What Does The Bible Say About Mixed Race Marriages?

The Bible does not directly address the issue of mixed race marriage, but rather emphasizes the importance of love, unity, and acceptance of others. In the Old Testament, there are stories of marriage between people of different races, such as Adam and Eve and Ruth’s union with a son of Naomi. God’s Word tells us that we are all made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26), dispelling the myth that there is anything wrong with marrying a person of a different ethnicity.

Interracial marriage is allowed between any eligible man and any eligible woman, as all races are equal in the eyes of God. The Catechism states that all men have the same nature and the same origin, and all are called Jewess (especially through marriage). In 1970, surveys showed about 900,000 mixed-race couples living in the United States, and three decades later, studies showed a five-fold increase in mixed-race couples.

The Bible never forbids intermarrying with people merely because they are of different racial or cultural backgrounds. Mixed marriages are discouraged because they inevitably involve pain for the spouses and set a bad example for the children. The Church of Christ has been opposed to such unions since its beginning.

The only interracial marriage clearly outlawed in the Bible is marrying outside of the family of God. Interracial marriage is not better than marriage between believers of shared ethnicity, but in a time when some who claim Christ’s name demean it, the Bible’s answer is that God approves of marriage between a man and a woman of different races because all races are equal in his sight.

What does it say about mixing races in the Bible?

The Bible says that God made people of different races and ethnic groups. All people are equal in God’s eyes.Scripture allows for inter-ethnic marriages within the faith. The gospel demands that we show compassion and the message of Christ across ethnic lines. The NT teaches that as Christians, we are all unified together “in Christ,” regardless of our ethnicities. Our primary identity should not be our ethnicity, but our membership in the body of Christ. The Bible shows us that God’s people will be made up of people from every tribe, language, people, and nation.

By Dr. J. Daniel Hays, dean of the Pruet School of Christian Studies and professor of biblical studies. This article is from The Gospel & Racial Reconciliation (Gospel for Life Series) edited by Russell Moore and Andrew T. Walker, B&H, 2016.

1. Bible citations are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible.

What does the Bible say about being in a race?

Bible verses about race: “God made humans in his image, male and female.” All humans are created in God’s image and have a purpose. If you’re looking for Bible verses about race, you’ll be surprised to find that race isn’t mentioned in the Bible. Even though some people are from different ethnic groups, we all come from the same pair of humans created by God to show his glory. The Bible does not teach that there are different races of people. This article will make sense only to people with a biblical perspective. Our culture shows that many people aren’t ready to accept what the Bible teaches on these issues. Many people believe some races are better than others. Some people might think we’re crazy for what we believe. That’s okay. The Bible calls us to see each other as we truly are. The Bible says there are no races or species within humanity. The Bible uses the words “human race” (see Gen. 6:5, 7; Job 28:28; Ps. 12:1; Eccl. 3:10, NIV). Some English translations use “race” when the original word means “seed,” “kinsmen,” or “relative” (Ezra 9:2; Rom. 9:3). Outside the Bible, we find stories of humanity’s origin that are not very flattering (like the Mesopotamian creation myth Enuma Elish, which says humans were created to work for the gods). The Bible says humans were created to be great.

What was the race of Jesus in the Bible?

Jesus wasn’t white. You might think otherwise if you’ve been to a Western church or art gallery. The Bible doesn’t describe Jesus’s appearance, but we know he was a Middle Eastern Jew. This isn’t controversial, but many Christians don’t know it. On Good Friday, Christians go to church to worship Jesus and remember his death on the cross. In most churches, Jesus will be depicted as a white man.

What does the Bible say about marrying a non-believer?

If a woman has a non-believing husband who is willing to live with her, she cannot divorce him. The unbelieving husband and wife have been sanctified through each other.

What is the word for mixed race couples?

Miscegenation is a term used to describe laws against interracial marriage. In the US, such laws were declared unconstitutional in 1967.

Recent Examples on the Web: In 1934, the Production Code, also known as the Hays Code, was adopted by the industry. It banned interracial romance on screen. —Mayukh Sen, The New Yorker, 30 Aug. 2023 The musical comedy was like a plotless revue until Show Boat came out in 1927. It was a melodrama about miscegenation. —Vulture, 28 Mar. 2023 Many traditional dishes are a mix of foods from Europe and indigenous peoples. —Imelda García, Dallas News, 17 Mar. 2023 Because of fears of miscegenation in the early 20th century, scholars had a bias toward finding data to confirm that mixing different kinds of people resulted in problems with traits. —Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 7 July 2011 Alice is Asian, and the couple’s marriage violates Montana’s miscegenation laws. —Matt Cabral, EW.com, 27 Feb. 2023 The court also upheld miscegenation laws in the 1883 case Pace v. Alabama. —Brynn Tannehill, The New Republic, 11 Jan. 2023 Cameron is into F/X, making Avatars hate the U.S. military even more. He’s fascinated by and has a fetish for white–blue miscegenation. —Armond White, National Review, 21 Dec. 2022 These duties included not raping Black women and contributing to miscegenation. —Laura Mallonee, Smithsonian Magazine, 21 Nov. 2022.

These examples show how the word “miscgenation” is used today. These opinions don’t represent Merriam-Webster or its editors. Tell us what you think of these examples.

What are the three races in the Bible?

Problems with identification. People are traditionally grouped based on their alleged descent from the three major biblical progenitors (Shem, Ham, and Japheth) by the three Abrahamic religions. In former years, these family groups were classified and humankind was divided into three races called Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. These terms were introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history. It is now known that trying to define groups based on patrilineal descent is difficult because countries change. People often speak more than one language and come from different countries. Some nations have mixed with other nations and can no longer trace their fathers. Some have also changed their language. Also, phenotypes can’t always determine ethnicity because of interracial marriages. A nation is a large group of people living in one place, connected by their history, culture, or language. The biblical line of descent is not affected by language, place of birth, or culture. It is only the patrilineal line of descent that matters. This makes it difficult to determine the exact blood relation of any group in the modern age. Sometimes people with the same father spoke different languages, and sometimes a language spoken by a group of people with the same father was also spoken by other groups with different fathers. Another problem with patrilineal descent is that some groups have branched off. For example, Ismael and Isaac are both descendants of Shem, but they are different. We don’t know how many other groups there are.

Ethnological interpretations. People have been grouped by their biblical lineage since ancient times.