Dc Talk - Jesus Freak 25Sample

Colored People

“Colored People” is a song that references every type of person and race. The song is a call to support diversity, bring attention to the ignorance that “has wronged some races,” and urges all people to come together because there is “beauty in the tones of our skin.” The message remains ever so relevant today, 25 years later.

The thing of beauty is the passion of an artist’s heart

By God’s design, we are a skin kaleidoscope

This particular devotion was written by Pastor John Maguire, former head of dc Talk’s E.R.A.C.E. (Eliminating Racism And Creating Equality) Foundation, a non-profit focused on promoting interracial unity among America’s youth. 

For 5,000 years, colored skin was recognized the same way we now recognize height or eye color or hair color, as simply a clarifying physical characteristic. But beginning in the 14th century, an evil distinction began to dominate systems by using the physical characteristic of skin color as a qualifiable, quantifiable and qualitative measuring tool. For six more centuries, this tool was used for significant injustice and prejudice including chattel slavery, legalized segregation, and systematic racism to perpetuate evil and divide brothers and sisters of the same human family.

The Bible never recognized “race” as we understand it today; so as we look to the Bible for instruction regarding race, we are often shaken that it is so silent on such an important reality in our world. But one day in the first century, Paul the Apostle of Jesus was addressing a group of deep thinkers in Athens and spoke significant truth that applies strongly toward what we recognize today as race and racial issues.

Here are some truths about Colored People found in Acts 17, verses 24 to 28:

1. God made all people Colored People because He made everything including skin, pigment, and color. (v. 24)

2. God is the Lord of Heaven and the Earth—both places filled with Colored People. (v. 24)

3. God does not live in a place created by any certain colored person. (v. 24)

4. God is not served by Colored People because He is not needy, nor has He enslaved any Colored Person, demanding their servitude. (v. 25)

5. God gives all Colored People their life, and breath, and everything else (without showing favoritism to any color). (v. 25)

6. God made all Colored People out of one colored person named “Adama,” which means clay-colored (and clay comes in lots of colors!). (v. 26)

7. From that one man, God made every “ethnos”—people grouping of mankind of all colors. (v. 26)

8. Every Colored People grouping was made by God to inhabit the whole earth. (v. 26)

9. God marked out appointed times in history of each Colored Person and the boundaries of the Colored People’s lands. Then Colored People oppressed other Colored People to make themselves richer, or more powerful, or sought more control denying the very God who gave all Colored People their time and boundaries. (v. 26) 

10. God had given the Colored People these things so they would seek Him and His ways and be like him by giving things away and respecting all the other Colored People. (v. 27)

11.  So that when Colored People would love and respect other Colored People (that He loved and respected) that they would reach out to Him and find Him, though He was not hiding from any Colored People ever. (v. 27)

12. For in Him, Colored People live and move and have their being. (v. 28) 

13. In conclusion, Colored People who act like Him are His offspring—His children. (v. 28)

Share this place designed by the God who made the world and all Colored People.