Abstract
This article is a partial response to Lee and Park’s 2018 contribution to Missiology, “Beyond people group thinking: A critical reevaluation of unreached people groups,” and focuses on the meaning of panta ta ethne in Matthew 28:19. The author does not agree that Matthew had in mind primarily “Gentiles in distinction from Jews,” although that is indeed a common meaning of the phrase in the New Testament. Interpreting ethne as “Gentiles” obscures the dimension of particularism inherent in the way humanity is described in Scripture (as parts not just a whole). By contrast, the author submits that ethne as “nations” or “people groups” better displays this particularism of all people as they exist in diverse human groupings. The author takes a step back from Matthew 28 and first gives an overview of the way human grouping (particularism) is understood in the Old and New Testaments. He then highlights the way New Testament authors appropriated Old Testament promises related to the “nations,” showing their comprehension and continuation of that Old Testament understanding. The article then deals with the exegetical issues related to Matthew 28:19 and concludes by urging refinement of the people group concept, rather than replacement.
Introduction
This article is a partial response to Lee and Park’s (2018) contribution to Missiology, “Beyond people group thinking: A critical reevaluation of unreached people groups.” They argue that “the idea of ‘people groups’ arises from questionable biblical and sociocultural foundations” (213). In this article, I will respond to the biblical question only, which for Lee and Park focuses on the precise meaning of παντα τα έθνη (panta ta ethne) in Matthew 28:19. 1 Opposed to the meaning of “sociological groupings” propagated by people group proponents, 2 they believe that “ethne in Matthew is better understood as a reference to Gentiles in distinction from Jews, highlighting their inclusion into God’s kingdom” (215). 3
Lee and Park do not indicate whether their critique of people groups was instigated first by biblical issues or sociocultural issues, or both simultaneously. But based on an assessment of all the articles written on this topic in the four main North American missiology journals since their inception, 4 I am guessing that they are motivated by the consensus coming from social science that questions traditional notions of discrete and distinct people groups and reframes them as ever changing and ambiguous, a result of forces (globalization, immigration, the technological revolution, etc.) that have broken down previously existing walls between peoples. 5 The people group paradigm is thus seen as no longer correlating with “the reality of the fluid and porous nature of social boundaries as well as the reality of globalization and hybridization of contexts” (Lee and Park, 2018: 213). It makes sense, then, that they would look again at the main passage that Evangelicals have used to justify a focus on people groups. If they are correct, then a focus on people groups can more easily be questioned on biblical grounds. And if the ethne are just Gentiles, then the focus of mission can easily be construed to mean humanity as a collective whole and not particular groups.
The question behind the discussion is: What did Matthew have in mind when he wrote these now-famous words panta ta ethne? I propose that this phrase represents a universal (panta) particularism (ta ethne). I do not agree that Matthew in 28:19 had in mind primarily “Gentiles in distinction from Jews,” although that is indeed a common meaning of the phrase in the New Testament. Interpreting ethne as “Gentiles” obscures the dimension of particularism inherent in the way humanity is described in Scripture (as parts not just a whole), especially in passages dealing with God’s global salvific purpose. By contrast, I submit that ethne as “nations” or “people groups” better displays this particularism of all people as they exist in diverse human groupings. In what follows, I will take a step back from Matthew 28 and first give an overview of the way human grouping (particularism) is understood in the Old and New Testaments. I will then highlight the way New Testament authors appropriated Old Testament promises related to the “nations,” showing their comprehension and continuation of that Old Testament understanding. I will then deal with the exegetical issues related to Matthew 28:19 and conclude by urging refinement of the people group concept, rather than replacement. 6
Human grouping in the Old Testament
The Old Testament portrays the people of the world with a diversity of terms that describe very large human groupings to relatively small subgroups or segments of them. The largest human grouping would be humankind without distinction, as in Genesis 1:26, “Let Us make man [םָדָא, adam] in Our image,” and 6:5, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man [adam] was great on the earth.” 7 In these cases, adam refers to “humankind, mankind, a class of being created by God without regard to sex, with a focus as a class of creature, distinct from animals, plants, or even spiritual beings” (Swanson, 1997a). Another example is in Genesis 11:1: “Now the whole earth [ץֶרֶא, eretz] used the same language and the same words.” This is an anthropomorphic use of eretz to refer to all humankind.
The next layer of human grouping found in the Old Testament is the idea of nations or peoples. It is well known that יֹוּג (goy) and םַע (am) are the most common words for nations/peoples. In one dictionary, they are defined similarly as “a people group sharing a common ancestry and/or sociopolitical identity,” with an addendum for am: “also used for groups of people smaller than a nation, such as the inhabitants of a city” (Minard, 2014).
8
Note the phrase “people group” in the very definition and the variety of group sizes the word am covers. Goy indicates a common sociopolitical identity that can be defined by ancestry, language, land, and government . . . as Israel’s national identity becomes more clear in the OT [Old Testament] the majority of the occurrences use some form of the plural to refer to the surrounding non-Israelite nations. (Minard, 2014)
Thus goy can be applied to human groupings defined by a diversity of affinities/boundaries (ancestry, language, land, government) and became synonymous with non-Israelite Gentiles. In the Septuagint, goy is usually translated as ἔθνος (ethnos), while am is generally used to denote God’s people Israel and is usually translated as λαός (laos). 9
The fact that language was a major defining element of nations and peoples can be seen in Daniel. Seven times reference is made to “peoples [am], nations [הָּמֻא ummah] and men of every language [ןָּׁשִל lishan]” (3:4, 3:7, 3:29, 4:1, 5:19, 6:25, 7:14). It would seem fair, in a very general sense, to equate the modern term “ethnolinguistic” to this level of grouping, especially since the Old Testament is full of specific examples of such, both small (the Kenites, Kenizzites, Jebusites, etc., of Gen. 15:19–21) and large (the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Egyptians—Israel’s major enemies).
A third and smaller layer of human grouping can yet be found. In Genesis 12:3, we read: “And in you all the families [הָחָּפְׁשִמ mishpachah] of the earth will be blessed.” Although mishpachah has a wide range of meanings (people, kingdom, tribe, clan, family, group, genus, kind; Swanson, 1997b), the overwhelming majority of its occurrences in the Old Testament are translated as “clans” (New International Version, 253 of 296 occurrences) or “families” (New American Standard Bible 1995, 289 of 303 occurrences). 10 The word refers to “a family group larger than an individual household but smaller than an entire tribe” (Blair, 2014). Another example of such a grouping is found in the account of Achan in Joshua 7:14–18, where God first chooses the tribes (טֶבֵׁש shebet), then the families (mishpachah), then the households (תִיַּב bayit), and finally Achan himself. The people of Israel in the Bible are thus presented in segmented groupings and the references to such (tribes, families, households) in the Old Testament are numerous. A good example of these distinctions is found in the phrase “families [mishpachah] of the nations [goy]” in Psalms 22:27 and “families [mishpachah] of the peoples [am]” in Psalms 96:7. 11 As early as Genesis 10:5, 10:20, and 10:31, the descendants of Noah’s sons are each described in terms of families (mishpachah), languages (lishan), lands (eretz), and nations (goy). In this case, there is a mixture of terms representing smaller (mishpachah) and larger (lishan, eretz, goy) groups (Minard, 2014).
Human grouping in the New Testament
The New Testament contains a similar diversity of words to describe humanity. The top layer once again consists of humanity as a whole, such as John 1:26: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world [κόσμος kosmos]!” 12 Also, Luke 2:1: “Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth [οἰκουμένη oikoumene].” In both cases, the “world” and “earth” are a reference to all the people in the world.
The next layer of human grouping can be seen in the use of ethnos (nation or people), which is the New Testament equivalent of goy. Importantly, “in the majority of NT [New Testament] occurrences . . . it appears in the plural and takes on a more technical sense that is usually translated ‘Gentile,’ contrasting non-Jews with Jews” (Minard, 2014). 13 It is this technical usage of the word that is the focus of Lee and Park (2018). These first two layers of human grouping can be seen in Matthew 24:14: “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world [oikoumene] as a testimony to all the nations [ethnos], and then the end will come.” Another word of note is laos, which is in significant ways the New Testament equivalent of am. While the singular form normally refers to the Jewish people, it is often used for non-Jews in the plural, as is the case in Revelation 5:9, 7:9, 11:9, 13:7, and 14:6—all of which refer, in differing order, to nations (ethnos), tribes (φυλή phyle), peoples (laos), and tongues/languages (γλῶσσα glossa). 14 These phrases are used to describe the entire breadth of humanity in all its forms and varieties. The word phyle is used whenever the New Testament speaks of the tribes of Israel. In Revelation, it takes on an eschatological sense and “means generally people (as an ethnic collective)” (Paulsen, 1990: 442). As for glossa, in addition to its basic meaning for the tongue, “it could denote a particular language (Acts 2:4) and could thus be used as a distinguishing mark of a people group (Rev 7:9)” (Lookadoo, 2014).
The tribe, clan/family, and household segments in the Old Testament are not as clearly defined in the New Testament, not because they ceased to exist but because they simply were not as prominent in a nation subjugated under Roman rule. The tribe, clan, or extended family was usually designated by πατριά (patria), as in Luke 2:4: “Joseph also went up from Galilee . . . because he was of the house and family [patria] of David.” Similarly, συγγενής (syngenes) is used to describe the idea of extended family relatives: “And behold, even your relative [syngenes] Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age” (Luke 1:36). But the main social unit in the New Testament is the οἶκος (oikos), the house or household, an equivalent to the Old Testament bayiṯ. In Acts 16:31, the Philippian jailer is told: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household [oikos].” In Mark 6:4, these segments are put together: “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives [syngenes] and in his own household [oikos]” (Blair, 2014).
Table 1 (which is not exhaustive) summarizes this overview of how human groups are described in the biblical record.
Terms designating human grouping in Scripture.
These are only rough comparisons and by no means an attempt to suggest exact equivalence of concepts with the biblical terms. For instance, there seems to be no biblical equivalence of the modern idea of a nuclear family.
Biblical writers understood (1) the basic unity of all humankind; (2) human difference based on various and diverse affinities/boundaries that created separate nations/peoples (horizontal segmentation); and (3) segmentation within each nation/people based on kinship/lineage (vertical segmentation). This ancient understanding of diverse human grouping is at odds with Lee and Park (2018: 215), who say that such thinking, “built upon modern conceptualizations of ethnic and cultural identity, would have been foreign to the Matthean author; dividing the world’s peoples into distinct groups by phenotypes or cultural-linguistic markers is a relatively modern phenomenon.” I believe that the overview of Scripture above shows that human grouping is an ancient phenomenon and was not introduced by people group proponents in the 20th century (Hawthorne, 2020). People are always seen as members of such a variety of groups that many terms are needed to fully explain the subsets and segments. The Bible highlights particularism in its universal treatment of humanity. New Testament writers such as Matthew would have understood these human groupings in all their variety and complexity. It would have been impossible for them to contemplate “the Gentiles” only as a monolithic non-Jewish mass; rather, they would have envisioned a mosaic of nations/peoples, languages, tribes, clans, and households.
The connective tissue between the Old Testament and the New Testament
There are other reasons for thinking that Matthew had in mind more than the Gentile world as a whole, instead thinking of its many parts. In this section, I will look at the way God’s design for the nations in the Old Testament is interpreted in the New Testament, providing the connective tissue between the eras which maintain that global salvific purpose across the Testaments. This is important since “Christ is to be confessed in the context of the great continuities which have their source in Abraham” (Muilenburg, 1965: 397). What is crucial to note is that the New Testament appropriation of the Old Testament promise to bless the nations is couched in terms of the many parts of humanity, not its whole.
Genesis 12:1–3 is no ordinary text. In the revelation that “in you all the families [mishpachah] of the earth will be blessed,” God’s universal intent is established within relatively small, particular groups. Considered by one to be “the turning point in history . . . the keystone in the overarching purpose of God for humankind” (De Ridder, 1983: 175), this promise is repeated in Genesis 18:18, 22:18, 26:4, and 28:14. Genesis 12:3 and 28:14 use mishpachah and the other verses use goy. In the Septuagint version of these texts, mishpachah is translated with the Greek phulai, which means “tribes” in most contexts, while goy is translated with panta ta ethne (Brenton, 1851). That these terms represent groupings of people, some quite small, is enough for some to conclude that “the term panta ta ethne in missionary contexts has the ring of people groups rather than Gentile individuals” (Piper, 1993: 182).
This oft-repeated promise to Abram is cited twice in the New Testament: Acts 3:25 and Galatians 3:8.
The Greek phrase in Acts 3:25 for “all the families” is pasai hai patriai. This is an independent translation of Genesis 12:3, differing from both the Greek Old Testament (pasai hai phulai) and the way Paul translates it in Galatians 3:8 (panta ta ethne). But by choosing another word that refers to people groups (patriai) the writer confirms that the promise was understood in the early church in terms of people groups not in terms of Gentile individuals. Patria can be a subgroup of a tribe, or more generally a clan or tribe. (Piper, 1993: 182)
Piper (1993: 183–184) concludes that “the words point to fairly small groupings since the reference to ‘all the nations’ in Genesis 18:18 (= Galatians 3:8) is an echo of ‘all the families’ in Genesis 12:3.” 15 Both within the repetition of the Abrahamic blessing in Genesis and its understood fulfillment in the New Testament, several words are used indicating both large and small human grouping (see Table 2). In both cases, the promise of God’s blessing is to the families or nations (groups) of the earth as the focus of God’s salvific purpose, not to a general audience. The use of terms in these seminal portions of Scripture that designate smaller human groupings cannot be denied. 16 If biblical writers wanted to signify the idea of non-Israelite or non-Jewish humanity as a whole, they simply would not have used words like mishpachah, phulai, or patriai.
Words used in texts referring to the Abrahamic promise.
Panta ta ethne in Matthew 28:19
Again, the argument of Lee and Park (2018) is that panta ta ethne is a technical reference to Gentiles as distinct from Jews, specifically denying any relation to sociocultural ethnic groups. 17 Their view is tied to the usage of ethne in Matthew, which they claim was centrally concerned with Jew and Gentile distinctions. However, in doing so, they ignore the rich particularistic meaning of the word in its broader biblical context, which is what I have attempted to articulate in the previous sections. While the technical usage of ethne as a reference to Gentiles is undoubtedly a reality in the New Testament and Matthew, 18 this is not the way it is being used in Matthew 28:19. Instead, I propose five reasons why panta ta ethne in Matthew 28:19 is better understood as a reference to all human groupings (“nations” or “peoples”), not non-Jewish individuals (“Gentiles”).
First, the continuity of the salvific purpose of God in the Bible favors nations over Gentiles. I believe that Matthew 28:19 is a repetition of the Old Testament promise to Abraham “that the blessings promised to Abraham and through him to all peoples on earth (Ge 12:3) are now to be fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah” (Carson, 2010: 1066). As the earlier sections show, the thread of God’s purpose in Scripture has in mind all the human groupings (nations, peoples, tongues, etc.) in the world—peoples more than people. The use of “Gentiles” obscures this continuity.
Second, the history of exegesis favors nations over Gentiles. “The ancient church, the medieval exegesis, and the interpreters of the early modern period almost uniformly interpret παντα τα έθνη in the universal sense of ‘all nations’” (Luz, 2005: 629). In terms of present scholarship, “nations” is the majority view over against a large minority who favor “Gentiles.” Contrary to Lee and Park (2018: 215), this view does not “deviate from much of contemporary New Testament scholarship.” 19
Third, lexicographers favor nations over Gentiles. According to Bertram, in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament describing ethne usage in the Septuagint: When the term εθνή (מיוג) is used in the sense of Gentiles, it is often with no sense of a plurality of nations. The word is used non-sociologically to describe all the individuals who do not belong to the chosen people. But God is the King of the peoples (Jer. 10:7; cf. Rev. 15:3). The divine order of the table of nations (Gn. 10) is in accord with this fact. From the first patriarchs there does not descend a single humanity, but a group of nations divided according to clans and differing in language, custom and situation. (Bertram, 1964: 367)
After describing the technical non-sociological use of ethne, Bertram proceeds to share a major exception to this general rule: when ethne refers to the diverse and segmented peoples and nations over whom God reigns. At the end of the next paragraph, he makes the same counterpoint yet again: “in many passages this blessing is related to nations rather than individuals (cf. Gn. 17 and esp. the eschatological blessings in Gn. 18:18; 22:18; 26:4)” (Bertram, 1964: 368). It is highly significant that he does not relate the Gentile usage of ethne to the reiterations of the Abrahamic blessing, to which Matthew is alluding.
The very next entry in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament is a treatment of εθνος in the New Testament. After listing the words related to the idea of people, Schmidt (1964: 369) says that “εθνος is the most general and therefore the weakest of these terms, having simply an ethnographical sense and denoting the natural cohesion of a people in general.” This sounds surprisingly similar to modern definitions of people groups. Like Bertram, Schmidt also notes the usage of ethne to denote Gentiles as distinct from Jews or Christians. However, Matthew 28:19 is not given as an example of this use, but rather as part of the “64 passages in the NT where we have εθνος or εθνή without any special sense or characteristics” (Schmidt, 1964: 369). My point is that while both Bertram and Schmidt reference the technical usage of ethne as Gentiles, neither of them attach this meaning to Matthew 28:19. 20 Rather, they view ethne in this passage as a continuation of the Old Testament usage found in the Abrahamic promise—what Schmidt termed “an ethnographical sense.” Contrary to Lee and Park (2018), although ethne as Gentiles is indeed a correct translation in many cases, it is decidedly not the case in Matthew 28:19.
Fourth, the use of panta ta ethne in Matthew favors nations over Gentiles. When it comes to the use of ethnos/ethne in Matthew, there are seven cases where it clearly means “Gentiles,” one case that is doubtful, and five cases where the sense cannot be limited to “Gentiles” . . . the latter five cases . . . contain three out of the four occurrences of ethne modified by panta ta. The fourth occurrence is precisely Matt 28:19 . . . I would submit, then, that the weight of preponderant evidence is in favor of taking the fourth occurrence of panta ta ethne, like the other three, to mean “all the nations,” or “all peoples.” (Meier, 1977: 102)
Fifth, the use of diverse human groupings in Revelation favors nations over Gentiles. Revelation 5:9 and 7:9, which most scholars agree were written at least a decade after Matthew and are considered among the final writings in the New Testament canon, confirm the continued relevance of particularism in the early church’s understanding of salvation history. Matthew 28:19 and Revelation 5:9 and 7:9 can be seen as New Testament bookends for the concept of peoples. If Matthew 28:19 serves as a mission statement, a precise directive telling the disciples what it is that they should do, Revelation 5:9 and 7:9 are more of a vision statement, a general description of the promised future. These passages in Revelation are a powerful reminder that particularism does not cease in the eschaton, even as representatives from all peoples worship one Lord. In fact, the redundancy used in these passages to emphasize particularity, coupled with their importance in portraying the culmination of redemptive history, suggests that they may be an even greater argument for the continued relevancy of human groupings than Matthew 28:19. At the very least, their correlation, which can rightfully be extended all the way back to Genesis 12:3, represents a golden thread of universal particularism running through the entire sweep of Scripture.
By rejecting the technical usage of ethne as meaning “Gentiles” in 28:19, I am not saying that the Gentiles as a representation of the non-Jewish world are not in view. The inclusion of the Gentiles in God’s salvific purpose is an unquestionable and shocking New Testament theme. The problem is that although “all the Gentiles” portrays humanity as a whole (universalism), it does not portray well, at least in English, the equally important idea of humanity in all its parts (particularism). Ethne must include both meanings or the diversity of human groupings, so extensively portrayed in Scripture, is obscured.
Having argued for a reading of “nations” or “peoples” instead of “Gentiles,” I reiterate what I think is most important: that panta ta ethne in Matthew 28:19, whether translated as “all the Gentiles” or “all the nations,” was understood by both Matthew and his readers as a reference to both universality (everyone everywhere) and particularity (in all their diversity), meaning that it was impossible for them to conceive of the world as a collective whole without simultaneously seeing it in its many and diverse constituent parts. Panta ta ethne is both/and not either/or. It means the inclusion of all the nations/Gentiles in all of their God-given diversity. Ethne does include in its semantic range the idea of various human groupings and boundaries, including ethnicity. It is not a new or modern idea that people group proponents are reading into Scripture. It is rather an ancient understanding flowing naturally from the Old to the New Testament.
Therefore, panta ta ethne cannot simply mean “the whole world.” Rather, it refers to all the particular, diverse, segmented parts of that whole world, or “each of those subdivisions of humanity in which people find their identity” (Showalter, 1984: 126). Until now, I have used the phrase “human grouping” not “people group.” But “people group” remains the best phrase to describe ethne in modern English, and translating ethne in Matthew 28:19 as “people groups” is biblically legitimate. It is better than “nations,” which for most people conjures up the idea of modern nation states, and is more descriptive than “peoples.”
However, a question arises: Since the Bible uses many terms that portray different sizes of human groupings, and since contemporary missiologists also use several terms that portray different sizes of human groupings, which size, type, or level of group does ethne connote? 21 First, with Piper (1993: 205), a precise definition of the exact parameters of a “people group” is not biblically possible. For instance, there is no biblical precedent for ethne to refer to human groups oriented around occupation, residence, or handicaps (Piper, 1993: 172). However, there is precedent for ethne to refer to a spectrum from clans/families to tribes to ethnolinguistic groups to nation states. Second, “panta ta ethne is probably the simplest way of giving a summary designation not only to the larger, but also the smaller groupings as well” (Piper, 1993: 208). Thus Winter and Koch (2002: 16) are helpful when they equate ethne with “the ethnicities, the languages and the extended families which constitute the peoples of the earth.”
Conclusion
There is no doubt that new understanding of how human groupings are formed is a challenge to traditional people group constructs (Gill, 2020; McMahan, 2020; Nguyen, 2020; Scribner, 2020; Tira and Uytanlet, 2020; Alansky et al, 2020). People groups as traditionally understood tend toward “a reductionism which employs simplified, managed categories overlaying complex social realities” (Baker, 2017)—a truth seen most clearly in Pickett’s (2015) survey of the Newar people. Nonetheless, there is no getting “beyond” people groups because people groups have always been and ever will be. They are a biblical category, supported by but not bequeathed to us by social science in the 20th century or by Ralph Winter at the International Congress on World Evangelization at Lausanne in 1974 (Winter, 1975; Parsons, 2012). They are found literally from Genesis through Revelation. Rather than calling for a replacement of the idea of people groups, I agree with proposals to reimagine and re-envision them (Bartlotti, 2020). New awareness of cultural hybridity or people group fluidity does not put an end to human groupings, but rather changes affinities and the boundaries of their formation. We are better served adjusting to their new formations rather than questioning their basic and biblical legitimacy.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
