We’re All In This Together

Colossians 3:11  In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.

The world of the New Testament, just like today, was full of divisions between people. The Jews and the Greeks had nothing to do with each other.

The Greek looked down on slaves and barbarians and Scythians. The Greek was the aristocrat of the Roman world and lauded it over anyone who was not Greek in his culture.

The Jew looked down on the Gentile. Jews refused to enter a Gentile house, would not eat a meal cooked by Gentiles and would not buy meat prepared by Gentile butchers. When Jews returned to Israel, they showed their disdain for Gentiles by shaking off the dust from their clothes and sandals. Acts 10 and 11 tells us that even the apostles were reluctant to accept Gentiles as equal partners in the church.  The Pharisee would pray each morning, “I thank Thee, God, that I am a Jew, not a Gentile; a man, not a woman; and a freeman, and not a slave.”

Today’s verse is as applicable today as it was then. There is no separation in Christ. Christ’s love binds us together whether we are Democrats or Republicans, Baptists or Assemblies of God, male or female, white or black, American or from any other nation.

In Christ, we are one. The distinctions we hold so dear that divide us are for this world. We are citizens of heaven. All who follow Christ are going to be together in heaven, we should be together here as well.

Today’s Readings:  1 Kings 20,21; 2 Chronicles 17; Colossians 3

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