One Race: The Human Race

Answers Bible Curriculum Second Edition Unit 4 Lesson 31

In this lesson, we want to consider several questions related to the Babel division of Genesis 11:1-9. What were the world’s first people groups and where did they settle? Did cavemen ever really exist? And if all humanity is really one race, why do today’s people groups look so different from one other? This lesson will include valuable apologetic information as well as important application for the issue of racism in our day.

Our main text for the lesson is Genesis 10:1-32.

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all right well good morning welcome to Sunday school let’s begin it’s been a while since I’ve been with it been with you guys it feels like forever for me but many thanks to Steve como for filling in for me two weeks ago and leading the Sunday School lesson and reviewing the video with you by the way if you would like more information on the problem of evil and God actually microc hardy many of you know gay blogger he’s one of the pastor’s here at Grace Community Church he did an article on gays about the problem of you and he also did a sermon was kind of like a message the slash sermon here at Grace Community Church and it’s entitled God and evil and the subtitle is why the ultimate cause is not the chargeable cause so I’d recommend both that article and that message to you you can find the message at Grace Church dot work god and evil why the ultimate cause is not the chargeable pause so messages on Grace Church org and the article is that crippled gate but anyways we’re moving on today and we’re coming back to Babel we have a little bit more to say about that fourth C in our seven C’s of history confusion remember we saw last time from the time information of Genesis 10 and Genesis 11 that this event took place around two thousand two hundred and forty BC a Babel was clearly an instance of man’s pride and his desire for self sufficiency and his own exaltation man at that time glory Dan his ability to accomplish great tasks by working together in unity but God humbled man God judged man by dividing him and confusing his language now the things that I’d like to investigate with you regarding Babel today falls into three main questions and I have them here as the lesson outline for today’s class we want to know how did the people separate exactly which people groups formed where’d they go and how did they relate to the people groups that we know today also what about the cavemen were they real and when did they appear in relation to Babel are they on the earth before Babel or afterwards and then finally and I looped this question a little bit last time why is it that the people groups today are so different from one another even in appearance what accomplished this change how do we explain it tige for our lesson today is one race the human race and we’ll see why it’s entitled that as we go along now let’s pray before we continue a gracious God our Father we thank you for all that you do we thank you that you are a just God and even with things like the problem of evil we ultimately can rest that you are good and everything you do is good but I pray that as we look into these questions related to Babel state help me be able to explain it well and help it people to be able to understand it appreciate it and apply it so they are ready in an apologetic sense but also God so that they do not become swept up with the world and it’s racism and it’s prejudice but instead embrace the kind of love that you have for all people and Jesus name Amen alright let’s start with the first question does the Bible give us any specific details about the first people groups well actually it does please open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 10 Genesis chapter 10 we’re gonna look at the entire chapter it’s often called the table of the nation’s and that’s because the details of this passage works like a chart or a table about the first people groups it’s a long chapter though we’re going to examine it section by section first we’re just going to read verses one to five make some observations and then talk a little bit about interpretation so look at Genesis chapter 10 verses one to five follow along as I read now these are the records of the generations of Shem ham and Japheth the sons of Noah and sons were born to them after the flood the sons of Japheth Gomer Magog and may die at J van and tubal and Meshech and Tyrus the sons of Gomer were Ashkenazi wreaths and Tok Tok Amon the sons of jayven were Elijah and Tarshish kitten and Dodie neem from these the coastlands of the nations were separated into their lands everyone according to his language according to their families into their nations right just Paul it’s with that for now I noticed this passage begins by identifying Noah’s three sons Shem ham and Japheth all the descendants of the earth after the flood they come from these men the focus shifts in verse two to one particular son and that’s Japheth and we’re told Japheth has seven particular sons we also get his grandsons or for two of it Jacob’s sons anyways for Gomer and for Jabin now as you heard those names as you look back through the list do you recognize any of them probably do if you familiar at all with the Old Testament and certainly the Hebrews would have recognized many if not all of these names because we see them later on in the Old Testament and even in the New Testament the name Magog it actually appears in the book of Revelation final war against God the armies are said to assemble from Gog and Magog from the four corners of the earth bad die this is the this is another important name this is the Hebrew name for the Medes remember it Darius the Mede the Medes and the Persians when you see that term later on in the Old Testament it’s in Hebrew mad died so here it’s listed as mad die translated as Medes later on in our Bibles meet at that Empire with the Persians now j-man is another important name because it’s the Hebrew word or name for the Ionian peoples that is the Greeks so for example in the Book of Daniel let me hear about the king of Greece it’s literally the king of jayven the name ashkenaz might be familiar to you unnecessarily because it appears prominently in the Bible but we have the term Ashkenazi Jews today it it’s used to refer to the area of Central age and the juice that came from their Tarshish is another name you might recognize it’s where Jonah fled via boat and it’s frequently discussed in the Bible in relation to merchant shipping so those are just some of the names that might stick out to you and there’s the location information that’s also mentioned in this section – where did these descendants or part of these descendants go what says they went to the coast lands of the nations or could be translated in verse 5 the coast lands of the Gentiles I think about the Israelite situation what coasts or what sea would the Israelites have been most familiar with the Mediterranean Sea Mediterranean coast that’s important for understanding that that term there in verse 5 of course there’s also Sea of Galilee that’s about talking bigger seat now though that note the last part of verse 5 how were the people divided it says according to language according to family now let’s talk about interpretation for a second when verse 5 indicates that people divided by language does that mean that it happened this division happened before the events of chapter 11 the incident at Babel well no not necessarily how are we to understand this description of division by language and family here in chapter 10 I think is pretty simple this is a true statement but it hasn’t been explained yet when we get to chapter 11 we hear oh this is why the families divided this is why we have different languages so Moses explains how the people spread out but then in chapter 11 he goes back to explain how that happened here’s another question should we see all of japheth descendants inhabiting the coast lands or just the sons of jayven jayven the greeks they sir we’re known for going all around the Mediterranean but were they the only ones for me is that there’s a word of prophecy in Isaiah that is relevant this prophecy comes at the this word comes at the end of the book of Isaiah and it’s referring to distant peoples coming to know God through the witness of scattered Jews Isaiah 66 19 says this Isaiah 66 19 I will set a sign among them and we’ll send survivors from them to the nation’s parsha SH put lude mashek to baal and Javan to the distant coast lands that have neither heard my fame nor seen my glory and they will declare my glory among the nation’s now if you were listening closely to that verse you hear some of the same names in the from the section we just read but where all of these inhabitants are the coastlands or were was it only Jay man and his descendants in Isaiah it’s referring to all of that as being inhabitants of the coast lands so we don’t need to restrict that particular description to just Jay van so what’s the what’s the big takeaway what’s the big picture well we want to know where did Jay fits descendents go generally so from battle and babbles south centrist Middle East in which general direction did the sons of Japheth spread out after Babel how’d you say last or Northwest yeah west-northwest they’re going towards Europe and going towards Asia very good I say generally now look the next son and his descendants this is a little bit longer section look at Genesis 10 verses 6 to 20 now we’re talking about the descendants of ham verse 6 the sons of ham were cush and Mitzrayim and put and Canaan sons of cush we’re Seba and havilah and Sapta and Raymont snap taken and the sons of Rhema were sheba and dedan now cush became the father of Nimrod he became a mighty one on the earth he was a mighty hunter before the Lord that is Yahweh therefore it is said like Nimrod a mighty hunter before Yahweh the beginning of his kingdom was babel in eric and accad and calneh in the land of Shinar from that land he went forth into assyria and built nineveh and Reijo both year and kala and resin between Nineveh and kala that is the great city miss Rahim became the father of loot even anonym Lahab Eamon NAFTA he manned path regime and Catholic mean from which came the Philistines and captaining Canaan became the father of Sidon his firstborn and Heth and the jebusite and the amorite and the girgashite the hivite and the ark I and the Sinai and the are bedight and zamurai and Hema theit and afterward the families of the Canaanites were spread abroad the territory of Canaanite extended from sidon as you go toward Guerard as far as gaza as you go toward sodom and gomorrah and admah and zeboiim as far as lasha these are the sons of ham according to their families according to their languages by their lands by their Nations now let’s observe this longer section we’re told of four sons of Han in verse six cush mitzraim put and Canaan and we can get the grandsons for some of hands sons and even some great grandsons near Maud is one grandson we’ll get a bit more information we learned from this text that Nimrod had a kingdom in the land of Shinar that kingdom included battle and it expanded into Assyria I also hear that Nimrod was a mighty hunter so mighty that there was apparently a Hebrew saying or Hebrew idiom commemorating Nimrod now note this little aside we get about the Philistines this aside tells us that the Philistines are not from the line of Canaan but they are descendants of castling through Mitzrayim we actually might get that confused sometimes too but this is clear even here in Genesis 10 those teams are not Canaanites though we do hear a lot about Canaan that’s actually this seems to be the so good focus of this second part of the passage I get a lot of information about came in and his descendants but notice at the description the language of it shifts in verse 16 we started verse 15 with two names the first two sons of Canaan Sidon and hath but then it switches to a tribal designation and then the Jebusite the amorite the Gargash I hereby archives I Knight Harvard IDEs amirite and Hema theit we combine those two together we have 11 lines of descent from Canaan but also in this section on ham we get a little bit more location information specifically about the territory of Canaan and his descendants we’re told that the territory extended between Sidon in the north to be around modern-day Lebanon to Gaza in the South Gaza has been in the news a lot over the past decade or so where’s Gaza Southwest Israel South West Palestine in between Israel and Egypt Gaza Strip so the Canaanite territory goes from Lebanon from Sidon down to Gaza now again looking at the names given in this text many of them might be familiar to you as they were to Israel certainly Canaan would have been very familiar to Israel Canaan and the Canaanites why because they were Israel’s primary enemies God gives the Torah to Moses and Moses gives it to Israel they are instructed to go in and seize the land of the Canaanites and destroy all of them so Canaan would certainly be on Israel’s mind when the mitzrayim is also important the mystery game is actually the name for Egypt in Hebrew and so when you see the term Egypt in the Old Testament it’s this name mitzvah e.push is also another important name pushes the Hebrew name for Ethiopia so you see Ethiopia in your Bible translation it’s the same term here translated as cush Sidon we see later on often associated with the city of Tyre both were important trading cities in the area of modern-day Lebanon tyre and Sidon Nineveh we certainly know about Nineveh the important for Jonah in the Assyrian Empire Babel obviously Babel and shanaar that’s part of the later Babylonian Empire and we also see Sheba in the list may have something to do with the Queen of Sheba but we’re not sure now this section ends like the first says the people were divided by language and family in two different lands now let’s interpret a little bit again in the previous section we only got descriptions the descendants of some of Jason’s Japheth great grandsons but in this section this section on ham is not only longer than the previous section on Japheth but it includes extensive detail about a certain descendant of ham the Canaanites why why is this section get more attention and canaan especially what do you think yeah these peoples are more important for the people of Israel to know about because they’re the ones that people love is you’re gonna be interacting with most directly and this is really a feature of this whole list we’re getting a lot of descriptions about different peoples and descendants but the ones that are most important for Israel to know about they get more treatment and those that are further away they get less treat and that makes sense because this is supposed to help and situate Israel now let’s see if we can answer the same question that we did about Japheth in general where did the descendants of ham move after the rebellion at Babel yeah so they’re generally moving south and west towards the coast of the middle east towards the Mediterranean and towards Africa see that’s why we would have Egypt and Ethiopia and those those kingdoms being established by the descendants of ham so generally west and south toward Africa are the descendants of ham now one more section we’ve got one more son of Noah let’s hear about Shem and his descendants verses 21 to 32 let’s take a look there also to Shem the father of all the children of Eber and the older brother of Japheth children were born the sons of Shem were elam and asshur and arpachshad and Lud and Arum sons of Aaron were US and whole and Gaither and mash our packs had became the father Sheila Sheila became the father ever to Sajha born Eber name what the one was Peleg for in his days the earth was divided and his brother’s name was Joktan joktan became the father of Alma dad and she laughs and has a mark has our Mavis and Jarrah had aramet who’s all declic and a ball and a beam al and Sheba and oser and havilah and jobab all these were the sons of joktan now they’re Selim it extended from Missha as you go toward safar the hill country of the east these are the sons of Shem going to their families according to their languages by their lands according to their Nations these are the families of the sons of Noah according to their genealogies by their Nations and out of these the nations were separated on the earth after the flood now let’s observe this last section Shem we’re told has five sons elam ashur arpachshad lud and Aran but once again Moses is selective about Saul I guess about the grandsons we hear only about Aram’s and our pact shads later descendants but the genealogies particularly interested in Ebers descendants skips out listing our packs heads full descendants or Sheila’s full descendants and focuses on Eber Eber is shams great-grandson and Hebrew himself has two sons Peleg and Joktan that’s not mentioned here but in chapter 11 we see that Abraham’s descent is found through Peleg so Abram is then he burped through peleg now for some reason we get a lot of information about Jacques tan and his descendants Joktan has 13 sons for 13 great grandsons for Shem we’re also told where joktan and his descendants settled they settled in the area from Missha as you go toward safar and this would indicate the southern section of the arabian peninsula Joktan is associated with the Arabian people now like the previous section she made me recognize some of the names that are mentioned in these verses over it’s mentioned in kings and chronicles as some kind of trading port used in Solomon’s time famous for its gold sheba appears again Asher appears this is the Hebrew term for Assyria and it’s used elsewhere in the Old Testament so you see a sure it’s the same as Assyria arum is another important one from Aaron we get the name aramean and Aramaic your Bible might translate Aaron as Syria not all Bibles do that sometimes they leave it as Aaron but Aaron is the same as Syria elsewhere in the Old Testament of course Eber is particularly important because that’s where we get the term Hebrew a verse 32 says that the families from Noah resulted in the separated nations of the earth and notice when it says it happened after the flood he’s the Nate these nations were separated after the flood now let’s interpret this last section ask a few interpretation questions how should we understand this phrase after the flood and verse 32 did the families immediately divine after they left the ark well no just like we said before we’re getting some information here that’s gonna be explained further in the next chapter in chapter 11 they did divide soon after the flood but it was only after the events at Babel remember that takes place about a hundred years or so after the end of the flood but we also see again this repetition of dividing according to language again that that points to Babel not simply the flood but now that big general question where do the descendants of Shem move after the events at Babel other three different sons they seem to stay the closest around Babel descendants of Shem they stay around the area Babel and they move south in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula in general sense of Shem spread around Babel and into the South the least so could summarize the information the main information given in this passage they want to know what were the first people groups and where did they go the descendants of Japheth generally moved north and west towards Europe and Asia censorship of ham generally moved west and southward the Middle East in Africa and the descendants of Shem generally moved south or spread out around Babel in the Middle East let’s make this a little bit easier to understand with a big map alright some of them might be obscured by my myface but you can see the different colors they’re corresponding to the green is Japheth the orange is ham and the purple is Shem and you can see how they spread out in general now you can also see that why I say in general not every single descendant of the sons went in the same direction as the rest some of Japheth descendants appeared to have gone east some of ham and Shems descendants appeared to have gone north west and while many of the names that are featured in this chapter of Genesis when combined with the other information we have in the Bible we can be pretty confident about where they actually ended up not all the names can have such precision in fact if you compare maps and different study Bibles and such about this chapter the table in the nations you’ll notice that not everybody puts the names in the same place names like Gomer Magog and Magog and Tarshish they get put in some different areas again it has to do with the fact that the most important peoples once there be closest to Israel they’re the ones who get the most information in the Bible so we can be more confident about where they were but the less important people’s for Israel to know about it’s a little bit harder for us to place them but still you can see just from this map and from the information Genesis chapter that issue that people visualize they go into the promised land thing would have had a really good idea of where they were in relation to other peoples of the earth they would understand where their neighbors came from and who their neighbors were because this information has been provided by Moses / God now to be sure not all of these people groups mentioned here remained in the locations they initially spread out some of them continued to migrate or portions of them continued to migrate some were exterminated through war or enslave some were dispersed forcibly taken into new lands these things were not these descendants and their migrations they were not static and Israel’s own experience featured all of these types of experiences all of these these changes and certainly other nations did – nevertheless we do see from this how all the nations began to spread out after Babel and it was this was the beginning of the migrations that ultimately brought people to as far-flung places as Japan Australia North America and South America it was just this process descendants of Shem ham and Japheth spreading out across the world now speaking of this spreading out let’s now talk about cavemen did cavemen really exists and when did they as the people were spreading out from Babel they were moving into lands that no other people and in which no other people lived now think about the challenges they would have faced as they did that they would need to find food they need to find shelter place to sleep and they would need to fence against animals and other migrating tribes to handle these challenges the people would eat supplies but where would they have gotten their supplies they either had to already have it and bring it with them or they had to make it from the land but remember these are uninhabited lands there would not have been any markets to buy food or supplies from no ins to stop at all these families had as they spread out across the world was what they carried with them what their animals carried if they had any animals and what they could easily make or take from the land moreover let’s remember that each family did not have the skills that were once part of the larger community at Babel for example we here in the early chapters of Genesis that some people were already working skillfully with metals before the flood and before Babel metalworking was something discovered and used and metalworking was probably part of the community at Babel there were metal workers who are providing that service to the other peoples and families at Babel but when the family is divided that means that people’s skills are split their specializations are splits so knowledge and skill and metalworking for instance was no longer part of each family now no longer part of each community each family group then had to when it came to metalworking they had to make do with what metal tools they already had or they didn’t have any they had to find new tools they had to make tools from other materials and what kind of tools would they have made well before I asked that let’s let’s transport ourselves into this situation consider how we would fare if we were suddenly forced into the wilderness today I mean the true wilderness not like a park or something like that we are highly sophisticated Americans 21st century but you throw us into the wild with only what we can carry and suddenly we’re gonna look pretty primitive well we might even look a little pathetic there are no microwaves that we can use in the wilderness no water coolers no hardware stores supermarkets all the things that were used to for providing our needs it’s truly back to basics if we’re gonna survive we’ve got to forage we’ve got to hunt and we’ve got to make everything ourselves so let’s say we need to break something open but we don’t have any tools with us for doing that so what would we use yeah a rock or a sturdy stick that’s all we have access to or we’re gonna need shelter I don’t know about you I’m not very good at building shelters I don’t have tools for that I don’t have knowledge of how to build shelters so if you are I are in the middle in the wilderness what kind of shelter would be ideal if we were to happen upon it in the wild me a cave a cave is sturdy it’s a good respite from the Sun or rain you don’t have to really modify it very much it’s already built to you now it’s mildly defensible there’s only one entrance usually and so you can defend yourself true cave is not transportable that’s a disadvantage but it would make a good home base while we make tents or some other kind of housing now if your I lived in a cave and use stone tools because we’re suddenly in a desperate situation does that mean that we’ve become stupid or barbaric no of course not if you take us out of the wilderness and put us back in civilization we will go right back to being sophisticated we’ll show ourselves to be culturally savvy technologically advanced but in the wilderness you don’t see that we look largely culturally and intellectually lacking what am I getting at I’m trying to expose the faulty stereotypes of people in the past who use stone tools and lived in caves scientists and historians sometimes just talk about a Stone Age in which people were without culture and were relatively unintelligent these people they could even make metal tools they lived in K they painted the most basic of paintings what a bunch of Neanderthals but really when we understand the true history of the earth recorded in the Bible we can see that there’s a much more sensible explanation these so-called Stone Age peoples they were not unintelligent they were not uncultured at all they were simply spreading out after the confusion of Babel and making use of what was available as the numbers within these people groups grew and as they found suitable locations to permanently settle and as they perfected skills that they needed to learn or relearn many of these groups reestablished cities trade and cultural pursuits but we call today civilization it was really with them the whole time they just didn’t have a way to manifest it so yes cavemen were real but they were not the ignorant Bruce that they’re often thought of today Bible shows us the right way to understand cavemen and cavewomen there’s a very reasonable explanation they were just the people who were spreading out in the days after Babel but now we come to the third and the biggest question of our class today we’ve seen how the people groups spread out we’ve seen how the process of spreading out cause these people groups to a temporarily adopt more primitive lifestyles but how is it though that the people became so different it’s so different from one another especially or even in appearance as you know man and his sinfulness he has long used differences in appearance as a channel for his hatred and distrust of his fellow man it’s not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong or right by having a certain I shape or no shape or skin color but these physical features they make tangible they make concrete more abstract issues differences in culture differences in religion differences in ethnicity and also if a person suffers hurts and oppression at the hands of another culture he can channel his hatred for that group in the way he looks at their appearance mere appearance becomes an excuse for man to show hatred and to show mistreatment we choose to hate those who are different from us even because of their different appearance there was a time and some of you know this there was a time when man sought to scientifically erect a hierarchy of races based on evolutionary theory certain ethnicities were said to be superior to or more highly evolved than other ethnicities and this superiority was supposedly even evident in physical appearance in this system which was created by white Europeans who do you think was at the top white Europeans and who was at the bottom black Africans such thinking was prevalent even in the beginning of the 20th century supposedly an advanced era this is where people have had all this education all this technological advanced and yet this is how they thought and the most obvious example is Nazi Germany of course Nazi Germany under Hitler it saw blond-haired blue-eyed Germans to be the master race and Jews and Slavs were so inferior as to be worthy only of extermination now perhaps we think we’re all past that now that the world has learned it’s lesson when it comes to these things but of course it has not our news more than ever is full of racial conflict black versus white native versus immigrant European versus middle-eastern Chinese versus Japanese any people group there’s some sort of race problem and much of this again it’s simply based off of what appear to be and make differences between the races even in a carrots what does the Bible have to say about all of this you remember the title today’s lesson but it was actually clear that we’re all just one race there aren’t different races we often talk that way but that’s not really the case Genesis 3:20 we’ve looked at that person already Genesis 3:20 says that Eve was the mother of all living every human that ever came to be came from Eve that’s why her name is Eve of course apart from Adam in acts 17:26 missus Paul speaking at the Areopagus to the Athenians Paul says that from one God made every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth every ethnos every people who it was all from one one blood one man and even though we look a little different from each other on the outside even though we are raised part of different cultures we are all one race there’s no intrinsic superiority or inferiority between any people group in fact what appears to be drastic differences in appearance can be explained by two very simple processes that have been working since Babel and actually because of Babel one of those two processes genetic variation and natural selection now when I say natural selection some of you might be like wait a second red flags going up is it natural selection evolution well the terms are often used interchangeably by evolutionist they’ll say natural or natural selection is evolution but they the terms are actually not the same they’re distinct natural selection also called adaptation or micro evolution or survival of the fittest it’s defined in this way by one article from Answers in Genesis natural selection is the process by which individuals assessing a set of traits that confer a survival advantage in a given environment tend to leave more offspring on air that survived to reproduce in the next generation now I don’t know if that definition is abundantly clear to you but it will be made more clear through an example let’s say let’s talk about dogs I like dogs let’s say you have two dogs male and female one has long hair and one has short hair they run away from their owners into the wilds of Alaska during the summer they start having puppies first generation of puppies ends up containing a mixture of long haired dogs and short haired dogs however the harsh Alaska winter comes and the short haired dogs just can’t stay warm enough and so they all die sorry to say so who’s left to populate after the winter only the long haired dogs they’re the only ones who survived and some of these long haired dogs still contain within them the genetic information for producing short-haired dogs and so when the new dogs have puppies the next year most of the puppies are long-haired but there are a few short-haired dogs that are also born but what’s going to happen to those short-haired puppies in the next winter if the environment stays consistent they’re gonna die and will be able to survive you don’t have the hair for it so after a few generations the dog couples in this particular area of Alaska don’t no longer produce any short-haired dogs why it’s because the genetic information for producing short-haired dogs has been lost all the creatures who had it died or did not pass it on this is what I mean by natural selection natural selection is an observable process in which genetic information is lost by less successful variants of an animal kind in a given environment short-haired dogs they weren’t good for that environment so their genetic information for short hair was lost that’s natural selection now both creationists and evolutionists agree that natural selection has played a role in the development of creature populations around the world it’s why we see what’s called speciation so why we see the variance in an animal kind it’s why the woolly mammoths died out in North America and Siberia but other variants of the elephant kind in Africa and Asia they did quite well and continue to survive a key difference though between evolutionists and creationists when it comes to natural selection is that evolutionists say that natural selection along with mutation and other factors can over time not just produce variants of a kind but change a creature into another kind natural selection and mutation say can turn a fish’s descendants one day into a dog that’s the difference this macro evolution is not observed today nor is it genetically possible because natural selection as we’ve seen even from our little example about dogs it results in a loss of information a loss of genetic information it does not provide new information which is what you need to produce a new kind now what does all this have to do with humans well I’ll get to that but let me go back and talk about the other process that’s important genetic variation genes can also be lost not just from natural selection but also due to simple genetic variation and to see this let’s talk about dogs again and again this is a simplified example genetic inheritance this a little bit more complex than when I’m saying here but I think this will help you get the idea suppose you have two dogs with medium length hair each dog has one allele and allele is just a word for a type of gene each dog has one allele for long hair which we’ll call ell and one allele for short hair which we’ll call s they inherited these two alleles from their dog parents each dog is L s and that combination man that’s in medium like pair now these dogs have puppies and some puppies are SS which heals Shorthair some RLS which yields medium hair and some are ll yielding long hair now suppose that two long haired dogs who only have ll they move away from the rest the dog population what kind of puppies will these ll dogs produce only long haired dogs why because that’s the only genetic information available only information for long hair is present in their gene pool in the collection of genes in their location these dogs have separated from the rest of the dog population and therefore are lost access to certain gene variants for other types of hair so these long-haired dogs have become distinct from many of the other dogs because now they can only produce long hair now let’s bring this all back to humanity the physical differences between the people groups that we see today they can be accounted for with these two processes I’ve just described simple genetic variation and perhaps a small amount of natural selection as the or while the people in original battle population after the flood they enjoy die to a diverse gene pool they have many different genetic variations in one place so people as they got married and as they had children there was a lot of variation these families suddenly separated from one another because of the confusion of languages at Babel which means that these families isolated and greatly reduced the gene pool the collection of genes that they had in each new community and humans can only reproduce with the genetic information that they already have so like the long-haired dogs that suddenly separated from the greater dog population each group of humans became very quickly this distinct from the other groups let’s take skin color as an example first of all the only thing that separates my skin color on skin color of Khalif is their presence of a certain chemical in our skin melanin or more specifically you melanin all of us have melanin in different amounts it’s something that our bodies make and no one is truly black or white we’re all in a spectrum of brown see a lot of it if you have a lot of new melanin in your skin you will be very dark brown which is what we call black but here the little you melanin in your skin then you’ll be very light brown it is what we call white now you can increase the amount of you melanin in your skin by doing a certain activity what’s that going out into the Sun Tanning that’s a one way to increase it there’s some people burn rather than tan but you have natural levels of eumelanin and you melanin producing ability and that is simply based on your genetics it’s inherited from your parents so if two people with dark skin marry what skin color were little children tend to have dark I have two people with light skin Mary what skin color with their children tend to have light now what if someone with dark skin marries someone with light skin what skin color will their children tend to have it will be a mixture usually they will produce children that are brown or they might produce children who are light-skinned or dark-skinned now imagine the skin colours for their various couples that were there at Babel the different families you had some couples that were probably only light-skinned and some couples that were only dark-skinned and some that were a mixture of skin colors because these families separated after Babel they took with them the limited genetic information that they had even for skin color so if a light-skinned family are light skins couple separated that means they can only produce light skin babies and when those babies grew up the only people in their communities that they can marry were also light-skinned therefore the next generation in that community would also be light skinned and the next generation also light skin in the next generation also light skin in this way a whole region a whole large collection of people came to possess the very same similar skin tone very same or similar skin tone in a relatively short amount of time it’s just because we had genetic variation that became isolated the same process happened with many other physical characteristics and there is this the reason why you and I can point to certain physical features like eye shape or eye color or facial structure and say oh he looks German or oh she looks Japanese it’s because certain genetic variations for eye shape or eye color facial structure they became isolated in these people groups as the community is separated from one another that largely explains the differences that we have today though it’s possible that natural selection did play a small role it’s possible that some emerging characteristics in each community helped certain people survive longer have more children or achieve greater status these physical traits then became naturally selected over time and to see how this might have played out let’s take skin color again as an example it’s currently thought that dark skin is beneficial for environments with lots of sunlight like in locations near the equator the reason for this is more you melanin in the skin means the body tends to experience less negative effects from ultraviolet rays therefore light-skin descendants who settled in africa may have had slightly more trouble with skin cancer and other sun related issues and therefore survived less and had less children than those with dark skin con charlie it’s also thought that light skin is beneficial for environments that have little sunlight since light skin light skin individuals can produce more vitamin d with less sun exposure therefore dark-skinned descendants in northern europe or asia they may have suffered from vitamin d deficiency or more easily suffered which could have led to rickets and other problems and therefore dark-skinned settlers might have survived less long and had fewer children than lighter skin people in those areas so natural selection may have played an influence as to where certain skin colors came to dominate but I speak tentatively about that because humans are pretty clever God made humans pretty intelligent and there are ways around these issues if people just tried hard enough light skinned inhabitants in an area with a lot of Sun they simply could have covered themselves more or dark-skinned inhabitants and northern climes they could have gotten their vitamin D from other sources other than the Sun like from the animals that they hunted in ate but still I hope you can see that these two simple processes and these are processes that we observe today they can account for what looked like drastic differences physically between the people groups if we examine this on a genetic level I think many of you know this the differences between people groups are actually very very slight and they were simply the results of the families separating from one another spreading out across the earth after battle evolutionary biologists claimed that there was simply not enough time for all of the human diversity we see today to result from for couples starting around 4000 years ago at Babel but that’s not the case and the only reason they say that is because they base their calculations on evolutionary assumptions so inferred rates of birth rates of mutation rates of separation it’s all based on an evolutionary model they say this couldn’t have happened because our evolutionary model says it couldn’t have happened or in other words to prove their evolutionary view they create a timeline that must assume evolution to be true but that’s vicious circular reasoning there wasn’t heed enough time for today’s diversity to be produced from the families that were there at Babel and just through natural selection and genetic variation of course these things were dynamic like language and culture physical characteristics continue to morph as people continue to mix with and separate from one another certain features became more valued or devalued by society or certain traits make one more successful or less successful so these things were constantly changing even as they are today but what’s the main point we are indeed all one race and in Christ we’ve been given the wonderful duty through the gospel to love and win every people group every tribe every tongue every nation to Christ no person has greater or less value based on what people group to come from because all are made in the image of God and that’s what gives them their value that’s what gives you your value and you know that God is no respecter of persons based on appearance he says to Samuel when Samuel is looking for the next king of Israel and you remember this probably first samuel 16:7 do not look at his appearance talking about the sons of Jesse that God rejected do not look at his appearance at the height of his stature because I have rejected him for God sees not as a man sees for man looks the outward appearance but Yahweh looks at the heart not only this but because we are all one race because we’re all human we all the same desperate need as our first parents and that’s the need for salvation and the need for deliverance from death and into dressing this need it delighted our Lord Jesus Christ – totally pierce through all racial prejudices and boundaries and we can see this not only the New Testaments Universal gospel scope but also in Jesus’s own ministry because besides the Jews – what other two people groups hated people groups did Jesus minister samaras Gentiles remember Jesus’s conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well she says to him how can you being a Jew ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan the Jews despised the Samaritans they were half-breeds idolaters Jews even called Jesus a Samaritan at one point just to show him contempt the Samaritans didn’t like the Jews they responded in kind there’s a one time reduce was trying to get to Jerusalem he wanted to pass through a Samaritan town and they wouldn’t let him James and John they said he want us to call down fire from heaven on these wicked Samaritans and Jesus rebuked them that wasn’t Jesus’s goal his goal was to preach the good news of the gospel and this he did with the Samaritan woman and with those who were there to town and many of those people the whole town says believed and they became part of God’s people but Jesus didn’t just miss administer to the Samaritans he also ministered to Gentiles one of them was that Roman centurion remember him who has such great faith and contrast the lack of faith in Israel he was a Roman they were considered to be thoroughly unclean they were oppressors to the Jewish people they represented the government that the Jews hated Jews saw Gentiles as unclean dogs they didn’t even want to go in their house Jesus was ready to go to their house he was actually going to do that to heal this man’s I’m serving but it was only the man’s humble faith that presented prevention Jesus from doing so the Centurion sent to Jesus and said I’m not worthy for you to come under my roof but just say the word and I know that my servant will be healed but it wasn’t just Jesus the same race penetrating work ethnicity disregarding work was carried on by the Apostolic Church Philip had a great ministry among the Samaritans Peter and Paul gladly brought the message to the Gentiles though they were Jews gladly ministered to the Gentiles Paul became the apostle of the Gentiles even though they weren’t part of the same people group in a sense they were because we’re all human you might sometimes think that life would be so much easier if we were all the same we were all the same people group we all had the same ethnicity same appearance same culture same language but God delights to show his glory by breaking through all the barriers that man clings to in his sinfulness all the barriers that man sets up between himself and his fellow man things like language things like culture things like social class things like gender Jesus tricks all to come to him and behold his glory and this is something we ourselves have experienced is it not God reached down you rescued you and me and most of us not Jewish or even from the Middle East why should we have received God’s attention why should we have experienced God’s mercy but he delighted to do that he delights to do that to all people all people groups pleased him to show himself kind by reaching down and drawing those who are far off and bringing them near even us that’s what Jesus did that’s what he delighted to do if that’s the heart of God then shouldn’t we delight to do the same God found it so enjoyable to show his goodness the show his mercy to the people groups that are most hated and distrusted by men shouldn’t we well we forego the joy of showing everyone God or will we secretly harbor prejudices against people certain people groups supposing the some are worthy of God’s love and others are not well we sinfully hold a grudge against an entire people group for what certain people of that people group have done to us what we foolishly believe that some people groups are just better than others on the fact that matter is we are all inheritors of common grace and original sin just manifest it differently I mean think about our own culture our own ethnicity American our Americans superior to all other cultures and ethnicities in the world of course not maybe certain good things about being an American certain values in our culture that are laudable there are a lot that are not but we are inheritors of common grace and a very common depravity just manifest a little differently in our culture that it is in other cultures know people are worthy of salvation but all are made in God’s image and all are in desperate need we have a common situation we are one blood one people one race even Christ became a human to save humans and show God our to show God’s glory and so let us do the same let us love and give the gospel to our entire race the human race this have no room for partiality which James talks about based on ethnicity or culture well that’s pretty much all the time we have today it’s a lot of information I know if you have questions about what you’ve heard today questions about this topic please email me that’s all for this week next week we proceed on in the chronology of the Bible but we’re actually leaving the book of Genesis for a brief time actually gonna go over to the book of Job cuz it seems that job is the next account that appears chronologically I’m going to talk about job and his suffering what God was teaching us the book of Job so hope you’ll be back that’s gonna be a great time let’s close in prayer Lord God we confess the times that we have been evil in our prejudice against our fellow man a fellow image-bearers God we have no right ever God to discriminate based on appearance based on people group for we are all made in your image you have given dignity to all people that is not innate to them but it comes from you that’s why God you said it is it is evil for us to even speak badly about another person much less mistreat them but Lord you are you are one who forgives sin Lord thank you that you have forgiven us all our sins including including this for those that know you the Lord God we don’t want to live that way anymore we want to love all people just as you do show kindness and grace to all people just as it was shown to us so god I pray that your love would fill our hearts in such a way that we do that that we delight particularly to show love to those who are most hated most distrusted most ignored in our society and in our world we’re God I pray that we would have mercy on others just as you have had mercy on us we would love to imitate you in this way I know God that’s only possible by your spirit we need your spirit please work and I’m gonna pray that you would show yourself to be great as we show your love to other people Jesus name Amen thank you everyone I’ll see you again scene