Paul, the scribe of the epistles in the Bible, sets the stage for how Christians should live in accordance with God’s sovereign plan.
In those books, he talks about so many things, including how we should worship and treat others.
For my last birthday, my wife gave me a deep study bible – something I’ve wanted for a while as I seek to strengthen my already strong faith in Jesus Christ. What I was looking for is a bible that goes beyond the reading of it and gives extra insight to some of what I just read.
At this stage of my life, those kinds of “helps” come in handy.
Of course, the Bible is just as relevant today as it ever was. It is our instruction book and is without error.
Time has not watered down its meaning or softened what we are to think, say and do. Even though we try to change it to what we think we need or who we think we are, it remains the infallible word of God as printed.
I do my best to base my thoughts and beliefs on what it says and instructs me to do.
In doing a little digging, using Planobible as a source, I refreshed my memory by reading that one of the key reasons Paul’s wrote Ephesians was to emphasize the church as Christ’s body and as a place where both Jewish and Gentile believers are one. That suggests, I read, that Paul wrote it in order to promote unity in the Ephesian church and in all other churches.
My research went on to find that the emphasis on the importance of love is also strong. More than one-sixth of Paul's references to love in his 13 epistles occur in Ephesians, my information stated. This also shows that he wanted to promote Christian unity in the church.
In addition to the church and love, Ephesians emphasizes God's action in decreeing and providing salvation, the importance of the Christian's growth in knowledge, the importance of living out one's faith consistently and spiritual warfare.
Finally, Ephesians is one of the most well-loved of Paul's epistles because it is both very important doctrinally and extremely practical.
Tuck all that away for a minute.
As I was studying Ephesians, keeping the above in mind, I read Chapter 3, Verse 6. “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.”
There was a little pullout about that one verse in my new study bible, and it emphasized the “oneness of the body of Christ.”
Read that verse again. It says the Jews and the Gentiles were worshipping together, and at the time it was labeled as a miracle.
“We simply do not understand the degree of separation that existed between these two groups of people,” Max Anders wrote in his New Testament Commentary on Ephesians. “It’s like saying there will no longer be blacks and whites in South Africa. It is like saying there will no longer be Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. It is like saying there will no longer be liberals and conservatives in the United States. All of these people are going to be made into one.”
Boing!
That really, really made me think – and smile.
This little sidenote continued by stating in Paul’s day, the animosity between Jews and Gentiles was so strong that a Jewish woman would not help a Gentile woman deliver her child because the Jewish woman believed she was helping to bring another degraded human into the world.
Jews would even go through Samaria because it was a non-Jewish country. They would walk 150 miles out of their way – around the border – to keep from entering territory inhabited by a people they called “dogs.”
Then came the conclusion to the commentary.
“So when the gospel offered grace to all, it produced a massive shift. Suddenly, there would be no separate Jewish church, no separate Gentile church. God had only one family – and Jew and Gentile alike had equal status.”
The massive shift. It was a truly revolutionary time in the church.
And it still should be dominant today.
One family – the family of God. Equal to all, whether white or black, male or female, conservative or liberal, young or old, rich or poor.
One … family.
Or in our case, one nation under God.
Is that still the case today? Think about it.
We need to stop the bickering, the fighting, the “my way or the highway” approach. Instead, we need to live under God’s roof – together as one family in Christ.
After all, God – the ruler of the universe – sees us all as equals. Paul’s epistle proves that.
And who are we to argue or disagree with God?
As always, thanks for reading.
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