C7. All humanity is of equal value to God.

This is my final post in the sequence on creation in my theology in bullet points series. I will follow it up with a post with all the links for the entire series thus far.
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All humanity is of equal value to God--all nations, every social status, both male and female.

Galatians 3:28 gives us the baseline of the kingdom of God: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." The principle that Paul is presenting is that of justification by faith as the mechanism of incorporation into God's family. A Jew is established as a child of God by faith, just like a Gentile. A man is a child through faith, just as a woman. Master or slave, both become children through faith.

While we wish the issue of equal value in the eyes of God ended there, there is often push back. For example, sometimes parents favor one child over another. People can have different gifts that make them more suitable for different roles. The Pauline corpus itself, for example, at times seems to conform to the social scripts of its ancient culture (e.g., 1 Cor. 11:3; Col. 3:18-4:1).

Nevertheless, we can see the ideal of the kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus. Jesus ministered on the principle that "the last will be first" (Matt. 20:16), meaning that God would even out the lesser social status of those in this world with a higher status in the kingdom of God. Similarly, the Parable of the Good Samaritan indicated to the legal expert that the command to love one's neighbor extended to everyone, including those we would least want to value, including individuals from enemy groups (Luke 10:25-37). We are to love our enemies (Matt. 5:43-47). Indeed, we are to treat all others with respect and dignity since they are the image of God (e.g., Jas. 3:9).

The principle here is that all human beings are of great value to God, regardless of social status, gender, or race. Although the primary issue had to do with the extension of the gospel to non-Jews, Acts 10 declares the more general principle well enough: "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right" (Acts 10:34-35). In the kingdom of God there will be individuals "from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb" (Rev. 7:9).

The leveling factor is that the Holy Spirit comes upon everyone equally. It does not matter whether a person has a male or female body because, "the Spirit gives birth to spirit" (John 3:6). We are thus not surprised that, in the age of the Spirit, "your sons and daughters will prophesy" (Acts 2:17). A sign of the Spirit age is the fact that women will speak for God much more than they did in the time of the old covenant.

We have been speaking of the restoration of all things here because it speaks to the creation of all things. When we look at the consequences of Eve's sin in Genesis 3:16, it is only after she has sinned that it is said, "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." The clear implication is that God did not create woman with this subordinate status. He created her to be a "helper" for Adam (Gen. 2:20), a word that is used of God as our helper elsewhere (e.g., Ps. 33:20). God created both male and female in his image (Gen. 1:27).

Similarly, the confusion of the languages at Babel represents a consequence of sin (Gen. 11:1-9), not the ideal. The ideal was for the whole earth to be one people, with one purpose. Whenever the Bible allows for disparities of empowerment or limitations to freedom, these are either a consequence of the Fall or an accommodation to context.

It will not be so in the kingdom of God. Women will not be given in marriage to men (Mark 12:25). "The one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person" (1 Cor. 7:22). Nor are we in the church to show favoritism to those who are rich (Jas. 2:1-9).

All humanity is of equal value to God, and he wants everyone to escape judgment (1 Tim. 2:4), whether they are male or female, of high or low status, of one race or another. In God's kingdom, all people have the same value, just as he created them to be in the beginning.

Next Sunday E1. Evil is not a thing.

Prejudice and Stereotypes

I don't have time to write much today, but here's something based on a post in a course, after we read a short story called, "Revelation," by Flannery O'Connor.
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One concept in sociology that has been helpful to me in processing social prejudice is in group/out group. When we are talking about someone in our group, we tend to accentuate their positive characteristics. When we are talking about someone in an out group, we tend to accentuate their negative characteristics.

It's a fine line to walk for me personally. There are cultural differences between different groups. Such differences can be prized by one group and devalued by another, just like I might value characteristics that are my strengths while devaluing characteristics that are my weaknesses.

But that doesn't mean that the characteristics are never real. My strengths often have corresponding weaknesses and vise versa for the person whose strengths are in areas of my weakness.  Surely it can work that way for cultures in general, that some cultures have strengths that may have associated weaknesses.

So it seems to me that cultural stereotypes are not always wrong; they can even give a jump start to communication and understanding. BUT, in the hands of most of us they are inaccurate, imbalanced, and a subconscious way of making me feel better about myself at someone else's expense. Most of the time, stereotypes are vehicles for prejudice rather than for understanding.

Bottom line: I need to give every specific individual the right to show and tell me who they really are, not to impose on them my own assumptions.  Further, I need to give every individual the space to change as well, regardless of what they might have been or done in the past.

One Second Prejudice...

... two seconds to Christ.

I was thinking last night that a lot of us are not far from the right attitudes and choices.  We humans tend to be so unthinkingly inconsistent.  Maybe all some of us need is someone next to us to ask the obvious question--one extra second and we might actually be Christ-like.

"But Ken, don't you believe you should love your neighbor as yourself?"
"Well, Yes."

And that's all it might take for us to move from spiritual mediocrity to Christ-likeness.  Here are some scenarios:

"I can't stand all the attention they give to Martin Luther King Jr.  All this special treatment to make African-Americans feel good."
"Really, Ken?  Are you saying that African-Americans are getting special treatment because of their color?  That's never happened to whites over blacks, right?  Shouldn't you be happy that after centuries of slavery, after no help whatsoever normalizing after slavery was over, after lynchings and clearly prejudicial laws for a century, you begrudge giving a day to honor someone who in a non-violent way worked to allow African-Americans to be able to sit anywhere on a bus?"

And just that extra second makes me realize how completely ridiculous my first second of prejudice was.  But there are many other issues.

"We need to get rid of all these Mexicans and send them back.  See that woman over there?  I bet she's illegal."
"What's really ticking you off, Ken?  Did she do something to you?  You really think she's hurting you some way or is some sort of a hardened criminal?  Why does it get to you so much?  You've never even seen her before."

Just the extra second of putting yourself in someone else's shoes, of asking how you would want to be treated if you were them, if a person really is a Christian, that's all it can take to move from a mind that has nothing to do with Christ to a Christ-like mind.