Truly Together for the Gospel

"The basis for human identity," said Rev. Thabiti Anyabwile at the Together for the Gospel conference a few weeks ago, "is our unity in Adam as his biological descendants and God's image-bearers." Here is a brief clip from that session:

The entire message, "Bearing the Image: Identity, the Work of Christ, and the Church," can be downloaded here. I believe every Christian should listen to it and take it to heart.

There are a couple of reasons why I think it is so important and timely. One is that it comes in the wake of the Jeremiah Wright fiasco. (By the way, Thabiti Anyabwile has some excellent things to say about that on his blog.) It's clear there are still a lot of misconceptions about race, and in spite all of the advances we are supposed to have made, race is still used as a weapon to divide people and stir up hatred.

Another reason I think it's important is that my wife and I have been called to grow our family through international adoption. We are currently in the process of adopting a little girl from China and a brother and sister from Haiti. As you can imagine, we anticipate certain challenges to arise.

But, praise God, we are blessed to be part of a much larger and diverse family, one that is founded on divine adoption and encompasses every nation, tribe, and tongue. No matter what our skin color, we all bear the image of God, and to allow discrimination and division to creep in would be an insult to the gospel.