I’m of course speaking about Jacob and the Jerusalem council verdict in the book of Acts, which would plainly allow Jews to remain Jews. I’m not in any way excusing Jewish denial of Jesus or Talmudism. That is not what I meant by “practicing the Mosaic Law”.

You make a lot of good points about not reducing the Gospel to a race-based doctrine. I agree with all of it. I’d also say today’s churches have swung wildly in the opposite direction, denying that race exists, which is sort of like denying gender exists. Race and gender do not change Christ’s sacrifice, but they still seem pretty important in the Bible and today. I don’t think denying this will improve our relationship with God.

For example, today it is not unheard of for Charismatic preachers to deny that they are human. This is a natural progression from denying that there are races.

We believe that we exist, that this is not an accident, and we do not need any other race to justify our lives. For example, a gathering of White Christians is not evil. It doesn’t need Blacks, or Jews, or Yamatos, or Hans, or even Copts to justify its fellowship. The fact that the Holy Spirit allowed the Jews to maintain their ethnic identity by practicing Mosaic Law after the Resurrection verifies this, and confirms that the Lord did not manifest to annihilate the races. I think that’s what we’re getting at.

God bless you!

God Bless

General equity, good point. That would be “following the voice of nature” like when apostle Paul urges us to do while arguing that long hair is shameful for men.

There have been made many various arguments, pro and contra, concerning how permissible race-mixing is to followers of Jesus Christ. But I do not yet remember seeing an application of this simple practical principle:

“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” (Matthew 7:12)

So, does the empirical evidence available indicate that race-mixing encourages Christian life? Are racially mixed societies known for their piety?

It’s interesting that you accuse Caradoc of having “twisted and confused doctrinal inadequacies” when your argument style seems to consist of quoting Scriptures that are either tangential to your point or outright do not support it.

No one could disagree with the Scriptures you quote, but they also do not explain why forbidding a black and white marriage is a sin, which seems to be your point.

1. If Ezra’s command is due to religious reasons, why did God forbid Levites from marrying foreigners when non Levites are free to marry a convert? For then the religions are the same. Isn’t it obvious that the reason is blood?

2. That the New Covenant is unlike the Old is certainly true, but your interpretation seems to skate on the edge of Antinomianism. I don’t want to misrepresent your position, but it’s as though you lump the ceremonial and moral laws together.

3. It is interesting that you bring up the Jerusalem council, the need for which would have been entirely superfluous if Jesus came to abolish race, or if race had no real meaning. It is known to all that the Lord’s brother Jacob continued to practice the Law, as did Paul and likely Timothy. These people saw no disconnect between remaining ethnic Jews, and passing this on to their children, while being participants in the New Covenant.

4. Galatians 3:28 is not a “strawman argument”. If there is no Jew or Greek, then there is also no Male of Female. Therefore it is hateful of us to forbid same-sex “marriages”. How would your congregation respond if you removed the segregated restrooms and had unisex only bathrooms? I think people would leave your church in droves.

Since male and female are plainly distinct, how then can we reconcile the lack of male, female, Jew, and Greek in Gal. 3:28 with the plain existence of such? Could it be that in Galatians, the context is salvation, now that we non-Jews have been grafted onto the True Vine, and we must no longer be Levites to have the LORD as our inheritance?

This seems to make much more sense, whereas the race-abolishment method leads to a great deal of contradiction with many of the actions of Jesus and the Church Fathers.

5. Luther brought up a great point in Acts 17:26. What is the reason for boundaries among the nations, if nations are merely geographic curiosities?

See here from the Anabaptist folk hero, John Piper:

Oppose interracial marriage, and you will help create a situation of racial disrespect. And then, since there is a situation of disrespect, it will be prudent to oppose interracial marriage.

Here is where Christ makes the difference. Christ does not call us to a prudent life, but to a God-centered, Christ-exalting, justice-advancing, counter-cultural, risk-taking life of love and courage. Will it be harder to be married to another race, and will it be harder for the kids? Maybe. Maybe not. But since when is that the way a Christian thinks? Life is hard. And the more you love the harder it gets.
http://bit.ly/kfClBo

Get that? You see, if you marry a Black person, you are more “God-centered, Christ-exalting” and “justice-advancing” than other people. If you wed your own kind, by Piper’s logic, your marriage is less holy than a mixed union. (You can’t say Coke is better than Pepsi without saying Pepsi is worse than Coke.)

In addition, NT rules on marriage are actually _stricter_ than in Moses’ time. Divorce is strictly regulated. Polygamy is forbidden. Marrying non-believers, even from covenant families, is also banned. So we need more exegesis beyond “Moses did it, so you can” to answer the question of interracial marriage.

Also, Christians routinely restrict marriage based on civil law and custom. People generally don’t complain about laws requiring an age of consent, for example. In fact, many believers based opposition to interracial unions on general equity rather than direct Biblical instruction.

I don’t think Scripture refers to her as a black woman. She is definitely foreign. But that isn’t the “interesting” issue for me. For me, the “interesting” issue is found in the context.

I’m struck by a couple of things from Numbers 12. First, God supposedly endorses “anti-racism” via sexism: Miriam is punished, and Aaron is not, though their sin is the same. Second, in context, what we’re seeing, God’s endorsement of Moses’ miscegenation, is a special case; God basically says that Moses is a special case, above all the Prophets, his mojo is so strong that he and his foreign wife get special dispensation. He basically says, whatever Moses is up to, that’s between Me and Moses, and you don’t get to criticize. There is no endorsement of miscegenation to be found, aside from that implied for Christians who think themselves on par with Moses.