Steven M. Bryan. <i>Cultural Identity and the Purposes of God: A Biblical Theology of Ethnicity, Nationality, and Race</i>

Steven Bryan is currently professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He previously served for over twenty years as a missionary in Ethiopia. His missionary experiences, and his reflections based upon them, surface repeatedly in this book. In our world today, divisions and strife are so prevalent. Bryan calls us to consider how the story of the Bible provides both real hope for true unity and a calling for the people of God to live in light of God’s plan for a unified “people of peoples.”Chapter 1 begins with a dilemma that is as old as King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Dan 2. How can different peoples with different cultures be brought together into a solidly unified nation (pp. 17–18, 33–34)? Bryan surveys six different approaches to this dilemma that one can find in the modern world (pp. 24–33). In spite of their strengths, each approach falls short and points to the need for something better and more enduring. The ultimate answer to the dilemma is found in the kingdom of God (p. 34). God has a purpose for peoples in addition to a purpose for individuals. He is building “a people of peoples” (p. 34). Scripture “casts a vision for the profound significance of cultural identity as a source of blessing within the renewed and unified humanity of the new creation” (34). Scripture’s vision for the creation of “a people of peoples” is what Bryan aims to trace through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.Chapter 2 provides background for the project by talking about cultural identity as part of God’s created order (p. 42). God’s purpose, beginning with Adam and Eve, was to fill the earth with “culturally distinct peoples” (p. 41; see Lamech’s three sons in Gen 4:19–22). Three forms of cultural identity are commonly used today: nationality, ethnicity, and race (p. 46). Bryan examines each one of these in turn and relates them to their “precursors in Scripture” (p. 46). Among these, race is the one with the least “biblical precedent” (p. 49). It has become a part of modern cultural identity with a history and ongoing significance that calls for sensitivity and understanding (p. 51). He ends the chapter by returning to God’s desire and design: to fill the earth with “distinct peoples within God’s presence and under his rule” (p. 57).Chapter 3 shows how human sin thwarts humanity’s ability to fulfill God’s desire for the peoples of the earth. Of particular significance here is the Tower of Babel (pp. 77–82). God’s purpose reasserts itself with the call of Abraham and God’s promises to him (chapter 4). God is going to bless one people, the people of Abraham; they will “mediate that blessing to other peoples” who enter into a relationship with them (pp. 90, 103). Chapter 5 is a rapid overview of the rise and fall of Israel as a story of a people and nation who experienced both God’s blessing and his judgment. Her prophets proclaim a future in which “God’s restoration of Israel to life will ultimately bring life to all nations” (p. 127; see Jer 4:1–2).Chapter 6 picks up the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham by examining the place of outsiders (non-Jews) in Jesus’s genealogy according to Matthew, which begins with Abraham (pp. 134–38). Bryan then surveys the place of other outsiders in Matthew and concludes, “Those who come into Israel in its messianic form must see themselves as those who share in a blessing given to Israel” (p. 153). Chapter 7 shows how the Gospel of Luke highlights the righteous example of two Samaritan outsiders (pp. 161–66) and Acts portrays the genesis of a new community of Jews and Greeks, who are called Christians (pp. 176–78). Chapter 8 highlights John’s portrayal of Jesus as a new Temple, a “dwelling of all peoples as one worshiping people in the presence of God” (p. 201).Chapter 8 turns to Paul. He provides an interesting reading of Romans that focuses on Paul’s challenge to Jewish Christians and gentile Christians to “regard culturally varied ways of life as appropriate expressions of worship” (p. 228). This requires both groups to “practice mutual acceptance and love” (p. 228). Chapter 9 concludes Bryan’s survey of biblical theology with the book of Revelation, where Babylon (Babel) returns. She provides a “parody of true unity and true worship” (p. 237), which is truly revealed by the people of God and the new Jerusalem, where all peoples are unified into one (pp. 238–41). Finally, chapter 10 concludes the book by providing some of the implications of God’s creation of a “people of peoples through the restoration of individuals to right relationship with himself and others” (252).The summary above touches on the broad strokes of Bryan’s work, but it does not do justice to the many smaller insights that one finds along the way. For example, he brings out some small details in Matthew’s genealogy (like its possible connections to Chronicles and its two mentions of “brothers”) that call for further reflection (pp. 134–38). His survey of biblical theology provides a thought-provoking survey of the Scripture’s portrayal of the people of God and the place of the nations within it. Each reader will find aspects of strength and weakness in this survey, but its overall emphases are sound and challenging for the church. Bryan’s initial interaction with the inadequacies of modern political philosophies and his conclusion with implications for the church and the world are helpful. They demonstrate something about the practical implications of the biblical theology that he presents in the book. But readers like me will leave the brief concluding chapter wishing for more development of the implications of God’s vision for the nations to become a unified “people of peoples” in Christ.