Insights: The Gift of the Multicultural Church (Fall 2017)

DeYmaz I. Christ Envisioned the Multiethnic Church –John 17:20–23 On the night before his crucifixion, Christ prayed specifically that future generations of believers would be united as one to provide a manifest witness of God’s love for all people so that the world (the entire human family) might recognize him as the Messiah, sent from God, and believe.

II. Luke Described the Multiethnic Church –Acts 11:19–27; 13:1–3 It is the multiethnic church at Antioch and not the homogeneous church at Jerusalem that should serve as our primary model for local church development in the twenty-first century. Indeed, the church at Antioch was history’s first multiethnic, missional, multisite megachurch.

III. Paul Prescribed the Multiethnic Church –Book of Ephesians The theme of this letter is the unity of the church for the sake of the gospel. A common error is to assume that the mystery of which Paul is speaking is simply the mystery of the gospel—the good-news message of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and atonement for sin. Yet, in Ephesians 3, Paul made it clear that the mystery of Christ is the mystical union of Christ’s body.

Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus (vv. 2–6 NIV).

Jews and Gentiles have been made one with God through faith in Jesus Christ and are to be one in the church on earth as it is in heaven, in order to proclaim a credible witness of God’s love for all people.

With such things in mind, it is important to restate that a healthy multiethnic and economically diverse church is not driven to be merely politically correct, but biblically correct for the sake of the gospel. Its focus is on reconciling men and women to God through faith in Jesus Christ and on reconciling the church to the principles and practices of the New Testament congregations of faith where men and women of diverse ethnic and economic backgrounds walked, worked, and worshiped together as one so the world would know God’s love and believe. In fact, it was the observable unity and diversity of believers in the local churches at Antioch, Ephesus, and Rome that fueled the church’s credibility in the first century, in a society much like our own today, prone to division and conflict along the lines of race, class, and culture.

The need to overcome systemic segregation in the local church, then, is essential to repurposing the church to redeem the community. The systemic segregation of the church unintentionally undermines the very gospel we proclaim. In observ29