Ephesians

The Sources of Our Diversity

In Ephesians 4:3 Paul declares two great facts that we must clearly understand about church unity. First, he says we must allow for differences among Christians. We must make every diligent effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Clearly, there would be no need for this exhortation if differences did not exist.

The fact is, there is no group in the world so gloriously diverse and heterogeneous as the church. Its glory is that it is made up of different kinds of people. In the church of Jesus Christ, you find rich and poor, slave and free, Jew and Gentile, black, brown, and white, male and female, sitting side by side in one body, waiting upon one hope, worshiping one Lord, practicing one faith, sharing in one baptism, praying to one God and Father, unified by one Spirit.

But let’s be honest: We do not ignore these boundaries easily. Friction often arises from our differences. Those frictions exist today, and they existed in Paul’s time. In Philippians 4, Paul addresses two ladies in the Philippian church who cannot get along with each other. He says, in verse 2, “I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord.”

Are these women just a couple of troublemakers who bicker with each other because they have too much time on their hands? No, Paul makes it clear that these women are committed Christian workers who have labored hard for Jesus Christ. “I ask you, loyal yokefellow,” Paul continues in verse 3, “help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.”

Churches have been shattered by divisions over issues as small as the color of the carpet—and as large as the direction and philosophy of a church’s overall ministry. Frequently, spiritual gifts (see the following lesson) are a source of friction, because God distributes different gifts in every congregation, and our natural human tendency is to disparage the gifts of others while exalting our own.

So there are differences among Christians—differences of class, race, background, viewpoint, philosophy, attitude, personality, and spiritual gifts. Those differences offer fertile ground for friction.