We're One, but We're Not the Same

We are all in situations where we have to deal with other Christians and, sometimes, these situations can be difficult to navigate. Your boss is kind of a jerk, but he’s a Christian jerk, so you can’t just write him off—you have to work toward unity. A teenager says something offensive on Facebook, but you can’t unfriend him because you’re his youth leader—you have to gently confront him about it. I’m not saying we can or should be careless with our secular friends and co-workers, not at all! I’m just pointing out that it’s different. There are different expectations when everyone is a believer and, every now and then, it’s good to think about how we deal with each other.

Ephesians 4 is kind of like an Oreo cookie for Christian living. The cookies are practical words written to teach the early church (and us) how to have unity in the body of Christ. The creamy filling is a description of what our hearts need to be like in order for us to have this kind of unity in the body.

For this week, I’d like you to read all of chapter 4. It’s kind of long, so you might want to get a glass of milk. As you read, take note of the practical cookies Paul is throwing down from verses 1-16 and from 25-32 and jot down some of the things he tells Christ’s followers to do so that we can have unity in the body.

What makes this chapter in Ephesians different from the way James dispensed practical wisdom is Paul’s progression. Beginning in verse 17, he lays out what we were—Gentiles with hard hearts and darkened minds. Then we heard about Christ and we became new, righteous and holy. What made us new wasn’t that our behavior changed, it was a change in our hearts. What other descriptions of the Gentiles does Paul give? How does he describe the transition from Gentile to child of light?

Now that we are children of light, living with new hearts, we are to play nicely with the other children of light. As we work daily to preserve peace and unity within the body, we are growing and building the body, with the ultimate goal being verse 15, “…we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.”