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Christ is all that true believers should ever want or need. He is their helper and guide, their master and God, their constant friend. He is present and active in the life of each one of them, even as they have invited him into their life (Revelation 3:20).
Those facts change completely their relationships, both with the world round them, and with each other. Other people may identify them by their nation, their language or their rank in society. For Christians however, these differences seem unimportant. Rather, they identify themselves by their common love for Christ, and the love that Christ gives them for each other (John 13:34-35).
Paul gives a list of some different groups of people that Christ had brought together in the first churches. So, of course, the Greeks are the people from Greece; the Jews are the people from Israel. It was an honour to call someone a ‘Greek’ – perhaps for that reason, Paul uses that word to describe anyone who is not a Jew in Romans 1:16. In Genesis chapter 17, God told the Jews to accept circumcision (a minor operation to remove a small piece of skin from the male sex part). That is a mark of their nation’s special relationship with God (Romans 9:4-5).
It was no honour to be called a barbarian or a Scythian. People used these words to describe foreigners from outside the countries that Rome ruled. It was even worse to be a slave, because slaves had no rights whatever.
However, God accepted all of these people. When they accepted Christ, they all received the right to be God’s children (John 1:12). So now they all belonged to God’s holy nation, the people of God (1 Peter 2:9-10). God loves them, so now they must love each other, as brothers and sisters in the same family (1 John 4:19-21).
Next part: Unselfish attitudes that help other people (Colossians 3:12)
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© 2019, Keith Simons.