The apostle Peter grew up with some cultural practices that unintentionally justified prejudice

against Gentiles, non-Jews. Peter didn’t even know that he had these prejudices because they were

so normal in his culture. Many of us have experienced racial prejudice and discrimination, and it

hurts. But the reality is that, if we’re honest with ourselves, we have racial prejudices and biases,

too. In a vision, God shows Peter that he is inviting people from every nation, tribe, and tongue to

become part of his Kingdom. Peter should know this because of all the time he spent with Jesus,

whose ministry was inclusive of the racially marginalized.

The gospel tells us that Jesus died on the cross in order to forgive us, free us from our racial

prejudices, and empower us to loving fellowship with people of different races. Jesus died and rose

again in order to break down walls that divide people from each other and to create the multiethnic

family of God’s Kingdom. The gospel humbles us if we’re racially arrogant because Jesus died for all

the ethnicities, and the gospel exalts us if we’re racially downcast because Jesus knew our pain and

shame on the cross and truly valued us.

The gospel equips us so that we can hear criticism and receive it, and the gospel equips us so that

we can give criticism courageously when we observe racial prejudice. God calls us to this because he

is maturing his Church into the multiethnic sign of his love and the multiethnic foretaste of his

coming Kingdom that we are meant to embody now.