Black Is Blessed: A Study Of Black/African Women And Men In Scripture -- By: Catherine Clark Kroeger

Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 06:1 (Winter 1992)
Article: Black Is Blessed: A Study Of Black/African Women And Men In Scripture
Author: Catherine Clark Kroeger


Black Is Blessed:
A Study Of Black/African Women And Men In Scripture

Catherine C. Kroeger

Dr. Catherine C. Kroeger is President of CBE, and a member of the faculty of Gordon-Conwell Abng with scholarly articles, she and her husband, The Rev. Richard Kroeger, have written I Suffer Not a Woman... (Baker Book House, 1992). “Black is Blessed” was adapted from a talk Dr. Kroeger gave at a 1990 conference in Washington, DC.

People say that black is beautiful, and I believe it. I think the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen on a human being was that of a young Ethiopian woman. She had been imprisoned eleven times for her participation in evangelistic and church activities, and every time she got out, she just went right on proclaiming Christ. When she would tell how the young people were marched off to jail, with their hands uplifted, singing and praising God, her face would shine. I saw there a beauty I have never seen anywhere else.

The Bible says very clearly that black is beautiful (Song of Solomon 1:5). But as I studied the black persons mentioned in Scripture more carefully, I found another message—the Bible implies that black is blessed. Not that being black automatically makes you blessed, but these people had an unusual way of reaching out to God-finding Him as their own, embracing Him and His ways, committing themselves to the truth of the Gospel. And God blessed them.

The Bible does not usually indicate a person’s color, but more often describes the land of origin. People moved around a lot more than you might think in the ancient world. Ordinarily, but not always, people from Africa were black. On the other hand, sometimes the Bible tells us specifically of a black person in Palestine, Syria, or the Sinai desert.

Hagar

The first African women I could find in the Bible is Hagar, an Egyptian and a slave of Abraham’s wife, Sarah. In Egypt, then as now, there were both brown and black-skinned people; but there is a good likelihood that Hagar was a black woman captured in Nubia and brought as a slave to Egypt. I suspect that she may have been part of the gift package which Pharaoh, king of Egypt, gave Abraham in return for his wife, Sarah. The Bible says that Pharaoh gave him sheep, oxen, he-asses, menservants, maidservants, she-asses, and camels (Genesis 12:16). Notice that the slaves were listed along with the sheep and oxen and camels. Pharaoh may have given away those slaves as pieces of chattel, but watch what God did!

In this story, neither Abraham nor Sarah came off very well. You remember that they passed her off as Abraham’s sister, because she was his half-sister. ...

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