Sorry for so many posts...this hit a nerve...ha..
Exodus 34:10-16:
"And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels ... behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves: For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God; Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods."
God was forbidding the Israelites from marrying people of the nations around them. The question we need to examine closely is WHY? Was the prohibition based on race (especially as used in the sense of skin color) or on religion? I think most really know the answer...
we can see without a doubt that God's concern was that marrying outside the "church" (Israel was the Church of the Old Testament) and marrying outside the church would cause Israel to turn away from God.
2 Corinthians 6:14, says the same...
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers ...",
and
1 Corinthians 7:39,
"The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord."
God gave the saints liberty to marry anyone in the Lord regardless of race or skin color. The issue was the same for the Church in the wilderness. God intends for us to marry within the church...