Until Every Child Is Home - A 6-Day Devotional On Adoption And Foster CareSýnishorn

John Mark and Angie Yeats were raised in Christian homes. Both had parents active in vocational ministry and instilled in John Mark and Angie a vision for the power of the gospel. Aware of the needs of children without parents, the Yeatses thought they would initiate foster care or even an adoption after having biological children. But God had other plans.

The Yeatses discovered that they would not be able to conceive children biologically. So John Mark and Angie educated themselves on the process of adoption. One agency provided the Yeatses with a worksheet to help them identify the characteristics of children they would or would not be open to having in their home. If John Mark and Angie were not able to handle children with special needs, medical challenges, or severe emotional problems, the agency wanted to know up front. One of the categories on the worksheet concerned race. Would the potential parent(s) decline a child of ‘x’ race?

God used that worksheet to establish a strategic plan for the Yeatses—a framework that would influence their extended family and the churches and seminaries John Mark would help lead in the years to come. The Yeatses made a faith commitment that if they received a child of a minority race, they would seek to adopt another child of that same race. This decision would ensure that if one of their children was of a minority race, that child would not be the only member of their immediate family of that particular racial background.

When John Mark and Angie learned they could welcome a four-month-old African American girl into their family, they responded, “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” In time, the Lord gave the Yeatses one other girl and two boys. White parents with four black children. Given that my family is also racially diverse, I enjoy a special fellowship with John Mark. When my two African American girls moved in, John Mark was one of the first people I contacted, and we got our kids together to have hot chocolate at a local Barnes & Noble. Two white men, four African American girls, one deck of UNO cards.

The Yeatses knew that when they committed to making sure no child in their immediate family would be racially isolated, they themselves might eventually be the minority race in their own home. Having roots in the American South, the Yeatses knew that their extended network might not share their enthusiasm at becoming parents of African American children. But John Mark and Angie’s concerns were put to rest as extended family embraced and celebrated their growing family—despite racial differences.

The racial diversity of John Mark and Angie’s family also influenced their ministries. They understood that as parents of four African American children, they would need to seek out racially diverse neighborhoods to live in, racially diverse school settings for their children’s education, and churches that embraced racial diversity.

“It is a front-line issue,” John Mark told me. “I think it is a front-line issue for the gospel—and if my church doesn’t want to hear that, they are not going to put up with us for very long.” Yet by God’s grace, their family’s racial diversity has actually torn down walls. John Mark noted that the churches he has served have become increasingly multiethnic because of the makeup of his family and the conversations he has been able to initiate concerning racial issues. Their family’s racial diversity has helped them counsel many believers in the churches they have served, as well as students at seminaries where John Mark has taught.

But a theme of that counsel is that racial hostility still exists in the culture. As a Christian leader, John Mark cannot but be compelled to address these racial issues—especially when his children are bullied and told that their place is back in Africa, that they might be next on the list to be lynched, that they cannot keep their hair in a natural fashion because it would violate school policy. “You begin to realize the pervasive biases that are in our culture against our brothers and sisters,” John Mark told me. “And that is not okay.”

With One Voice, Glorify God

It was not okay for the apostle Paul either. When folks begin to read the New Testament seriously for the first time, they are often struck by how practical it is. The teachings of authors like Paul transcend cultural specifics and take root even in the modern world. Just beneath the New Testament’s surface, one discovers that racial tensions between Jews—the physical descendants of Abraham—and Gentiles—all other races, sometimes referred to as “Greeks”—permeated life in the first century.

Paul knew this racial tension as well as anyone. The book of Acts describes Paul as a Jew zealous for the traditions of his nation. He believed that devotion to the Old Testament laws for Jews to separate themselves from Gentiles was second to none for spirituality. That is why he could approve the stoning of Stephen (Acts 8:1), who had challenged Jewish beliefs about God’s dwelling in the Jews’ temple in Jerusalem (7:44–50). But Paul’s way of thinking changed when the Lord appeared to him. Romans is Paul’s most complete, systematic letter—and in it he portrays racial unity as a theological issue. For Paul, the gospel of Christ is so powerful that it can foster a desire for racial unity even among the most divided races. Indeed, racial unity is a theme we can trace from Romans 1 to Romans 15.

In Romans 1:14, Paul made what for many Jews would have been a shocking and even blasphemous statement: he said he was obligated to Gentiles! How could a Jew of pure national descent like Paul be obligated to outsiders like Gentiles and barbarians? Because of the gospel, Paul wrote in the next verse. Paul had come to understand that all people need the same message of salvation: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. For in it God’s righteousness is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith” (Rom. 1:16–17). Paul described the gospel as potent among all people groups, broadening the scope of God’s blessing on Israel.  This universally available gospel establishes the framework for racially diverse churches. Because of the racial diversity of kids in orphanages around the globe, churches that participate in foster care or adoption have the opportunity to appreciate how the gospel unifies diverse races. The gospel unifies different races because we all equally need God’s grace.

In Romans 1:18–3:26, Paul explained why all people need the good news of salvation by faith in Christ. Because both Jews and Gentiles are guilty—really guilty!—before God. So bad is the human situation that even the racial heritage of the Jewish nation is of little consequence before God’s righteous standards. In the middle of Romans 3, Paul assembled several Old Testament texts to make his point. He began his list of quotes by citing Psalms 14 and 53, writing, “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10). At its core, racism is an expression of human pride. And Romans 1:18–3:26 highlights the foolishness of human pride, removing the foundation of racial tensions between Jews and Gentiles in the ancient world and the basis of racially motivated pride in our day as well. Many churches know this in an academic sense. Foster care and adoption help us appreciate it personally.