Prejudices

Christian Working Woman Transcript

Monday, March 31, 2008 - Facing Our Prejudices

We like to think that discrimination and prejudice ended decades ago. We see ourselves and our generation as too sophisticated and advanced to have prejudicial views toward other people for any reason. But the truth is, we are a long way from being free from prejudice, and we need to face the prejudice that is within us because God hates it.

There are many types of prejudice but the one that comes to our minds most readily is racial prejudice. I am a middle-class white woman and though I may think I understand racial prejudice and never participate in it myself, because I am a white woman, I'll never be able to totally understand what it feels like to be treated prejudicially simply because my skin is not white.

But as a white Christian woman, I have a strong obligation to work hard at rooting out any prejudices toward other races, and to extend myself to understand and relate to the people of other races, particularly my sisters and brothers in Christ.

The Apostle Peter had to learn about racial prejudice. You remember in Acts 10 where Cornelius, an Italian, wanted to know the true God, and Peter was commanded in a vision to share the truth about Jesus with him and his family. Peter didn't want to do that because he believed the gospel was only for the Jews, and he felt these other races were inferior and unworthy of God's grace.

But in this vision he saw all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds, and a voice told him to kill and eat them. Peter refused because they were impure and unclean, but God said to him, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." So, Peter shared the gospel with Cornelius and later he said, "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right." Peter began to face the prejudice that was within him, and to realize how wrong it was.

Jesus made a point of ignoring the racial prejudices of His day and teaching His disciples to do the same. For example, when He chose to talk to the Samaritan woman at the well, He shocked the disciples because Jews hated Samaritans and considered them to be second-class citizens. A Jew never talked to a Samaritan unless they had to, but Jesus chose not only to talk to this Samaritan woman, but to reveal great and marvelous truth to her and lead her to become His follower.

It's no accident that Jesus used a Samaritan to tell his parable about the Good Samaritan who helped the wounded person. To the Jews of his day, it was a message loud and clear that He harbored no prejudice toward these people and He saw them as equal and gave them respect.

Think about the prejudice that is within you toward other races. Perhaps you were taught it from your parents or your culture. Ask God to help you see it as the sin that it is, and to root it out of your heart.