Aren't we just one happy family??

This quarter of school work is finally over. I finished two classes, one was entitled Race and Identity in Paul taught by Dr. Love Sechrest and the other was Systematic Theology II, The Reconciliation and Healing of Persons taught by Dr. Ray Anderson. Both classes were amazing and I always find it amusing when two classes complement each other. The first class, Race and Identity in Paul talked about Paul's understanding of ethne (ethnic identity) in the 1st century and from that position we then attempted to understand our ethnic identities in this century.

In order to do that we must attempt to understand race as having in many ways replaced the language of ethnic. People in the 1st century were separated by geography, ethnic identity, and class, but the premise of race had not been developed yet. Race is a social construction developed mainly in the U.S. to determine for social and political reasons who was white and who was not. African-Americans during the writing of the Constitution were not considered "whole" persons, so race became a deciding factor of how we determined who had the "inalienable rights" which we claim so dear in the country.

From this discussion, we would then look at the New Testament, Paul's writings and attempt to understand the conflicts which he faced in unifying this uniquely diverse church in Christ. He faced many of the same issues we today face within our homogeneous churches, and how then can our churches which represent the "coming new age", not reflect this "present evil age" in which we live. How can we work towards unifying the body of Christ?

Galatians 3:28 of course is the main verse that we used where Paul says, "Neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, no male and female". Many churches have claimed that within this statement Paul is doing away with ethnic identity, but Dr. Sechrest claims that through this verse he is in actuality doing the opposite by affirming identity, but attempting to form a "third race" of people, i.e. the church as a non-homogeneous entity. Paul firmly believed in ethnic identity, but would not claim ethnic identity over against love in and for Christ. If we are honest and look around our churches, we will come to the conclusion that what we believe Paul was saying in these versus "may" determine the identities of our churches also.

The "neither, nor" in these versus was also only used in the Jew-Greek; slave-free; but not in the male-female statement. Paul used a "no" in that statement which has been interpreted as a possible dismantling of the societal and cultural "roles" which men and women have been given. Paul may be referencing Genesis 1.27, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
Paul did not want to say that we are not "sexed" beings, meaning we still possess a sex, (male or female). Paul also believed himself to be "of Israel" (Romans 11.1), but as James Dunn has said, "To say that Paul was simply Jewish is yes and no, because he does claim the heritage of Israel, but not the boundary markers which makes one Jewish, i.e. circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath." This makes what Paul says not fit neatly into our modern presuppositions of what we think the New Testament is saying. With all that said, what does Paul mean by "neither Jew, nor Greek" in Galatians 3.28?

I will leave this question to be answered by anyone who reads my blog, since I am not sure if anyone does anymore.