DId God Really Say…

March 5, 2024

Read Leviticus 21, Psalm 65, Ephesians 2

Our culture loves to divide us. Identity politics like race, economic class, and men and women are just a few of the ways the culture loves to divide us. How are you tempted to divide people? Sometimes I divide people by their various beliefs or by their worldview. We want to understand people and what they think, but we all must be careful not to allow how we divide people to keep us from interacting with them or shutting the door to the gospel with them.

During the first century, early Christians had learned that God was not about division but about unification. No longer did they see the Gentiles as apart from God, they recognized that God brought Salvation to not only the Jews, but the Gentiles as well. Paul wanted to remind the Gentile Christians in Ephesus that while they were once apart from God, and the Jews; they were now one with them as Christians. A big dividing wall for the Jews and Gentiles was Circumcision. “Remember that formally you who are called Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” …remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” vv. 11-12. Paul reminded them that even though they were separate, now they were one. “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ” v. 13.

The Bible does divide people, but not by skin color, or money, or any other physical trait we might possess. The Bible divides people by their behavior and actions. We are called sheep or goats, we are either children of God or children of the Devil, we are heirs of the kingdom of God or we are headed for eternal separation from God. Paul reminded the Gentiles in Ephesus that they are “fellow citizens of God’s people and members of God’s household” v. 19.

What else do you see here in these three chapters?  What repeated words, or phrases stand out to you?
Add your thoughts below.