Wednesday: Our Common Humanity
By His ministry and His teaching, Jesus urged a radical inclusiveness. All who sought His attention with honest motives—whether women with bad reputations, tax collectors, lepers, Samaritans, Roman centurions, religious leaders, or children—He welcomed with genuine warmth and care. As the early church was to discover in transformative ways, this included the offer of the gift of salvation.
Humanity
As the first believers slowly recognized the inclusiveness of the gospel, they were not merely adding good works for others onto their faith as a “nice” thing to do. It was core to their understanding of the gospel, as they had experienced it in the life, ministry, and death of Jesus. As they wrestled with the issues and questions that arose, first individually for leaders such as Paul and Peter (see, for example, Acts 10:9-20), then as a church body at the Jerusalem council (see Acts 15), they began to realize the dramatic shift this good news had brought into their understanding of God’s love and inclusiveness and how that should be lived out in the lives of those who profess to follow Him.
What do each of the following texts teach us about our common humanity? How should each idea influence our attitude toward others?
Galatians 3:28 is a theological summary of the practical story Jesus told about the good Samaritan. Rather than arguing about who we are obligated to serve, just go and serve, and perhaps even be prepared to be served by those we might not expect to serve us. The common element of the global human family is realized at a higher level in the common family of those who are bound together by the gospel, by the saving love of God that calls us to oneness in Him: “For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free” (1 Cor. 12:13, NIV).
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We spent a lot of time earlier this year discussing the notion of unity and i think many of us were concerned that it became quite clear that there were some very divisive issues that were (and still are) dividing the church. Some of those issues centre around gender and race, which essentially have nothing to do with our relationship with Jesus, unless we make them issues. The real benefit of a church organisation is that collectively we can accomplish more than what we can do individually and that only comes when we put aside our differences and work together.
When I was a graduate student, some of our class assignments involved group work. I remember one particular assignment towards the end of the course. By this time there were three of us mature students who had worked together before and were very focussed on getting a High Distinction for this particular subject. After the assignment had been handed out in class the group of us got together and were chatting about how we were going to tackle the project, when another student came up to us and asked if he could join our group. This student knew me personally and I knew he struggled a bit with understanding the concepts we were dealing with in this class. Besides he was a young student and the rest of us were mature students. We agreed he could join our group but warned him that he would have to work hard because the rest of us were focussed on top grades.
So we started on the project and our fourth team member had to be carried a fair bit. We gave him plenty to do and were inclusive of him in our group discussions. In the end, we got our High Distinction and as it happened, I found out our grade before the others. I ran into our fourth team member and told him our grade. He was absolutely thrilled and said to me, "That is the highest grade I have ever received." But it was what he said next that was really important. He said, "I learned so much from working with you guys! Thank you for all your help."
Working together can overcome the obstacles of gender, age, race and socioeconomics. And if we can do it with great results in a computer science class, how much more should we be able to do it as members of the body of Christ.
Spot on! Thanks for sharing.
The saying “The Empire on which the sun never sets” has been used to explain the vastness of the British Empire.
The region was so extensive that at any one time there was daylight in one of the territories.
How a nation size of a state Alabama in USA was able to control vast territory.
At the time of British occupation of India.
Every small territory was divided by a king.
These kings would fight among themselves.
They would have been closely related but because of land, and wealth they fought among themselves.
The British would support a king A and aid in defeating king B.
When the opposition territory was conquered, they would defeat king A whom they aided.
Thus the entire territory was ruled by the British because of disunity between the kings.
If we had accepted one another as coming from one blood, we would not have been sold in to slavery of British rule.
Satan is not interested in unifying us together.
He is not interested in us having open communications.
He wants us to stay isolated and lonely thus he can be triumphant of the lost humanity.
When we realize and accept, we are all equal at the foot of the cross the barriers erected by satan will lose their power and
the work of Christ completed we will go home.
May God open our eyes to accept one another equal in Christ Jesus.
A Christian life has to be inclusive! Never exclusive! This has such a social importance! Unfortunately, men disrupt this essential meaning to force people to fit into a label. That has nothing to do with true Christianity.
This statement by today's lesson is a very important point that is often overlooked in discussions about serving others. While we can only look on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart to identify those with honest motives (1 Sam 16:7) - those who actually want to live a better way. I would propose that Jesus would have relied on the discernment of the Holy Spirit's prompting as to who it was wise and beneficial to help and who would simply be 'enabled' if they were helped.
At the very least we need to ask the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us in our service to others, giving us the gifting of discernment to know who and how to best help/serve in a given circumstance.