My
7-year-old African-American friend Tobias asked me a thought-provoking question
the other day: “Since Adam and Eve were white, where did black people come
from?” When I told him we don’t know what “color” they were and asked him why
he thought they were white, he said that’s what he always saw in Bible-story
books at church and in the library. My heart sank. I wondered if that might
make him think he was inferior or possibly not even created by the Lord.
All
people have their roots in the Creator God, and therefore all are equal. That’s
what the apostle Paul told the Athenians: “[God] has made from one blood every
nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26). We are all
“from one blood.” Darrell Bock, in his commentary on the book of Acts, says,
“This affirmation would be hard for the Athenians, who prided themselves in
being a superior people, calling others barbarians.” However, because we all
descended from our first parents, Adam and Eve, no race nor ethnicity is
superior or inferior to another.
We stand in awe of our Creator, who made us and gives to all “life, breath, and all things” (v.25). Equal in God’s sight, we together praise and honor Him.
