Is God Concerned with Proportional Representation?

Have you ever seen this video? What we're witnessing here is the spread of Christianity. And this is you know, this is mere Christianity. We're not talking about, you know, Protestantism or anything like that.

But this is this is supposed to depict sort of how the gospel and where the gospel spread over time and as you can see that the time is is running up on the Timer up on the top left and you can see it spreads throughout the Middle East it spreads to Europe.

It spreads even Towards Asia even though the Bible tells us that that God prevented the gospel from going east. The Holy Spirit prevented the gospel from going east and instead went west but you can see it over time it does spread east and then what we can see is, you know, the Islamic Empire sort of Spreads a little bit and then it's beaten back.

We've talked a lot about how you know why that's happened and things like that. One thing I noticed about this this map if you've seen it is it also tends to show you sort of where God's Covenantal blessings go to.

I mean if you look at these regions, these were the regions that had political power that had Material blessings in Europe and then the United States you could you could see these are these are powerful nations.

They have a lot of resources. They have tons of covenantal blessings from God and that's no surprise. And look, I mean this is this is where the map pretty much ends up let's let's just stop. Talking for a second and I'll show you where this ends up.

The Spread of Christianity and Covenant Blessings

So look at this map, right? This is this is where the gospel has spread and Christianity has influenced Majority of the whole world. I mean, there's some You know more Islamic areas here. There's some communistic areas here.

This is not quite The end of the map, but you can see that that this is a pretty interesting Interesting map and there's no equity really where the gospel goes now there will be I think God's mission God's Great Commission will be fulfilled before he comes back, but If you look at this map I mean you can see where the blessings kind of the covenantal blessings of God have have have gone and there are some areas I mean look at this big area here this big area here that the gospel has not penetrated completely yet.

And it's you know ebbs and flows I mean those areas were influenced by the gospel Saudi Arabia all this stuff. They were influenced by the gospel for a time and it ebbs and flows and this is the reality of this situation.

Now what's the point of all this right? That's the question and here's the thing, you know Reformed people we understand that the gospel will penetrate and will reach a soul and will save a soul. According to the will of the Holy Spirit God will open.

Some people up to the message of the gospel will regenerate certain people and others. He will not regenerate and this is true for people groups as well. For whatever reason God has chosen that the Middle East for the most part China for the most part.

Is not has not it's not the time for the gospel there yet and it's all in his timing and I again I think that eventually Christ will convert The nations the Holy Spirit will convert all of the nations and they will all be put under Christ's feet and this map will look completely white according to I Don't mean white like that.

Obviously anyway according to this map. So What's the point of all this? So so here's the thing. I saw this tweet By Matt Smethurst here and it's a little small here, but you see you won't be able to read it but what he says was true racial equality isn't a willingness to be with people of color, it's a willingness to be led by them and The reality is like first of all, I don't think that there's really many Christians out there that you know would be like, hey.

You know, I'm not I'm not willing to be led by a person of color. I think that if you if you if you if you somehow could do the numbers on that it would be like less than point zero one percent of people that would be unwilling to be led by a person of color and Then but but but you know, here's the thing.

Proportional Representation and Leadership Qualifications

So this is this guy Brad Mason here. He says this is right. This is why black Americans in this country have been wondering for hundreds of years why white Americans Disproportionately hold the seats of leadership and conservative denominations and seminaries to this day Matt Smethurst is addressing this persistent problem and my question to Brad is is what is the proper proportion of black people to be?

Holding positions of leadership, right? How do you know what the proper proportion is? And this is an unanswerable question I'm sure Brad will give me some kind of an answer. Most people would say well if if blacks represent 11 of the United States population Then they should represent 11 of the pastors now I don't know what the percentages are and I'm pretty sure Brad doesn't know either of what the percentage of black pastors are or whatever.

I Bet you if I I mean, I don't know this but I bet you that they're pretty close to proportional in that way. But the reality is is that the proper proportion and how do you know because I don't have any expectation I don't think that there's any biblical expectation that you should say.

Okay. Well, there should be exact equity in in in Proportions of leadership. So if there's 2 Puerto Ricans and 2 of the pastor should be Puerto Rican if there's 11 black. Then 11 of the pop of the pastor should be black.

If there's 12 Chinese, then 12 of the Chinese pastor should be Chinese. I don't see any biblical expectation of that. In fact, if you go ahead and look at this map It does it seems like there are some serious inequities here and this is what the Holy Spirit has done.

Do you see what I'm trying to say? So so there's a biblically I don't see any reason to expect that there should be perfect equity or perfect proportions. What however you define it because however Brad ends up defining proportional he it's gonna be from his own opinion.

There's nothing in the Bible that talks about the proper proportions of skin color. Elders or deacons or whatever? There's nothing in there. I mean, I've read the Bible cover to cover and there's nothing in there that says this is the proper proportion based on skin color basing anything on skin color is Partiality and so that the Bible's against partiality in all of its forms.

The Bible Against Partiality and Racial Qualifications

The whole point of this though is there's like this lure of some kind of proportional equity or whatever there's even there was even an article that was Criticizing John MacArthur seminary because they didn't read enough african-american or not even just african-american, but but black Brothers in Christ their books or their their in their impacts on theology.

Well, there's a probably a pretty good reason for that. I mean again, if you look at this map, we of course had some solid Christian brothers from Africa. I mean I remember doing a video about Augustine and how Someone was pretending that like we were hiding that Augustine was from Africa and that's just not the case at all.

I knew Augustine was from Africa from the very first time. I knew about Augustine's. This is just this is just not true. But if you look at this map and how Christianity has spread. Wouldn't you expect that many of the people we read would be European based on how the Holy Spirit spread the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Now I would suspect the way that this map has changed probably the future will change so in other words seminaries in the future will start to read more books from other kinds of Ethnicities and there and the reason that that would do that just because of the spread of the gospel the way the Holy Spirit spread.

To do it. It won't be any forced diversity or anything like that. You can't you won't be able to say that but you will be able to say well the gospel has spread differently now. And so there you go. That's why we are reading these people now.

The reality is that this whole idea of equity is just completely bogus. It's a siren song. It's childish. It's impossible and honestly, I think it betrays the attitude that they're decrying is what is within them because Matt Smetter says Well, we really need to be willing to be led by people of color and I agree with that.

I mean if there was a qualified pastor of color and and You know you refuse to be let to be in his church because he didn't like black people. Well, that would be a sin you'd be in sin, but this whole idea of we need more black pastors we need more people of color pastors that to me demonstrates an unwillingness to be led by a white person and Frankly, I don't understand that at all because the Bible does not in any sense Talk about skin color or race or ethnicity as a qualification for elders.

So if you're looking for a pastor and one of your qualifications is black and I've seen this a lot. I've seen a lot of people say well, I want my kids to be seen black people in power. That's I want them to see that and so one of their qualifications for the church.

They go to is they want a black pastor? I think that's a sin. I think that that's showing partiality. I don't think that I think that's counterproductive, too. I can guarantee you I will not spend even one millisecond Looking for a Puerto Rican pastor to be in an elder.

So my kids can see a Puerto Rican in power. That's not how I'm training my kids. I think that's very counterproductive to the whole supposed mission of Of Avoiding racism or avoiding partiality or whatever like that?

And so, you know these this idea of equity and has to be perfect equity. Well, I don't see it in the Bible and it doesn't seem like again if you look at this map, right? It doesn't seem like the Holy Spirit.

Is that concerned with equity either? I mean look at all of these Asians and Africans that died without Salvation from Christ in in these centuries God's not really concerned with equity. I don't think there's any reason to expect that the the eternal state will be perfectly proportional the way, you know.

Guys like Brad Mason say it should be proportional for elders and in leadership. God's not concerned with that. I'm not sure why we're concerned with that. I'm just hoping that God you know expands the gospel everywhere and Does his work but I am completely satisfied with the way he's done it up until now.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful. God bless as a side note if you look at this map the way it ends up. This is 2016. You still see this Islamic rule here in Africa and things like that. This is where my ancestors are from right around here.

And I've said this on video before and I'll say it again. I I don't think the slave trade was a good thing. I think that was evil wicked vile Rebellion against God, but I thank God for his providence and bringing my family over from this area.

That's completely ruled by Islam over to this area and he did it through the slave trade and that's you know. That's reprehensible for the people who committed the slave trade. But I thank God and his providence for that slave trade because that's how he spread the gospel to many Africans.

It's just how it happened. I'm not saying we should emulate that or do it again. But that's how God did it and I am NOT shaking my fists at the Lord. I thank God that I don't live here and I do live here.

Anyway, I hope that was helpful. God bless.

Saying these things directly to you and they're saying them directly to you. That's a whole other level of harassment really.