pure milk of the word.
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  So this brings us back to that that bloodbath at the Jordan
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  River. Yeah, the Shibboleth incident.
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  Right. If the modern biological concept
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  of race did not exist back then, how did the ancient world
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  actually divide people? Because, you know, they
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  definitely divided people. Well, they drew very harsh
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  lines. I mean, we just talked about
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  42,000 casualties over a consonant sound.
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  They were not using our modern categories.
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  What mechanisms were they using to draw the lines between us and
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  them? Well, they used incredibly
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  strict markers, but those markers were covenant tribe,
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  language and geography. Not skin color.
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  Right, Not skin color. The concept of race as a
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  biological determinant based on skin pigmentation is a
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  relatively new invention. It was heavily influenced by
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  post enlightenment thinking and later evolutionary theory.
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  OK, so the biblical world categorized people quite
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  different. Yes, your identity was tied to
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  your land, the gods of your Father's, your linguistic
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  dialect, and your covenantal status.
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  Like the Greeks, for instance. Yeah.
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  The Greeks equated their own language with reason itself.
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  If you did not speak Greek, you were considered a babbling
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  idiot. And that is actually the origin
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  of the term barbarian, right? That is correct.
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  It was an on a metapoic slur. To the Greeks, foreign languages
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  just sounded like someone saying bar, bar bar.
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  So a barbarian was simply anyone who did not speak the language
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  of the Hellenistic elite. Which brings up a fascinating
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  dynamic in the New Testament. Think about Nathaniel's sneer in
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  John chapter 1. He asks, can anything good come
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  out of Nazareth? Oh wow, yes, that is a perfect
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  example of regional prejudice. It really is.
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  The Judeans had this massive arrogance toward Galileans.
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  They viewed them as uneducated country bunkins.
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  And Jesus intentionally took on the stigma of a galleon peasant.
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  He did. Now, you brought up the Greeks
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  earlier. Wait, hold on a second.
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  Let me push back on that, or at least ask for some clarification
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  regarding the Apostle Paul. Sure.
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  What is the clarification? Well, we know Paul was highly
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  educated. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees
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  but also very familiar with Greek culture.
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  In Galatians chapter 3 verse 1, he writes, Oh foolish Galatians.
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  Yes, he does. Now, knowing that the Galatians
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  were ethnic Celts who had migrated down into Asia Minor,
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  why would Paul use that kind of language?
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  If I stood up and called a specific ethnic group foolish
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  today, I would be fired immediately.
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  You definitely would be fired. Right.
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  So is Paul using a known cultural stereotype against the
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  Celts to shock them awake? It feels very abrasive to our
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  modern ears. It is very abrasive, yeah, and
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  Paul is utilizing a sharp cultural sword there.
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  The Greeks viewed the Celtic Galatians as wild, irrational
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  and prone to sudden passions. So by calling them foolish
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  Galatians, Paul is essentially asking them if they are going to
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  act like the mindless pagans the Greeks assume they are.
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  Precisely. He is challenging them for
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  abandoning the gospel of grace for the legalism of the
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  Judaizers. He's saying, are you really
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  going to live down to the stereotype of being irrational
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  and easily bewitched? That makes a lot of sense.
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  Now another crucial historical correction the second source
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  brings up involves the 19th century assumption about Moses
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  wife. This is in Numbers chapter 12.
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  Right, the Kushite woman. Yeah, For a long time, European
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  higher critics assumed that Moses married a Kushite woman
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  from a lower subservient class. They were heavily influenced by
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  their own era's racial theories. And they taught that Miriam's
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  rebellion was rooted in disgust over Moses marrying beneath his
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  station. They based this entirely on a
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  modern conception of skin color and social hierarchy.
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  But the historical reality of the ancient Near East tells a
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  completely different story. The Kushites were not a
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  subservient class at all. No, they came from the Upper
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  Nile region, South of Egypt, and they were elite, formidable
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  military warriors. They were highly respected and
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  feared honestly. I mean, remember, Israel had
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  just come out of brutal slavery in Egypt.
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  Yeah, the Kushites were actually much higher on the ancient
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  social ladder than a group of newly freed Hebrew slaves living
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  in tents. So Miriam's rebellion was not
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  about looking down on someone lower.
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  Not at all. It was likely driven by a fear
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  that Moses was elevating himself with an elite military alliance.
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  She thought he was appearing to use service status high above
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  his own siblings. She was challenging God's
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  sovereignly ordained authority. Getting the historical context
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  wrong leads to a completely fabricated theological
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  conclusion. That is a great point.
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  And that linguistic divide you mentioned with the ephemites and
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  the cultural tensions we see with the Galatians and the
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  Cushites, those do not just stay in the Old Testament.
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  No, they don't. We see that precise mechanism
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  trigger a massive crisis in the very first days of the early
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  church. Yeah.
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  Look at Acts chapter 6. The Church in Jerusalem is
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  experiencing incredible exponential multiplication.
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  But a serious complaint arises that threatens to tear the
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  entire community apart. You have the Hellenistic widows
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  being neglected in the daily food distribution.
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  And just to clarify for you the listener, the Hellenistic widows
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  were Greek speaking diaspora Jews.
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  Right. Meanwhile, the Hebraic widows,
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  who are the Aramaic speaking native Judeans, are apparently
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  receiving their daily bread without issue.
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  So the first source we are analyzing views this Act 6
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  crisis as a prime example of culturally patterned neglect.
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  They point out that church multiplication often exposes
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  hidden partialities. When a church is small, it can
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  survive on informal habits and personal friendships.
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  But growth puts massive pressure on weak systems.
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  The neglect of the Hellenistic widows was not necessarily
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  malicious. Yeah, there was no written
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  policy on the church bulletin board saying do not feed the
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  Greek speakers. Right.
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  It was a vulnerability born of language barriers and a lack of
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  embedded social networks. The Hebraic Jews had the home
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  field advantage. They knew the Straits of
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  Jerusalem, they knew the local Aramaic dialect, they had the
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  local merchant connections. Spot on.
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  I mean they had the upper hand socially.
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  The Hellenistic widows were vulnerable on 2 fronts, first as
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  widows in an ancient patriarchal society and 2nd as linguistic
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  outsiders. The first text argues that sin
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  can exploit these small informal distinctions, so the Church must
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  actively correct these culturally pattern oversights.
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  But the second text brings a massive counter argument to that
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  sociological reading. It does this through precise
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  Greek exegesis. Yeah, they look at the specific
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  word Luke, the author of Acts, uses for complaint.
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  The Greek word is gong gusmos. And this is not just a polite
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  request for better administration.
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  According to the critique source, if you look at the Greek
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  translation of the Old Testament, the sapujant gogusmos
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  is a very serious word. It is the precise word used for
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  the wicked, sinful rebellion of the Israelites against Moses in
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  the wilderness. Yeah, it is the murmuring that
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  brought down the wrath of God. The second source argues that
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  the Hellenists were engaging in sinful fleshly rebellion against
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  the divinely appointed Apostolic leadership.
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  So they were saying it was not just an innocent administrative
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  oversight or systemic neglect. Right, they argue, is a sinful
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  reaction that threatened the unity of the body and required
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  immediate spiritual discipline. Well, both sources, despite
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  their radically different diagnosis of the root problem,
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  had to deal with the Apostolic solution.
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  And what do the apostles do? They state clearly that it is
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  not right for them to leave the preaching of the Word of God to
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  attend to tables. Yeah, they refuse to abandon
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  their primary calling of prayer and the ministry of the Word.
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  The brilliant spirit LED solution is that the
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  congregation is told to choose seven qualified men to handle
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  the daily distribution. What stands out to me every time
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  I read this text is the names of the men they chose.
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  You have Steven, Philip, Precorious, Nick, Noor, Timon,
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  Perminus, and Nicholas. All seven of them have Greek
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  names. The church appointed Hellenists
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  to minister to the Hellenistic widows.
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  They took men from the offended group, men who spoke the Greek
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  language and understood the cultural nuances of the
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  diaspora, and put them in charge of the distribution.
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  But they did not just pick anyone with a Greek name to
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  satisfy a quota. No, the biblical text is
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  explicit. They pick men who were full of
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  the Holy Spirit and full of wisdom.
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  They did not create a secular committee to balance status
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  dynamics. They appointed spiritually
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  mature, godly men to maintain order and protect the preaching
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  of the gospel. The administrative solution was
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  ecclesiological. It was driven by the spiritual
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  qualifications of the men, not sociological theories.
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  And the outcome is universally agreed upon by both of our
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  sources. Acts chapter 6, verse 7 tells us
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  that the word of God continued to increase.
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  And the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.
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  The apostles maintained the supreme priority of preaching.
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  At the same time, they ensured that the practical needs of the
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  vulnerable were met by qualified men.
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  It. Protected the unity of the
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  Church so that the external witness to the watching world
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  remained completely unhindered. Now I want to pivot from that
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  historical event to the underlying theological
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  diagnosis. How do these two authors define
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  the root of human prejudice? It is a critical question.
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  It is like a doctor diagnosing a severe structural collapse in a
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  building. If you diagnose a cracked
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  foundation as just a cosmetic paint issue and you just slap a
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  new coat of paint on the walls, the building is still going to
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  collapse. Yeah, if the church misdiagnoses
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  why humans naturally ate each other, the solutions we try to
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  implement will be utterly useless.
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  To grasp the true biblical diagnosis, we need to look at
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  the Greek concept of prosopulepsia.
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  Right in James chapter 2 verse one, believers are commanded to
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  show no partiality. The Greek word prosoplepsia
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  literally translates to to receive a face.
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  It is a compound word, right formed from prosopon, meaning
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  face, and lambano, meaning to receive.
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  Correct. In the ancient Roman world, the
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  judicial system was heavily influenced by the patron client
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  system. Judges were expected to receive
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  the face of a wealthy patron. They would look at their outward
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  appearance, their fine clothing, the gold rings on their fingers,
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  or their societal status and rule in their favor.
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  But James argues that this action directly assaults the
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  very character of God. In the New Testament, God is
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  described as a proscipleptose, one who does not receive faces.
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  He. Judges with absolute perfect
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  impartiality. Therefore, judging someone by
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  their outward appearance, whether that is their wealth,
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  their regional accent, or their ethnic background, is a severe
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  theological violation against the nature of God Himself.
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  The second source, the critique text, roots this entirely in the
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  doctrine of total depravity. Prejudice is not an external
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  institutional flaw that can be fixed by simply reorganizing
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  society or writing better laws. No, it is the rotten fruit of
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  original sin. Every human being since the fall
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  of Adam is radically corrupted in their mind, their will, and
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  their affections. We naturally exalt ourselves and
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  despise our neighbor. If the disease is total
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  depravity, then humanistic solutions, wealth redistribution
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  or sociological guilt trips are completely inadequate.
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  You cannot cure a terminally diseased heart by changing a
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  man's shirt. So if the true diagnosis is
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  total depravity, the only possible cure is the cross of
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  Jesus Christ. Absolutely.
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  Look at Paul's argument in Ephesians chapter 2.
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  Paul details how Christ abolished the dividing wall of
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  hostility in his flesh. In the Old Covenant, God
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  intentionally established a dividing wall between Israel and
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  the surrounding Pagan nations. He used strict dietary laws and
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  ceremonial washings. But Christ did not just
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  negotiate A diplomatic peace treaty between Jew and Gentile.
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  He did not ask them to sit down to the summit and try to
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  understand each other's cultural narratives.
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  His penal substitutionary atonement absorbed the infinite
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  wrath of God against sin, and in doing so he obliterated the
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  enmity entirely. He created an entirely new
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  entity. Paul calls it 1 Newman.
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  This new man is the church. If the cross is the cure, what
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  does the resulting community actually look like?
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  We have this new entity, the Church, born out of penal
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  substitutionary atonement. Well, Paul gives very specific
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  instructions to the believers in colossi regarding how this new
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  community operates. Colossians chapter 3 verse 11 is
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  a central text here. I know the sources spend a lot
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  of time analyzing it. Let us unpack the precise Greek
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  syntax of Paul's statement. In Colossians 311, Paul writes
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  here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised,
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  barbarian, Sevian, slave free, but Christ is all and in all.
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  The governing spottle adverb in the Greek text is hopu, which
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  translates to where or in which place.
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  Yes, and this designates the Church, the new creation, as a
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  distinct new sphere of existence, separate from the
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  fallen world. Then Paul uses the verb any
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  right, an emphatic contraction, meaning it does not exist.
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  He couples this with a negative particle ook to definitively ban
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  earthly divisions. It is not a suggestion for
• 16:52
  better behavior. It is a declaration of spiritual
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  reality. In this new sphere, those old
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  divisions simply do not exist as defining categories anymore.
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  The pairings Paul uses to illustrate this leveling are
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  stunning. He levels the most extreme
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  divides of the ancient world. He says there is no Greek and
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  Jew obliterating the deepest ethno religious divide
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  imaginable. He says there is no slave and
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  free obliterating the most massive socioeconomic divide.
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  But the pairing that really stands out to me is as Barbarian
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  Scythian. Oh definitely, the Scythians
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  were nomadic warriors for the EUR Asian steps.
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  And they were considered the absolute most savage, violent
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  group in the known world. Ancient historians like
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  Herodotus wrote that the Scythians drank the blood of
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  their first kill. They used the skulls of their
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  enemies as drinking cups and made cloaks out of human scalps.
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  They were the terror of the ancient world.
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  Yet Paul says that even the Scythian at the foot of the
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  cross is leveled. The ground is completely flat.
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  There is no hierarchy of sinners at the cross.
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  Paul follows that radical leveling with a strong pivot.
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  He uses the adversitive conjunction Allah meaning, but
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  he writes, but Christ is all and in all.
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  Christ is the totality of the believer's identity.
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  The critique source argues that this grammatical structure
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  absolutely forbids modern identity politics or hyphenated
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  Christianity within the covenant community.
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  The author argues you cannot be a hyphenated Christian where
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  your earthly heritage shares equal billing with your eternal
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  redemption. A.
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  Believer, soul, all consuming eternal identity is their
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  mystical union with Christ. All human merit, pedigree,
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  historical grievances and earthly status are totally
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  bankrupt in the economy of grace.
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  So how did these massive theological principles translate
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  into the daily life of you, the listener, and your local
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  congregation? We have all this robust
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  theology, we have the Greek syntax.
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  But what does it actually look like on a Tuesday morning?
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  We're at a Sunday potluck. That is the crucial question.
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  Let us look at the applications from the first source.
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  The first source calls for something it names interpretive
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  humility. It urges Western readers to use
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  atlases, study ancient geography and pay attention to cultural
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  context so they stop missing the social tensions in the biblical
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  text. It also calls for repentance
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  regarding quiet habits of partiality.
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  A church might not have a written policy excluding people,
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  but if certain groups are consistently overlooked in
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  fellowship, that is a problem. Yeah, or if the widows of a
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  certain demographic are ignored in the benevolence ministry, the
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  church needs to set up wise, spiritually mature systems to
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  ensure impartial terror, just like the apostles did in Acts 6.
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  The second source, the critique, offers a different set of
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  primary applications. It calls the Church to wholly
• 19:36
  reject Marxist frameworks and critical race theory.
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  It defines those as viewing all of human history strictly
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  through the lens of oppressor versus oppressed status
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  dynamics. It argues that true equity
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  cannot be achieved through social activism or political
• 19:51
  maneuvering. The source advocates for a
• 19:54
  strongly premillennial eschatological view.
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  Simply put, this is the belief that perfect justice, total
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  equity and global peace will only occur upon the physical,
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  bodily return of Jesus Christ to earth.
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  He will rule the nations with a rod of iron.
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  Until that eschatological fulfillment, the local church is
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  commanded to be a distinct outpost of holiness and cross
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  cultural love. It must be entirely separate
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  from the pragmatic dying culture around it.
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  The church is not called to fix the fallen world systems, but to
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  preach the gospel that saves people out of them.
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  When you synthesize these two texts, despite their sharp
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  disagreements on sociological frameworks and how to view
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  systemic issues, they both arrive at some rock solid
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  agreements regarding church practice.
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  Both texts agree completely that the Church must never abandoned
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  the ministry of the Word and prayer for simple
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  humanitarianism. Distributing food to the needy
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  is a necessary fruit of the gospel, but it cannot replace
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  preaching the gospel. Furthermore, both texts agree
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  that salvation and unity are found exclusively through
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  solified faith alone in Jesus Christ.
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  You cannot build true unity on shared historical grievances or
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  secular political platforms. You can only build it on shared
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  salvation. The blood of Christ is the only
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  binding agent strong enough to hold a diverse body together.
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  I will leave you with a final thought to ponder as we conclude
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  this session. Please do.
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  When you truly grasp the intensely ingrained hatreds of
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  the ancient world, like the Judean disgust for the Galilean
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  peasant, the Greek disdain for the babbling barbarian, or the
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  universal terror inspired by the skull drinking Scythian, you see
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  the true magnitude of what Christ accomplished.
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  Yeah, it is staggering. The fact that the early church
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  managed to bring those very same groups together, to sit at the
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  same table, to break bread and to share a meal as brothers and
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  sisters is perhaps one of the greatest, most overlooked
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  miracles recorded in the New Testament.
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  It is a visible manifestation of the Gospel doing the impossible.
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  To summarize our findings today, reading the Bible accurately
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  requires an understanding of ancient geography, language, and
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  culture. We have to know why the
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  Ephraimites died at the Jordan River over a dialect.
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  And why the Judeans despise the Galileans?
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  We need to understand the history to grasp the weight of
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  the text. But as believers, we must
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  subordinate all earthly distinctions to the absolute
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  Lordship of Jesus Christ. I encourage you to read your
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  Bible with fresh eyes. Pay attention to the regional
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  tensions, the accents, the ancient rivalries that are
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  embedded throughout the narratives.
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  But as you observe those historical details, never lose
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  sight of the gospel standing at the very center of the text,
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  calling dead sinners to life.