“And he said to them, ‘You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.’” – Acts 10:28
In the Old Covenant, rigid separation by race and ethnicity was a temporary norm to prepare for what God had planned to bring redemption and blessing to all peoples through Messiah. In the New Covenant in Jesus Christ, that plan comes to fruition, and the precious truth from Genesis 1 is once again made plain: every human being bears the image of God and deserves dignity and respect on that basis.
The narrative of the world and our own residual sin tries hard to separate people into groups to make it easier to dismiss, disdain, dislike, or detest one another. The dark spiritual forces of the world want to divide things into “us” and “them”. All these forces conspire to encourage us to care about “us” and hate “them”. That isn’t the gospel!
Followers of Christ must concern themselves with all people groups and resist the sinful human tendency to avoid or write off certain groups or types of people. All people deserve the opportunity to hear the gospel and see it demonstrated by our loving and Christ-like words and actions. All people, no matter how different, are worthy of the invitation to join the family of God through faith in Jesus Christ. All people deserve to experience the love of God through the people of God – we don’t ever get to write certain groups or individuals off as hopeless, worthless, or a waste.