My family believes that it is a sin to marry a person who is not of the same nationality as you.\u00a0 As an example, they believe that is wrong to marry someone who is Mexican, Italian, Indian, etc.\u00a0 Being white, they also believe that it is a sin to marry someone that is black.\u00a0 When I ask them how they justify this belief they reference the Tower of Babel, but I do not think that is correct because God did not destroy the Tower of Babel for that reason.\u00a0 Are there any Bible verses that justify my family’s belief?<\/p>\n\t
The tower of Babel is evidence that all people come from the same stock. “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings<\/em>” (Acts 17:25). Israel had restrictions against marrying seven specific nations because of their idolatry, but that doesn’t carry over into Christianity. There is no restriction on whom a Christian marries in regards to nationality or skin color. There are sensible aspects, such as marrying someone who will encourage you to be a better Christian, but that is a matter of spiritual faith, not physical attributes.<\/p>\n As a counter-example, “Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman<\/em>” (Numbers 12:1). Ethiopians are dark-skinned and Israelites are light-skinned. Ethiopia and Israel were two different nationalities.<\/p>\n Other examples of people marrying different nationalities are Salmon (Israelite) and Rahab (Canaanite), Ruth (Moabite) and Boaz (Israelite), and Uriah (Hittite) and Bathsheba (Israelite). Timothy’s father was a Greek and his mother was an Israelite (Acts 16:1).<\/p>\n\t Thank you for your response! I value your answers dearly and this really clears things up.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: My family believes that it is a sin to marry a person who is not of the same nationality as you.\u00a0 As an example, they believe that is wrong to marry someone who is Mexican, Italian, Indian, etc.\u00a0 Being white, they also believe that it is a sin to marry someone that is black.\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[64,214],"class_list":["post-35053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-marriage","tag-racism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1174,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-is-the-tower-of-babel\/","url_meta":{"origin":35053,"position":0},"title":"Where is the Tower of Babel?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Where is the Tower of Babel Answer: The city of Babel is first mentioned in\u00a0Genesis 10:8-10, \"Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, \"Like Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":66529,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wasnt-babel-the-city-of-eridu\/","url_meta":{"origin":35053,"position":1},"title":"Wasn’t Babel the city of Eridu","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 13, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi there. I used to be a member of the Church and a devout Christian. I recently found something on your website that deeply disappointed me. I am specifically referring to the following answer you gave to \"Where is the Tower of Babel?\" In that answer, you state that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67321,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-does-the-bible-say-the-people-of-babel-defied-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":35053,"position":2},"title":"Where does the Bible say the people of Babel defied God?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good day, I'm slightly confused about Scripture and interpretation here. The story of Babel is always propped up as a story of man's defiance of God's will, but nowhere do I see the Bible actually state that they defied God. Yes, they did go against God's command. God wanted\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14615,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-wrong-to-marry-a-person-from-a-different-race\/","url_meta":{"origin":35053,"position":3},"title":"Is it wrong to marry a person from a different race?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I would really appreciate it if you could answer my question: Is it wrong to marry a person from a different race group? Answer: In the Bible, the concept of race doesn't exist. There are nationalities, but God states that all of mankind is one race. That is because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28224,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-person-who-married-a-person-who-had-no-right-to-marry-divorce-and-marry-someone-else\/","url_meta":{"origin":35053,"position":4},"title":"Can a person who married a person who had no right to marry, divorce, and marry someone else?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: If a man marries a woman who was not supposed to remarry because she and her husband had committed adultery, can the man in the second marriage divorce her because of her continued adulteries during the second marriage and be able to marry again? Answer: When a person marries\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67427,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-person-who-committed-fornication-marry-someone-else\/","url_meta":{"origin":35053,"position":5},"title":"Can a person who committed fornication marry someone else?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 11, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good day. I have a question concerning your answer: Do I have to marry the man I committed fornication with? My question for you is: Can the lady who asked the question get married to another person? If yes, won't that count as adultery for her and the man\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Response:<\/h2>\n