Ever get the feeling that you could have started differently? There is a little of that in the two week challenge for me. Having started in Amos last week, and working my way through to the one and only chapter of Obadiah.
It's a new week, and there was nothing to continue with. I wrestled with where to start – Old or New, easy or hard. Finally felt led to Ephesians, and will continue with Philippians to end the week. That will be a total of ten chapters, but I'm not just going for the two-a-day.
Even though Pastor Dave's challenge was to read two-a-day, it's like once I get started, the reading just goes [more]on and on, like a good book. Maybe the reason is that reading so much and then trying to capture the essence of two chapters adds deeper meaning to what I have read.
Enough drivel Joe!
First of all, Paul seems to lay heavily on the fact that the body of Christ is built on unity. After all, he points out, it is in one Christ, we have (as believers) been redeemed. And that not by the work (good deeds) that anyone of us has done. It is through that "grace (which) He has freely given us" that we become his children.
That puts some pressure on us.
Although Paul wrote to and prayed for the church in Ephesus, the letter remains as a strong call to us. His prayer was that God give you "wisdom and understanding (1:17)" so that they and we might know Him better.
If you have ever taken a test, you know the sinking feeling you get when you have only skimmed over the assignment or study guide. We wait until the night before to read the book (more like skim) and drift off to sleep while "studying." Or we get distracted by things we think are more important. Then before we know it, the test paper is in front of us.
Life is kind of like that. We can either pay attention and gain wisdom or understanding, or fool around and miss the important stuff.
Having laid out a little logic for paying attention, Paul gets down to unity in chapter two. He says to both factions in the early church, that you are made equals by what Christ did! God, through Christ redeemed both His chosen people and the non-Jew. He broke down the wall that divided them.
It was through the cross that He, God reconciles you (us) so that we might become one body.
There is a great picture at the end of chapter two of the temple being rebuilt. Many people then would have known how the temple at Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Roman Empire. Paul says though, we (believers) from wherever we come are to become that building.
We are the church – the temple! We are to be the place where God dwells!
Maybe we ought to sweep the place out and dust a little…