February 9

Today read Numbers 16-18

These are some thoughts about yesterdays reading ... one of my core values is racial reconcilation.

The Cost of Racism Numbers 12

Sin always has a cost. It costs us in our relationship with God but it also has a cost to the community we live in. In the introduction to the passage today I have my first criticism of their notes. It says that Moses’ first wife might have died or that this is a second wife without a name. I have a third suggestion... could this be talking about Zipporah, Moses’ first wife, and a long seated prejudice in Miriam is just now coming to the surface? Take any of the choices above and you still have Moses in an interracial marriage. Cushites are a group of African people who would now be known as Ethiopians ... they are of the darker hue. And Miriam just can’t help but criticize Moses for his interracial marriage.
This is still one of the greatest prejudices that people have today. Miriam had this prejudice and it cost her dearly and the whole community. It cost her because she came down with a case of leprosy. It cost the community of week of traveling because they had to wait until Miriam’s punishment was over and she was reintroduced back into the camp.
Prejudice is one of the sins that keep on giving. It gives grief to individuals, groups and nations.

The great tragedy today is not so much that our society is still divided along racial, cultural and ethnic lines. The tragedy is, rather, that God’s people. the church, are equally or even more deeply divided.

There is no place in God’s kingdom for racial prejudice. It is ugly and costly.