Love Is the Resistance by Ashley Abercrombie

Author:Ashley Abercrombie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Living;Conflict management—Religious aspects—Christianity;Interpersonal relations—Religious aspects—Christianity;Love—Religious aspects—Christianity;Christianity and culture;REL012070;REL012120;REL012130
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2021-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

So, what does the Bible say about race? About class? The human race is mentioned six times in the Old Testament, referring to our whole species. The Bible does not categorize based on skin color but on language, tribe, or nation. Defining people by their skin color is relatively new, although we can see hints of this in Scripture. In the Song of Solomon, as one example, the protagonist is a female who shares her fear that she will not be loved by her partner because her job working in the fields has darkened her skin.3 This is a place where we see her gender, race, and class intersect.

Another example is the Samaritan woman at the well with Jesus. Her gender, ethnicity, past, and religion disqualified her from the boundaries of society’s norms. Through her interaction with Jesus in John 4, we see how God loves women of all races, even those with complicated pasts and different religions. Jesus says, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:9 CEV). His connections and interactions with people help us understand who and how God loves.

As a final example, in Acts 10 and 11, the apostle Peter dreams the same dream, three times, about eating unclean food. He refuses three times to eat it (three-peat denial is kind of Peter’s thing), and just before he wakes, he hears, “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean” (Acts 10:15 NLT). Next thing he knows, there’s a knock at the door, with an invitation for Peter to visit a Roman centurion named Cornelius. God spoke to Cornelius and told him where to send his men, and that Peter would come to tell these gentiles about Jesus.

As Cornelius was praying, an angel had appeared to him, telling him, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have been received by God as an offering!” (v. 4 NLT). How powerful is it that this is what moved the heart of God toward Cornelius? We see here that God cares about those who are at a severe disadvantage in our communities, and those with the means to do something about it are seen by God.

Peter, prejudiced against gentiles and likely also against Roman officers in government, realized through the repetition of the visions that God does not reject anyone because of their race, class, or gender. Peter, a Jew, was not superior to Cornelius, a gentile. Because of this revelation, Peter goes into the house, against his custom, and tells this community about Christ. Marveling, Peter tells them straight off, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right. This is the message of Good News for the people of Israel—that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all” (vv. 34–36 NLT). All the people are baptized, and Peter stays on in the home for several days.

But the good news does not stop there.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.