Pastor Fred continued our current series by preaching out of Ephesians 2:11-22. One of the themes that the Apostle Paul uses in this letter is one of family. Throughout the letter, Paul references husbands, wives, children all multiple times. So how do the themes that Paul talks about two thousand years ago apply today and how do we apply them to our work family, friends who are like family, our biological family and even the family that we don’t like or talk too.
My first thought is that every family has a set of rules that are both spoken and unspoken. If you are to interact within the family, you are going to abide by these rules and when you don’t, it could lead to alienation. Within the extreme conservative Amish culture, when these rules that are set by either the family or the local Bishop are not met, people are shunned. It can be as extreme as the shunned not being able to sit at the family table or meals. They have to sit by themselves and often receive the cold shoulder to the point they are not a part of the family until something is either amended or made right. Healthy families have healthy rules to help people stay in healthy relationships and provide a way for restoration. So here is my question, are there rules that are either stated or implied that tend to either drive people away or alienate them because they are legalistic or not Biblical?
My second thought is that as a church family we are all adopted. What this means is not only are we now all family and we should act like it, but we were also bought with a great price. Christ great sacrifice is what allows us to be family and that makes none of us are second class citizens in Gods family. My niece and nephew are adopted and I don’t see them as second class citizens, but as family that is apart of me and I in them. When you are adopted, you receive all the benefits and responsibilities of being apart of that family. When we become adopted by God through Jesus, we get the benefit of the Holy Spirit, our sins forgiven and the promise of heaven.
My third thought is turning strangers into friends. It goes back to that thing of being responsible. It is more than just telling people about Jesus, but it is loving them like Jesus. As a church, we are blessed to have three different services and most of us go to a particular one on a consistent basis and when we adventure to another service, we see different people we don’t know and each service has its own vibe. For me, I attend the Saturday night service, but this week I attended the 8:30 service and I didn’t know a lot of people. Turning strangers into friends takes some risk on everyone’s part and putting ourselves out there.
Another part of turning strangers into friends is called hospitality. We all know that one person who can connect with just about anyone and makes them comfortable. Hospitality is more than this and inviting people over for meals. True hospitality is being intentional at relationships, and finding ways to not only bringing people together but fostering a deeper relationships no matter the team they root for, people they vote for or their view on church and religion. There has been a movement called Dinner Church and its whole design is to bring people together from different backgrounds for a meal and to discuss that weeks message. I do something similar. I meet with two guys on Saturday morning for breakfast and to talk. Now we do share a lot of laughs, but we are there to encourage each other and we have had some serious discussions. We don’t agree on everything but we are still there to encourage and to pray for each other. I want that for everyone
My final observation is about that dirty little word called submission, and no I am not using it in a Mixed Martial Arts reference or for men to control woman. In Ephesians 5, Paul tells us that we are supposed to submit to each other. To be honest, we can’t submit to each other, unless we are submitting to God first. Submitting to each other doesn’t mean we are on some power trip trying to be controlling, but it means we want what’s the best for each other in the light of Gods grace. This means that we do things that promotes being family strong, both in our individual families and our church family. This also means we do our chores. Just as we do our dishes or laundry at home, there are chores in the church that we need to do. Everything from changing diapers in the nursery to shoveling to for someone who can’t. Submitting means takes a lot of humility because it often takes us to places we don’t want to go, things we don’t want to do or gifts we don’t want to develop. Humility doesn’t mean we think less of ourselves bout we think of ourselves less. It is finding our and others worth in Christ. Godly submission also doesn’t mean we don’t have a backbone, but how we use it. It is finding the right way to do and say things. So being family strong means that we realize that everyone is created in the image of God with unique giftings and how are we living up to that
Grace and Peace
Tom Boustead
2 comments:
This is actually a thoughtful piece, and the strongest idea is the contrast between rules that preserve relationships and rules that alienate people.
A few things stand out to me:
* The Amish example is useful, but it could easily become the focus rather than the larger biblical point. The real question is whether our own churches and families sometimes create unspoken rules that function like shunning—even when nobody calls it that.
* Your adoption point is especially strong. “None of us are second-class citizens in God’s family” is probably the theological heart of the whole piece. It connects Ephesians 2 very naturally to modern church life.
* The strangers-to-friends section feels very practical. The Saturday breakfast example makes the idea of hospitality concrete instead of turning it into another church cliché.
* I like your treatment of submission, particularly the distinction between submission and control. The phrase “Humility doesn’t mean we think less of ourselves, but we think of ourselves less” captures the idea well.
* One thing I’d challenge is the statement “we can’t submit to each other unless we are submitting to God first.” That’s a reasonable theological interpretation, but Ephesians 5:21 itself simply says believers are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. You could make the connection without making it sound like Paul established a prerequisite.
And there’s an interesting thread running through the entire piece:
Family isn’t primarily about agreeing with each other. It’s about belonging to each other and acting accordingly.
That ties all four observations together:
Rules → belonging → hospitality → submission/service.
It also gives you a pretty pointed question for today:
Are there people in our families, churches, workplaces, or friendships who technically belong, but whom we’ve made feel like they don’t?
That’s where the Ephesians 2 passage gets uncomfortable—in a good way. Paul isn’t merely saying, “Be nice to strangers.” He’s talking about Christ breaking down the walls that separate people and creating one family where there used to be division.
And honestly, that applies just as much to the person sitting three chairs away at church whom we don’t know as it does to the difficult family member we haven’t spoken to in years
Thank you for the thought out answer and you have given me things to think about
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