The best of Mysteries

 

Ephesians 3:3-6

I have always enjoyed a good mystery, and if the author is skilled at writing he will weave into the story many characters that have a motive and opportunity to be the suspect in the mystery.  If you grew-up as a Jew, there was no mystery, you were the chosen of God.  Not only were you chosen, you were not to have anything to do with the uncircumcised Gentiles, they were no better than dogs, and at that time in history dogs were not pets, and most references to them were demeaning.

So as we look at this new thing, “the Church” that was ushered in to being after Christ ascended to heaven to sit down at the right hand of His Father, it is a very Jewish organization.  Then the apostle Peter had a dream, and in that dream he was told to go with some Gentiles to a Gentile home and share the gospel with them.  And then the Holy Spirit sent the apostle Paul to the Gentiles and the Church was growing rapidly.    

Many of us have a hard time understanding what was taking place in the early Church, but being raised a Baptist, and growing up in a very small Baptist Church, where you found a few very mean-spirited people who wanted all the others to live by their requirements, and traditions; it is easy to understand what is happening with this new Church.  What if a person came from a Lutheran background and joined that little Baptist church and at the church picnic they offered to bring the drinks and along with the cokes and tea he had some beer, they would get treated worse than Steven.  Or what if a person with a Methodist background joined that church and was in charge of the young peoples social and they let the kids dance, we would have had a called meeting of the deacons and after they fired the pastor, they would have had to withdraw fellowship from that evil person who caused our children to sin.

Do you understand what Paul is up against? The little Baptist church I grew-up in could not hold a light to the traditions of the Jews.  In fact, the Jews would sit on one side of the church building and the Gentiles on the other, it was not unity, and God was not pleased with them anymore than He is with how we have divided the church in our day. 

Paul tells them about a mystery, it was made known to him by revelation, and it is the mystery of Christ.  “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” (Ephesians 3:6)  This is what I’ve learned, the ground at the cross is level, no one is elevated; not pastors, not teachers, not Billy Graham nor Sister Theresa, it is level, we are all in Christ.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice