You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26–28, NIV 1984).
My Musings – The only difference between people that “matters” is this. Are they “in Christ” or not? To those who have put their faith in Christ Jesus, there is no difference. If we see differences, then we are not yet fully clothed in Christ. This does necessarily mean we are not saved, but we are still conforming to the world and not fully transformed by the renewing of our mind. But at the end of the day, racism, bigotry and prejudice have no place in the Body of Christ.
For those who are not in Christ, racism, bigotry and prejudice will always be a problem, no matter how enlightened we think the world has become. Because it is still a fallen world, it will always be divided by its differences. Just look at how this “melting pot” is boiling over these days. This does not mean we should give up on trying to (peacefully) make things better. But until we realize that Christ is the only cure, it will never completely go away.
Back to those who are in Christ. We should not look down on those who are not. But for the grace of God we are no different than they are. Just forgiven. We were, at one time, under the same condemnation. Now that we are no longer condemned, we have a commisssion from Christ to reach out to those who are with the Gospel. Not just to the ones that look like us, are of the same social status as us, or vote using the same ballot as we do on primary day. All lost souls matter.
My Advice – And who is my neighbor? It’s a matter of how we treat one another, not the neighborhood we live in.
