Friday, May 3

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So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.  - Ephesians 2:19-22

Apparently unity is important to God!  It is important because it reflects the perfect harmony between the members of the Trinity.  The original couple (Adam & Eve) was to reflect God’s image, which included this perfect harmony.  But what they lost through sin in the original creation, God now is regaining in the new creation (2:15 reads, literally, “create the two into one new man”). God wants His people in His church, to reflect His image!  As Jesus prayed, “That they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they may also be in Us; that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17:21).

Paul uses three analogies to show the unity of the church with its fellow-members and with God: First, we are fellow-citizens with the saints. We are no longer foreigners, excluded from the common- wealth of Israel. There should be no racial or class distinctions within the church, even if they exist in the society at large.

Second, we are members of God’s household. We’re family with God and His people! We have all the rights of family members as children of God. We are brothers and sisters with one another.

Many years ago I was leading a mission trip in Latin America.  The first church we visited didn’t exactly welcome us, and I couldn’t understand why the people were unfriendly toward us. It gradually dawned on me that there was a definite class system in that church culture. The pastor was on top, and others served him. The servant class viewed us as a rich Americans, and so they did not talk or associate with us. Only as we helped them in the kitchen, and in the fields, and served alongside of them did the barriers come down just a bit.  Before I figured all this out, some of the girls on our trip did the cooking one day when the cooks were sick and they made the mistake of serving the servant class first and the pastor last!  I think it was a divinely ordained mistake!  I have often reflected on that experience - that pastor needs to learn the lesson Paul is teaching here: We’re all family members in Christ!

Third, Paul says we are stones in the living temple of God. Paul states that we have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.  Christ is the cornerstone that ties the whole temple together; the apostles and prophets are the foundation; and, we are the stones of the growing building.

The fact that we are being fitted together as stones and that the building is growing into a holy temple in the Lord implies a process. 

New stones are being added as people come to know the saving grace of Christ.  To be fitted together, the divine stone mason, Jesus Christ, has to chip off our rough edges, which is often a painful process!  But the goal is worth is, that we are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. This means that the church today is what the temple was in the Old Testament, the place where God and His glory are manifested. This does NOT refer to the building where the church meets, but to the people themselves.  To refer to a church building as “the Lord’s House” is misleading and it misses the point of the New Testament. We are the Lord’s House!

Jeff Frazier