Diversity in the New Testament | Preach Archive Summer 2025

The following article was published in the Summer 2025 issue of Preach magazine.

Diversity in the New Testament by Ian Paul Summer 2025 

It is often claimed that diversity is an important theme in the story of scripture – but in fact it would be more accurate to say that diversity-in-unity (or perhaps unity-in-diversity) is the dominant theme. 

We can see this in the opening pages of the Old Testament. Two things are striking about the first creation account in Genesis 1. The first is the wonder of the diversity of the created order – the plants and trees are ‘according to their various kinds’, the lights in the sky are sun, moon, and starts in all their splendour, and land, sea and sky are ‘swarming’ with every kind of creature. Yet we might miss the most striking thing about this diversity: it all springs from the creativity of the one God. In other ancient creation stories, the diversity of the world comes from the diversity of the gods, or even the conflict between them. But in this story, we have a central paradox: the immaterial God expresses creativity through making a material world, and the one God creates a vast diversity of life to fill it. 

The diversity of humanity  

This theme of diversity-from-unity is found at key points in the story of God’s dealings with the world. When human sin abounds and God decides to remake the world after the flood, once more we find diversity flowing from a single source. God’s command to Noah echoes exactly his original command to Adam and Eve: ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth’ (Genesis 9:1). The following chapter, Genesis 10, then catalogues the diversity of humanity and flows from this one origin, with a repeated fourfold refrain:  

From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations (v 5). 

These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations (v 20).  

These are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations (v 31).  

But these diverse people seek to unite together to defy God, so he scatters them at Babel – and begins the long process of renewing humanity through the call of Abraham, who becomes the father of a holy nation, his people Israel. Once more, we see diversity arising from a single origin; despite their shared ancestry, each of the twelve tribes has a distinct character – and destiny – as described by Moses’ song at the end of his life in Deuteronomy 33. For each of the 12 tribes, he offers a prophetic word of exhortation and warning, according to that tribe’s character. 

The diversity of the new humanity

The diverse characters of the twelve tribes are mirrored in the diversity of the Twelve that ‘Jesus called to be with him’ (Mark 3:14). He called together practical artisans (in the four fishermen) with a desk-bound bureaucrat (Matthew the tax collector). Politically, he united people who were virulently anti-Roman (Simon the Zealot, probably part of a violent resistance movement) and those who were embedded collaborators (Matthew as a tax collector worked on behalf of Rome). Temperamentally, the Twelve included impulsive Peter (‘I will die with you!’ Matthew 26:35), passionate James and John (‘Let us call down fire on them!’ Luke 9:54), and sceptical Thomas (‘Unless I see the marks of the nails…’ John 20:25). Most were slow to understand who he was and what he came to do – and one even rejected him in the end. What was it that held them together for so long? Nothing other than the call of Jesus: ‘Follow me!’ 

What is striking about this social, political, and temperamental diversity is that it continues to mark the followers of Jesus as the movement grows and changes.  

In Acts 13:1, we meet the leaders in the church at Antioch who, in nuce, represent the whole range of life and outlook in the Roman Empire.  

Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.  

Barnabas is from a priestly family in the Diaspora (Acts 4.36) and appears to be of some wealth since he is able to sell land he owns and contribute the proceeds to the apostles (Acts 4:37). By contrast Paul is a Pharisee, connected with Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, who engaged in manual labour to maintain himself.  

Simeon ‘the Black’ was likely a north African, either of dark complexion or ethnically black. Lucius is also from the region (Cyrene is in modern Libya), but has a Latin rather than Jewish name. Manaen is a Greek version of the Jewish name Menachem (meaning ‘Comforter), and the term Luke uses implies he was the foster brother of Herod Antipas – who has executed John the Baptist!

This is an impressive list for at least two reasons. First, God had truly made ‘two peoples into one’ (Ephesians 2:14). He united these people at several levels: (a) Those from different financial strata – assuming that Manaen, having been raised in Herod’s household, was a wealthy aristocrat. (b) Those from different religious backgrounds – Hellenistic and Hebraic Jews as well as Greeks (see also 11:19–20). (c) Those from different nationalities – African, Syrian, Cyprus, Palestinian. And (d) those of differing skin colour – assuming that Niger, meaning black, was a description of Simeon. (Mark Moore)  

Antioch contained at least 18 different ethnic groups, but they each lived within their own communities. In a place where people kept to themselves, here was a group that didn’t.  

Diversity in ministry  

Even more impressive is Paul’s list of fellow-believers to whom he sends greetings in Romans 16. Of the 29 people Paul lists, ten are women – though it is the women who dominate Paul’s references to leadership and ministry.  

The names tell us much about their identity, though we might not realise this at a casual read. Many of them are Jewish, or adapted from Jewish names. But alongside this we find Greek gentile names (such as Epaenetus), Latin names like Ampliatus, which was a common slave name in Rome, as was Urbanus, and the names of what appear to be freedmen and freedwomen. Once more, different national and ethnic identities sit alongside each other, as well as poor and rich in one list.  

Diversity shaped every moment of the Roman house churches, but Paul sought for a unity in the diversity, a sibling relationships in Christ that both transcended and affirmed one’s ethnicity, gender, and status… Every person in each of the house churches in Rome had formed an identity apart from Christ and then in Christ, and the emphasis on ‘in Christ’ or ‘in the Lord’ in the names is as emphatic as it is often unobserved. (Scot McKnight).

Two things are striking about these kinds of list.  

First, the diversity in these two lists appears, on the surface at least, to be effortless. It is true that Luke has a programmatic interest in ethnographic diversity, starting his account as he does with the list of Jews from all over the diaspora who witness the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost and hear Peter’s sermon. But in Acts 13, he lists the diversity of leaders in a quite factual way, and makes nothing much of it; there is no explanatory comment. This is just the way things were. Similarly for Paul, there doesn’t appear to be a ‘diversity agenda’ at work in his list in Romans 16. The list hasn’t been engineered; there has been no attempt at positive discrimination for inclusion of different social or ethnic groups. This is just a list of those in Rome whom Paul knows and whose ministry he values. And it turns out to be very diverse.  

Secondly, alongside this effortless diversity, at every point there is an equal emphasis on unity through Jesus.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:4–6).  

Being clear on what unites us appears to be the key to living with a natural diversity, and the diversity itself testifies to what it is that unites.  

We see this clearly in Revelation 7. John hears the number of those counted out: the 144,000 from every tribe of Israel, unified in serried ranks ready for spiritual warfare. And yet when he turns to see who they are, he encounters ‘a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language’ (Revelation 7:9) precisely echoing that repeated phrase from Genesis 10. The renewal of God’s people Israel is also a renewal of the creation, as we, in our glorious diversity, stand united before the throne of God and the lamb. 

About the author:

Rev Dr Ian Paul is a theologian, author and speaker, and Associate Minister at St Nic’s Nottingham. He is Managing Editor of Grove Books and runs a lively blog at psephizo.com and X @Psephizo.