My wife and I currently live in Minneapolis, Minnesota where on May 25 Mr. George Floyd was killed by a policeman, who has been fired and is now in jail facing a 2nd degree murder charge, while in police custody. His death ignited angry riots, looting and the destruction of public and private property and many businesses. It also sparked peaceful protests demanding policing and social change here, across the US and around the world. You have seen photos and videos of what I am referring to.
In the midst of burnt-out buildings, graffiti scribbled everywhere and ongoing protests, local people and others from many places and of differing walks of life, are picking up the debris and sweeping the streets while distributing essentials like water, food, items for babies and the elderly among other supplies to those in need. It is great to see people helping people to rebuild communities and restore trust in each other. Additionally small and big churches, from rural, suburban and urban areas and of many faith traditions, are serving together as the hands, feet, voice and heart of Christ in badly damaged and destroyed communities. It is going to take a long time to heal, reconcile and rebuild but it is happening.
In the 1970s-‘80s, before we went to Manila in 1985, my family and I lived in the neighborhood where Mr. Floyd was killed and the initial rioting, looting and destruction took place and now the rebuilding of homes, businesses, community centers, government buildings, lives and a sense of community is slowly taking place. It is especially beautiful to see the body of Christ serving there side-by-side in unity.
In recent days I have spent a lot of time studying, reading and praying through various Scriptures about the unity or oneness of the church. Galatians 3:28 is one of the verses. Paul writes to the Galatians addressing the division between Jews and Greeks in their churches “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (ESV). Paul is teaching these young believers in Christ that in the new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) the distinctions between Jews and Gentiles are removed (Ephesians 2:11-22) and Gentiles do not need to become Jews in order to become followers of Jesus. Additionally Paul is not implying that there are no differences between social statuses and genders. He is teaching that the old divisions and wrongful attitudes of superiority and inferiority are abolished in Christ. In short, Paul is teaching this biblical truth to the Galatians and to us: *we have spiritual unity in the midst of our obvious diversity, and that we must not expect sameness of other believers in Jesus Christ.*
What are applications for us of Paul’s teaching to the Galatians:
1. Faith in Christ transcends our differences and makes all His followers one in Him. We need to be careful to not impose distinctions, which Christ has removed, on someone else. No one in the church is more privileged or superior than someone else.
2. It is our natural inclination to feel uncomfortable with people who are different from us and to gravitate toward others who are like us. When we allow our differences to separate us from fellow believers, we are not obeying clear biblical teaching. We need to seek out and appreciate believers in Christ who are not like us. We will discover that we may have several things in common in addition to our faith in Jesus.
Christ’s multicultural, multicolored, multiethnic, multi-gifted and multilingual people are unified in Him. We need to cherish this and protect it because it is precious and a powerful witness of the Gospel to our deeply divided, decaying and dying world.
