(remember, these are unedited/draft show notes, not a transcript — listening is always better…and if you listen AND follow along below, you’ll see why)
Focus Question:
Why not marry foreigners (in the OT)?
Intro:
Yesterday kicked off the last week of Advent, and I hope you caught the reflection about love and light. One of the stories I thought about using to tell a story of love didn’t quite fit, but today it does.
Her name was Mai Lin. She was missing two fingers…she’d lost them in an accident, the bus accident that killed her parents, but to me she was the cutest girl in 3rd grade. We’d go out of our way to stand next to each other in line and the various things you do when you’re eight years old. Then one day she gave me a note. I don’t remember what it said except that it was signed, “Love, Mai Lin.” “You know, because…” she said.
Interestingly I didn’t think twice about the fact that she was, technically speaking, of a different race. But I do remember growing up hearing — and being befuddled by — OT stories about not being able to marry people of other races…stories that I knew some church people took seriously, dogmatically seriously.
Our focus question today — Why not marry foreigners (in the OT)? — takes off on hearing about this prohibition to marry foreigners we’ll hear as we close out Nehemiah today…but I hope you stay tuned: I’m going to give you the simple but powerful response…why they couldn’t, why we can, and how to explain it to someone in real simple terms.
NEW TESTAMENT SEGMENT:
Remember that yesterday one of the pleas the writer of Hebrews made was
But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception. Heb 3:13, CSB
Put another way, you’re alive. And while you’re here, you’ve got a mission, particularly in helping others get right with Jesus while there’s still time, and he used the imagery or typology of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness not making it to the Promised Land, which is sometimes referred to as “entering your rest.”
Passage: Hebrews 4
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 16
Words: ~365
strive to; don’t be lazy
OLD TESTAMENT SEGMENT:
Passage: Nehemiah 12-13
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 78
Words: ~1891
Wisdom SEGMENT:
Passage: Proverbs 12:1-10
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 10
Words: ~159
The bottom line:
Today it appears that racism is a no-brainer no-no, right? All humans are all made in the image of God. And when it comes to the focus question — Why were Israelites in the Old Testament forbidden from intermarrying? — that rightfully should prick our sensibilities…but it should also prick our theologies. Remember, we’re all theologians, the question is just whether or not you’re growing or atrophying in that department. I’ll give you the short answer and then a slightly longer explanation.
For us, “Why were Israelites in the Old Testament forbidden from intermarrying?” isn’t a racial question, it’s a theology question. The answer is, “Because God is interested in the purity of your heart.”
Now here’s a little context and what to say:
Contextually, the Israelites were a nation bound by a covenant…like we are individual Christians bound by a covenant. And for both, and in both OT and NT, the covenant of marriage is used as the premiere example. If you’ve got a significant other, is it ok for your heart to be anything less than perfectly monogamous?
The Mosaic Law warned that intermarrying would put the Israelites in a place where their foreign wives would lead them away from God, and we saw that repeatedly.
Today, for you and me, the risk is impurity of religion. You can’t listen to this show very long before I point out yet another place in the NT where a writer is warning someone of false teachers, right?
This is utterly relevant, because today the risk of “intermarrrying” outside of the faith — and I’m speaking figuratively here — what we are warned against is adding or subtracting from the Bible… “Sure, you’ve got the Bible, but you really need this practice or this personality system or personal experience to know yourself and find God.”
But God says, “I’ve revealed what you need to know. I want purity of heart in our relationship.”
ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
Sources and resources:
(1) Todd Miles, A God of Many Understandings (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2010).