Question: What does the Bible say about interracial marriage? Is it God's will to marry someone from another language as a Christian?
Answer: Greetings to you in Jesus wonderful name!
First of all as a Christian, no race is better than the other in the sight of God. As Paul the apostle who wrote one third of the whole New Testament revelation, him being a Jew of Pharisaical stock of great religious scholar, a Roman citizen which is of the highest value, and a great intellect who knew Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and more languages, said humbly, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.". One of the greatest truth of God that is revealed through the creation story of the Bible is that, all humans are initially made in the image of God and that the whole wide world has come from one blood of the first couple Adam and Eve that God created on this earth (Gen 1:27; Acts 17:26; Jam 3:9).
When humans wanted to build a city and consolidate themselves by disobeying God's command to fill the earth (Gen 1:28; 11:4), and build a tower or temple whose top is in the heavens [i.e. seek heavenly powers of demonic realm] which was to disobey God's command to come to a God's chosen place to sacrifice and seek forgiveness for their sins through faith which He had taught through word of mouth to Adam and Eve to pass it on to their generations succeeding them (Gen 3:21; 4:4-5, 7, 16; Heb 11:4; 1 John 3:12), and finally seek a name for themselves instead to glorify the Lord God who has created them for his own purpose and given them life to enjoy by his grace and mercies (Gen 11:4), God came down to see the atrocities of humans and decided to scatter them abroad over the face of all the earth so that they can seek God and find Him before their death in this life, so that they could inherit the eternal life that He had ahead for them (Gen 11:9). To scatter people who were working against his purpose, he confused their language first in Babel [i.e. meaning confusion] and thus scatter them in all the earth. Once these people settled in variety of places on the earth which had at that time one side of seas and the other side of land from the beginning of His creation (Gen 1:10), God marked the boundaries for them and divided the world through water (Gen 10:25; Psa 104:8-9). Thus as we now know, boundaries of nations were divided by languages, and continents were separated by seas re-implementing the will and purpose of God for this earth and its inhabitants (Gen 9:1; 10:5 NLT; Deut 32:8; Isa 45:18; Acts 17:26).
God's desire for every human is that, each one should choose to seek God individually and find Him in the midst of the dark world, so that a multitude of faith people could come as one family to His living Presence from all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues to glorify God for eternity (Rev 7:9; Acts 17:26-27; Jer 23:23-24; Psa 139:7; Deut 4:7-8). Thus we see that in God's purpose for humanity and marriage, unbelief should divide us and faith should unite us (1 Cor 7:12-15; 2 Cor 6:14).
If we are a believer, God forbids us to marry with an unbelieving man or woman because the unbeliever will lead us astray from the faith of the God of the Bible (Deut 7:1-4). Even the great king Solomon with all his wisdom when he disobeyed this principle of God and took wives for himself from heathens, they led him in to idolatry and unbelief greatly which caused the Lord to become angry over his latter life (Deut 17:17; 1 Kings 11:4-13). In the same way, the Lord does not want any Christian to be unequally yoked with an idolatrous unbeliever or for that matter, even name sake believers with worldly values (2 Cor 6:14; 1 Cor 7:12-16).
So I believe that in God's will, we are free to marry anyone within true Christian faith anywhere in the world from all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues. But to really marry, we should seek God's will personally for ourselves and intensely seek Him till He confirms it to us personally and lead us to the right person in our lives, it can be either through parents or friends, or even by our own godly desire to glorify Him through the union of marriage (Gen 24:21-27; Exo 18:1; Ruth 3:1-5; Sos 3:1, 4; Prov 16:3).
Having said the spiritual principles for us to apply, in the culture we live, we should marry whom God specifically wants us to marry, only then our life and family could make a impact in the lives of our own generation. Cross cultural marriage within faith should make most sacrifices, like their family liking and many other things like how the children would be able to adopt within the new society that we bring them up. Mostly missionaries, have always crossed cultural barriers by faith in Christ and have ended up producing kids who were of a great blessing to the society of faith always (Col 3:10-11, 15).
Even God supports such inter-racial marriages of missionaries, as we see in the case of Moses marrying Zipporah the daughter of Reuel/Jethro, the priest and prince of Midian (Ex 2:17-22; 18:1-12). We know that Zipporah was a Gentile but had had great faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, because when the angel of God who was Christ in his pre-incarnate state wanted to kill Moses because of lack of circumcision for his first born-son which was a direct disobedience to the law of God (Exo 4:24-26; Gen 17:9-14), in a moment of time she had the revelation of what to do, to pacify God's anger and thus cause Moses to be continued to be used for God's glory! Zipporah used words and actions more associated with Midianite practices than with Hebrew faith practices when it came to the circumcision of her son. Because of her ignorance paired with faith, God met her with mercies rather than judgment. In short, God accepted her humility and faith. God was showing to Moses that leadership begins at one's own home before he could tell others about obedience to God's command (1 Tim 3:4-5).
In fact even in this case, Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife [i.e. a Ethiopian black race (Jer 13:23)] (Num 12:1-16). God himself saw the heart of Zipporah and acknowledged her faith (1 Sam 16:7), but Miriam and Aaron were not able to bear the cultural difference of Zipporah's life and got jealous of her closeness and boldness in speaking with Moses than their own closeness inspite of being a blood brother and sister. Being the eldest daughter who rescued Moses as a baby from imminent death and a leader over the Hebrew women in being a worship leader in singing, dancing, and playing drums after crossing the Red Sea (Exo 15:20-21), and Aaron being three years older than Moses and being a High Priest (Exo 28:1), later in a fleshly way she and her brother Aaron challenged the actions and authority of Moses by criticizing him regarding his marriage. Most probably, Miriam must have been proud of her light-skin Jewish race and must have hated or talked in a derogatory way regarding the dark skin of Zipporah, God seeing such heart attitude of Miriam, made her fully leprous to express His hatred for her prejudice. It is like God saying, "Hey Miriam, you think that your beautiful light skin is more beautiful than the dark skin of Zipporah whom I have created for my Glory, here you get it, be fully white with leprosy for seven days and you will be humbled?" Even in anger, God shows great mercies and grace to Miriam once she repented of her sin and corrected her attitude, God healed her again after seven days hearing the prayer of Moses.
This shows that even in the highest level of spiritual leadership, the problem of race, caste and culture still persist, and God is angry at it when he sees it. So even when God accepts interracial marriage, people closest to bride or bridegroom even from a Christian extended family of faith, as well as blood related family still find it hard to accept the differences. So it is wise to consider all these things before marriage and weigh it carefully to know whether you should go ahead or not, rather than think about it later to regret it for a life time.
But my strong belief is, those who are closest to God's heart will find it interesting to get in to a interracial marriage which God also seems to love his children do, to prove that He unites what the world cannot do outside the Glory of His name and power (Luke 18:27). God loves his children have a heart so big just like Him, to accommodate differences, variety and difference in opinion to overcome it through love and kindness!
Finally, God was the one who separated the races and languages by causing confusion first in Babel to disperse people in to all the world and set boundaries to make them seek Him and find Him (Gen 11:9; Acts 17:26-27, 28). But when Pentecost have come 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God gathered and united various people from many different cultures and nations around the world to come to Jerusalem and there made them supernaturally praise God in different languages of the world without them knowing it, which is a powerful sign of the New Testament of God's intention to again unite the divided people of the world in faith (Acts 2:1-13; 1 Cor 14:22). So that when people of faith after the rapture stand before the Lord and His throne in heaven, they will be from all color, race, tribes, languages and nations for the Glory of the Lord (Rev 7:9-10). Hallelujah!
Much Love and Blessings....
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