Book 1 of Musings A Great Mistake

It is a great mistake to suppose people of other cultures are not as intelligent as ourselves.

The fact that God at Babel gave people different languages has hindered the various races from becoming familiar with one another. This lack of familiarity has made it easy for self-seeking leaders to incite people to war.

Sometimes we have a stereotyped opinion about people of ethnic backgrounds different from our own. While it may be true that races as a whole tend to have similar characteristics, the number of radical exceptions makes unreliable a prediction of behavior based on the race of a given individual.

We of the Western nations may suppose the citizens of emerging cultures are less intelligent than we. Here we are in error.

My own teaching of the Bible tends to be more difficult to comprehend than the familiar accept Christ; be baptized in water; join a church; go out and get souls saved.

For example, it has taken me years to come to a clear understanding of the transition from the Law of Moses to the grace and truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the Apostle Paul was continually being challenged by Jewish adherents to the Law of Moses, some of whom had received Christ as Christ but were attempting to add the new covenant to the Law of Moses, Paul emphasized that we are saved by faith and not by the works of the Law. He stressed this point so much that multitudes of Bible teachers have concluded that the Christian is not obligated to live righteously, just believe in Christ.

So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. (Romans 11:5-6)

It was some while before it dawned on me that Paul was struggling against the Law of Moses, not against righteous behavior. In fact, the third and fourth chapters of the

Book of Romans are difficult to comprehend.

It is a temptation to those of us who are Americans to imagine that people from Africa or India should be presented with the Gospel in its simplest form. We certainly should not confuse them with an analysis of the third and fourth chapters of the Book of Romans.

The truth is, it is we Americans who have a problem with anything beyond the teaching of "accept Christ and go to Heaven."

Although my contact with people of other races has not been as extensive as I would like, what communication I have had with people from Africa and Indian villagers has convinced me that they are as able, if not more able, than Americans to grasp the subtleties of Paul's explanation of the transition from Moses to Christ.

We Americans have an unrealistic pride in our intelligence. Such pride will not stand up under examination.

We indeed do greatly err when we imagine that people of less technologically sophisticated cultures are not as intelligent as we are. We harm ourselves and them in so thinking.

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. (Acts 17:26)

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