Tuesday Re-mix – This is a popular post from last year, updated and resubmitted for your consideration and comments.
For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…” Ephesians 2:14
Bob Deffinbaugh, a favorite Bible commentator of mine over at Bible.org, has a wonderful illustration for the cultural barriers which still existed in the New Testament church between the Jewish Christians and the gentile Christians. In this article, Deffinbaugh compares the Jewish response to the gentile influx into the church with Jacob’s response when he woke up to find that the marriage he had consummated was not to Rachel, but was to Leah, her sister. For Jacob, it was surely a “WHAT”S GOING ON!?” moment. Similarly, it had to have been a complete shock to the system of the traditional Jewish person that the very people God had told them not to intermarry with were now receiving a carte blanche invitation into God’s family. In short, the cultural barriers which existed between Jews and gentiles were enormous, but nonetheless came crumbling down in the name of Jesus.
Building barriers is nothing new to the human condition. We are, by nature, a “tribal” kind of being. I have a tribe, you have a tribe. We build barriers because it makes us feel safe or perhaps because it gives us an identity. My “tribe” may be my country, my family, my political persuasion, my vocation, my neighborhood, my church, etc. We retreat into our “tribe’s” boundaries and then erect barriers to protect us against unwanted elements.
But Jesus changed that. You have probably heard it said, “the ground at the foot of the cross is level.” In other words, none of our tribes will get us …
The post The Barrier-free Church appeared first on Christian Unity Ministries.