Does the Bible say anything about acculturation?

Therefore He separated the children of Israel unto Himself. Nothing in them would affect this. Even today Israel is as much loved as ever for the fathers’ sake. The people were to dwell alone and not to be numbered among the nations. In the history of the nation all their troubles arose through ignoring God’s mind for them, and mixing with surrounding nations, either socially as in marriage, or religiously by turning aside to the gods of the heathen, or politically by entering into treaties and alliances.

In all this process, we are instructed in a deep principle, which is the root of holiness of every kind: it is God who separates, or sanctifieth unto Himself, whatever may be the order of separation. That order once was "only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed until the time of reformation." But it was ineffectual in keeping Israel "as holiness unto the Lord, the first-fruits of his increase." Israel speedily adopted the gods of the nations, which yet were no gods, and by mingling this false worship with the worship of Jehovah, effectually destroyed their separateness as a people unto Jehovah; and not only so, but at the same time they presumed on their separateness in a spirit of self-complacency, and thus brought out that worse form of evil, which ended in saying, Stand by, I am holier than thou; and in rejecting God Himself in order to maintain their own character.

They were to be separate from the nations around them. These nations were steeped in idolatry and all the evils that went along with it. Israel was to be a witness that JEHOVAH was the true God. The sad story is that Israel became like the other nations, worshipping idols also. They did not bear a faithful witness for God. It was because of this that Israel was eventually taken into captivity to Babylon. It should be said, however, that God never intended that Israel should look down on the Gentiles. They should have brought the knowledge of God to them.

We saw in the last chapter that because of the unfaithfulness of the children of Israel in not going forward and overcoming them, God declared He would no more cast their enemies out of the land, but that they should be left as thorns in their side, an abiding witness to their unfaithfulness and disobedience. At the same time they would be a constant menace to their testimony, and to their national existence. You can imagine that any nation which has dwelling in its very midst, and occupying part of its territory, other nations which are not only diverse, but utterly hostile, not only to themselves, but to their institutions, form of government, — everything that you can think of; You can understand that the presence of hostile nations like that, even in a political way, would threaten any national existence. We might mention, as a modern and partial illustration, the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, where you have not a homogeneous nation at all, but one ruling class, with which is connected the royal house, and another large class, who are practically the rulers, thoroughly opposed to the first; besides any number of other races who keep to their various traditions, habits, and everything of that kind. The result is, that the cord that binds the nation together is a very weak one, and there is a possibility of disintegration at almost any time.

Now that is from a political point of view, but when you come to apply it to a nation whose existence meant a religious testimony, a testimony for God, when you bring God into account, how much more disastrous will it be for a people to settle down with the various nations right in amongst them, and to amalgamate with them. How impossible it was for Israel to be loyal and true to God, and to carry out His law and to be subject to His government. It was an impossibility and, therefore, as I said, the presence of these unconquered nations in the land of Canaan was not only a witness to the failure of Israel, but a perpetual menace to their integrity and faithfulness, which eventually bore fruit in their being carried off into captivity. In fact, we are going to dwell upon the fruits of that in these lessons which are before us in the book of Judges.

We saw in the last chapter that because of the unfaithfulness of the children of Israel in not going forward and overcoming them, God declared He would no more cast their enemies out of the land, but that they should be left as thorns in their side, an abiding witness to their unfaithfulness and disobedience. At the same time they would be a constant menace to their testimony, and to their national existence. You can imagine that any nation which has dwelling in its very midst, and occupying part of its territory, other nations which are not only diverse, but utterly hostile, not only to themselves, but to their institutions, form of governmenteverything that you can think of; you can understand that the presence of hostile nations like that, even in a political way, would threaten any national existence. We might mention, as a modern and partial illustration, the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, where you have not a homogeneous nation at all, but one ruling class, with which is connected the royal house, and another large class, who are practically the rulers, thoroughly opposed to the first; besides any number of other races who keep to their various traditions, habits, and everything of that kind. The result is, that the cord that binds the nation together is a very weak one, and there is a possibility of disintegration at almost any time.

Now that is from a political point of view, but when you come to apply it to a nation whose existence meant a religious testimony, a testimony for God, when you bring God into account, how much more disastrous will it be for a people to settle down with the various nations right in amongst them, and to amalgamate with them. How impossible it was for Israel to be loyal and true to God, and to carry out His law and to be subject to His government. It was an impossibility and, therefore, as I said, the presence of these unconquered nations in the land of Canaan was not only a witness to the failure of Israel, but a perpetual menace to their integrity and faithfulness, which eventually bore fruit in their being carried off into captivity. In fact, we are going to dwell upon the fruits of that in these lessons which are before us in the book of Judges.

So these nations, left in their midst to try them, where they associated with Israel day after day, were a constant test to the loyalty and obedience of the succeeding generations, to prove whether they would now go on to carry out the will of God, and cast out the enemy that was there. In other words, the presence of these men, so long as they remained, was always a witness of past failure, and an invitation to present recovery.

So these nations, left in their midst to try them, where they associated with Israel day after day, were a constant test to the loyalty and obedience of the succeeding generations, to prove whether they would now go on to carry out the will of God, and cast out the enemy that was there. In other words, the presence of these men, so long as they remained, was always a witness of past failure, and an invitation to present recovery.

After all the mercy shown to the remnant returned from captivity, after long patience with shortcomings and protection from their adversaries, the princes announced to Ezra that the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites, far from keeping themselves separate from the heathen round about them, were living in open disobedience of God's word and rebellion against His authority. For they had taken of their daughters for themselves and their sons, and thus mingled the holy seed with the peoples of the lands, the princes and rulers being first or chief in this unfaithfulness. What evil more deadly for a Jew, unless it were worshipping other gods? And to this it habitually tended. It was in itself a fundamental violation of Jehovah's will, an abandonment of that separateness to Himself from the nations which was essential to their standing as His people. It was not only the surrender of their own privilege as the sole nation of His choice, but rebellion against His rights and glory Who had thus favoured them.

Jehovah, then, was their God — an immense privilege, as the Psalmist confessed: "Blessed is the nation whose God is Jehovah, and the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance" (Psalm 33:12). But of His people, responsibilities rested on them to which other nations were strangers. Some of these we have looked at, and we come now to others which marked them out as a separated people, whether from the Egyptians, among whom they had dwelt, or from the Canaanites, into whose land the Lord was about to take them. So the ways, the habits, the customs of men, were no guide for them. How could they be? Israel were what neither the Egyptians nor the Canaanites could boast of, or ever become: the Lord's peculiar people, whom He had chosen for Himself. Hence He thus addressed them: "After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do; and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do; neither shall ye walk in their ordinances. Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances to walk therein. I am the Lord your God. Ye shall, therefore, keep my statutes and my judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them. I am the Lord" (Lev. 18:3-5). All men on earth ought to have served the Lord, but they did not, neither did they even know Him who is the self-existing one, the true, the living God.

But the analogy will be found very striking if we regard the many processes of separation, whether by judgment or by mercy; or rather by the combination of mercy and judgment. "I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O Lord, will I sing." (Ps. 101) Ever since sin came into the world, separation has been God's principle of blessing. When God has separated to blessing, there have been two principles set in operation — separation from the corrupt mass obnoxious to the judgment of God, and separation unto God Himself. The character of this separation determines the character of the holiness of those separated. Thus it pleased God to separate a people (the people of Israel) from other people, to be His own peculiar people; and there was a sanctity connected with this, marking them both as separated from other people, and as separated unto God as a worshipping people. "Ye shall not walk in the manners of the nations, which I cast out before you; for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them. But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people. Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowl and clean; and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beasts or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean. And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people that ye should be mine." (Lev. 20:23-26.)