Racial Hatred
Reprinted from The Carolina Messenger, April 2003
David R. Pharr

(This article is from a lesson given at the
1993 Freed-Hardeman University Lectures.)

John’s simple explanation sums it up. “The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans” (John 4:9).

Back in the 8th century B.C. the Assyrians had invaded the northern Kingdom of Samaria, removed much of the population, and replaced them with people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharva (2 Kings 17:24). Those that were left and those that were brought in intermarried and the result was a mixed race.  To the Jews this was unforgivable. By mixing their blood with Gentiles they lost their right to be called Israelites.

Then in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah the Samaritans had been refused a part in the rebuilding of the temple. The breach was widened further when a renegade Jew of the priestly family married the daughter of the Samaritan enemy Sanballat. A rival temple was built on Mount Gerizim. This was the mountain to which the Samaritan woman referred in John 4:20.  In about 129 B. C. Jewish forces had destroyed the Samaritan temple. This is just a sample of the events that led to such bitterness between these peoples.

During Christ’s ministry the hatred was as strong as ever. When the Jews wanted to express their bitter scorn toward Jesus, they asked sneeringly, “Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?” (John 8:48). But the contempt worked in both directions. Once, when Jesus and his disciples wanted to visit a village of Samaria, they were turned away simply because the Samaritans knew they were going to Jerusalem. There was discrimination and there was reverse discrimination. James and John had in mind a quick solution to such Samaritan bad manners. They asked if fire ought to be called down to consume them. Jesus gave them a stern rebuke: “Ye know to what manner of spirit ye are of” (Lk. 9:51-56). The same rebuke is needed for like attitudes today.

The Samaritans were especially obnoxious to Jews, probably even more so than were other Gentiles. They did not “know their place.”  If they had just admitted their inferiority, they might have been more easily tolerated, but they insisted on being equal. An outright Gentile, like Cornelius, who knew his place in relation to Jews, could even be respected, but not these obstinate Samaritans, who thought they were just as good as Jews.  Sounds familiar, does it not?

When we consider the hatred between these peoples, we are not surprised, therefore, that the woman at the well was surprised that Jesus, a Jew, would ask her for a drink of water.  It is probable that the clause in verse 9, “have no dealings with,” actually meant that they would not share vessels, such as the very pitcher with which she drew the water.  This sounds very much like the old South’s requirement of separate drinking fountains. No wonder she was astonished when Jesus asked for a drink from her pitcher. Ethnic enmity had festered and flared for centuries. Christ was ready to dismiss it in a moment by simple act of asking for a drink of water.

Racial and ethnic tensions were no more prevalent and no more bitter then than now. The point to be made is not merely about Jews and Samaritans: it is about Jews and Palestinians; it is about blacks and whites; it about immigrants and “Americans”; it is about white policemen beating a black man; it is about black retaliation against Korean shopkeepers; it is about Serbs killing Croatians; it is about congregations closing their doors to people of color; it is about black or white leaders who seek a following by playing on racial fears. Most of all, it is about how I feel toward people who look different or who come from a different background and culture.

Peter’s statement in Acts 10:34-35 has forever settled the issue of racial and ethnic equality for those who believe the Bible:

Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness.

“Have we not one father? Hath not one God created us” (Mal 2:10)? God made us all of one flesh and of one blood (1 Cor. 15:39; Acts 17:;26). Christ died for every man (Heb. 2:9). The great commission is to every creature. God’s purpose is to bring together all in Christ (Eph. 1:10).  He wants all men to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), extending his grace to all (Tit. 2-11).  Discrimination, whether racial, ethnic, economic, or whatever, is plainly condemned.

If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well: but if ye have respect of persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors (Jas. 2:8–9; cf. vv. 1-7).

Jesus applied this principle to ethnic issues in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Remember that the parable was given to answer the question of who is the neighbor to be loved. James says it plainly: “My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.”Last year,* right after the riots in Los Angels, several brethren in our area held a forum of race relations. The television stations sent news crews.  The situation could have become volatile. How wonderful it was, therefore, when one of the black speakers began his comments in the following way:

I was born in 1962 . . . into a black family in a black neighborhood. I grew up in a black culture. About all I knew about whites was that they were the “blue-eyed“ devils.” But in 1988 I was born again. When I was born again. I was not born black or white; I was born a Christian.  As a Christian, race is not the issue.

Is not this what Paul is telling us when he writes that “there is neither Jew nor Greek . . .for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28)?

The book of Acts is a history of conversions and the spread of the church (see Acts 1:8). It is also a demonstration of how the gospel removes barriers and embraces all. First, there are Jews in Acts 2. Next, the Samaritans are included in Acts 8. Eunuchs had been excluded from the temple under the law, but in Acts 8 we find that they are included in Christ. By Acts 10 the word is taken to Gentiles. And in Acts 16 special attention is given to the conversion of a woman named Lydia. The foundation for all of this was being laid by Jesus in his concern for an immoral Samaritan woman who was ignorant of the truth of God.

It is a remarkable fact that the first recorded occasion of Jesus plainly declaring himself to be the Messiah was not to learned scribes nor to morally upright Pharisees, but to this unlikely creature that he met at a well in Samaria. “The woman said unto him, I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ. . . .Jesus saith unto her. I that speak unto thee am he.”

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