Ephesians 2:14-18

Heh… I wrote the body of this blog and I must laugh. It’s amusing to me how much I can come up with on a few short verses when I “let the Spirit loose” (This could also be interpreted as ranting). Here’s Ephesians 2:14-18.

INTO
Paul is writing a (circular) letter to the Ephesians. The first half of the letter focuses on Christian theology.

THROUGH
In this excerpt, Paul makes it explicitly clear that all people are treated the same (Jews no longer get special treatment). The Gentiles and Jews are reconciled through Christ (v.14). He physically came to earth and demolished the divide, which is the law (v.15). All this is done through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross (v.16). He explains that Christ was not biased – He spread His word to those close and those far away (v.17). Now, because of Christ, all peoples can have a relationship with God.

BEYOND
I can’t even count the number of times I have heard that Christianity is so narrow and we should be more accepting of other people. That ridiculous. Christianity is open to everyone! It doesn’t matter where you live or what you’ve done or how smart you are. Forgiveness and contact with God is offered to all people. What people want Christians to be is more accepting of different beliefs and lifestyles; they’re not talking about people. Christianity is narrow in this sense: that truth is truth, and there are consequences to ignoring it. But how is it that people see this as unfair. There’s only one answer to a problem on a math test, but no one berates the teacher for being narrow minded when he tells them the right answer, and it isn’t the answer they got. Never will anyone argue that both answers are right. Either the professor is right, or the student is right, or they’re both wrong, but they cannot both be right. This isn’t narrow mindedness, this is reality – and people are people; we don’t like the reality of things.

Everyone has access to the Father: Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, blacks and whites, and everything in between. God limits no one from coming to Him; He has no bias. We do that to ourselves; we have the bias; we aren’t willing to come to Christ and sacrifice all the wrongness in our life for the rightness of God. If you say that two plus two absolutely makes four, you must give up all other answers: you can’t get away with five, three, 3.99 or 4.01. It’s four. End of story. In the same way, God is Righteous. We are wicked. If we want God’s righteousness, we give up our wickedness. This is reality. We can complain that it doesn’t suit our feelings or desires. At that point we need to realize there is a separation between our desires and us. We are not the product of our desires; therefore, we cannot claim that someone is being intolerant of us when they simply do not approve of our beliefs or lifestyle. Jesus Christ is completely and unrelentingly intolerant of any and all forms of ungodliness. People are angry that their lifestyle doesn’t match up with the holiness of God, which they so closely connect with themselves that they aren’t willing to give it up under any circumstances, preventing them from surrendering to Christ.

Give it up. It is so worth it.