PT-1 "The Partnership of the New Man" (Col. 3:11)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/1/2017 9:30 PM

My Worship Time                                             Focus:  PT-1 “The Partnership of the New Man”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Colossians 3:11

            Message of the verses:  “11 a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.”

            What we are seeing in this verse is that “there is no distinction” and then Paul goes on to talk about this truth for the body of Christ.  Every person ever born on planet earth is born into the human race and even though we see differences in what people look like we are all human beings.  With this said the church of Jesus Christ is not to have any differences in it do to what we have come to know as race.  I have a hard time with the word since as stated we are all in the human race, so perhaps a better distinction would be different “people groups.”  The church should never have distinctions between different people groups as Paul states we are all one in Christ as Jesus died for all.  During the time of history when the church began there was a lot of distinction between Greeks and Jews, between Jews and Gentiles, between those who were slaves and those who were free.

            MacArthur writes about the Greek and Jews, the circumcised and uncircumcised as he states that they “were separated by seemingly insurmountable racial and religious barriers.  They had nothing to do with each other.  Jewish people refused to enter a Gentile house.  They would not eat a meal cooked by Gentiles, nor buy meat prepared by Gentile butchers.  When they returned to Israel, they showed their disdain for Gentiles by shaking off the Gentile dust from their clothes and sandals.  Even the apostles were reluctant to accept Gentiles as equal partners in the church (cf. Acts 10-11).  Needless to say, the Gentiles returned those sentiments.”

            We will look at Ephesians 2:13-16 to show how Paul describes how the gospel broke those barriers down:

“13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, 15 by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, 16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.”

In our next SD we will look at more of these people groups like the “barbarian and Scythian.”

5/1/2017 9:51 PM