Mk 13.8,
Mt 24.7-8,
Lk 21.10-11.
You notice the title of this piece is “Nation will rise up against nation,” yet when I translate the gospel passages which usually get interpreted that way, you’ll notice I render
Mark 13.8 KWL - “For ethnic group will be pitted against ethnic group,
- and kingdom against kingdom.
- Quakes will happen various places.
- Scarcity will happen.
- These are first birth pangs.”
Matthew 24.7-8 KWL - 7 “For ethnic group will be pitted against ethnic group,
- and kingdom against kingdom.
- Quakes and scarcity will happen various places.
- 8 All these are first birth pangs.”
Luke 21.10-11 KWL - 10 Then Jesus told them,
- “Ethnic group will be pitted against ethnic group,
- and kingdom against kingdom.
- 11 Both great quakes and scarcity in various places,
- and plagues will happen.
- Both terrifying events
- and signs from heaven will happen.”
Éthnos tends to be translated “nation” because for the longest time, people presumed a
Racists especially liked this theory. Even though it’s not wholly true. The L
But racists still think of nation as meaning the very same thing as ethnic group. So whenever they talk about “this nation,” their nation, that’s what they believe it oughta be:
Nations and racism.
This kind of tribalism has been with humanity a very, very long time. Because all tribes originally began with families. Supposedly you could trust your family; not so much other families. So you kept things within your group. Over time the groups got large, and grew into whole countries, but the prejudice persisted: Trust your countrymen. Not so much foreigners.
Even when the foreigners were the very same ethnicity as you. The people of Israel, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and Midian were all Hebrews. They were all descendants of Abraham’s father and Lot’s grandfather, Terah ben Nahor. They all spoke Hebrew! But the bible describes ’em as four nations (and when Israel split into Ephraim and Judah, five), which didn’t trust one another. They considered one another foreigners. And fought one another all the time.
Most westerners are fully aware Europeans have done this too. They’re ethnically, genetically, even culturally the same. Russia and Ukraine, obviously. Yet they fight.
Why?
Anyway. The reason Jesus said nations would fight nations, then kingdoms fight kingdoms, isn’t just because he’s practicing a little
And sometimes the ethnic groups are part of the same kingdom. The United States, obviously. Ancient empires especially, whether Roman, Greek, Persian, Neo-Babylonian, Assyrian, Mongol, Chinese, and so forth; simply by virtue of conquering lots of people. But also Jesus’s homeland, the Galilee—which had both Judean settlements in it, like Nazareth; and Syrian Greek cities in it, like Sepphoris, which was only 6km away from Nazareth and predated it by half a century.
Jesus’s multinational kingdom.
In Jesus’s day plenty of people who sought
- Ethnic Greeks; people from the Grecian peninsula.
- Any of the people-groups conquered and assimilated into the Greek Empire. That’d include all the Syrian Greeks who lived in Palestine.
- Greek-speakers. Which would, believe it or don’t, also include Jews who were too “Greek” for their comfort. (Like Paul.)
There was a group called the Canaaneans, who wanted everyone driven out of Canaan (i.e. Israel or Palestine) who wasn’t of Abrahamic descent. Simon, the student
Today’s racists have the same quandary. Either you’re following Jesus, who “hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation”
And Christians need to speak up and say so. It’s not enough to not be racist. Christians have to be actively, vocally antiracist. Racism is sin, and threatens to drive people away from God’s kingdom. We should not abide this—and we abide it far too often, and pretend it’s not the gangrene it is. Racists need to be driven out of the leadership of our churches, and if they continue to disrupt the membership (
The church should be the one place where nation doesn’t rise up against nation, but accepts every ethnic group. Where no other kingdom but Jesus’s matters (but I’ll get to those other clauses in these passages another time). Where one should never feel uncomfortable because “I’m the only one of my kind in here”—fellow Christians should accommodate us, and alleviate our discomforts as best they can, because all are welcome. All.
Still, the reason Jesus brings this up, is because ethnic strife is part of sinful human history. It’s gonna happen. Race wars, “ethnic cleansing,” genocide, discrimination, apartheid, ghettos, holocausts, internment camps: They’re what evil people do to their neighbors, because they don’t love them and want them gone. We’re to fight it where we can.
But no, it doesn’t mean it’s the End yet.
And y’know, I don’t see a lot of End Times prognosticators pointing to racial unrest as a sign of the End. (That is, unless they’re pointing to the fights between Jews and Palestinians.) Partly because they’ve missed the proper definition of éthnos and think Jesus is only talking about countries; partly because they themselves have plenty of blindspots when it comes to race and racial reconciliation. Some of them are even racist.
I know far too many white Christians who think racism in America has been solved and done away with, simply because racial discrimination is largely illegal. It’s mighty naïve of them. But in their political circles, it’s a firmly held belief—used to justify not doing more to fight racism, and sometimes used to justify rolling back antiracist policies. That needs to be called out as well. The struggle isn’t over yet. Keep struggling.
