00:00:00:27 – 00:00:27:36
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us here at the end of the week. Grateful to have you back. As we continue through Ephesians, we’re, well into the second chapter, moving into kind of a new section in the flow of the book, beginning here in chapter 11. And I think, Michael, that this is kind of where Paul begins to unpack some of the things that he’s been getting ready.

00:00:27:37 – 00:00:50:19
Clint Loveall
He’s been laying some foundation here, saying some things that I think help everyone get ready to hear it. And so we’ll jump in here, read a few verses, will come back and talk through it. So then remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth called the uncircumcision by those who are called the circumcision, a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands.

00:00:50:24 – 00:01:24:39
Clint Loveall
Remember that you were at that time without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope. And without God in the world, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. So here, for the first time in the letter, Paul mentions Jews and Gentiles, or at least he certainly alludes to those two groups naming the Gentiles.

00:01:24:39 – 00:02:07:28
Clint Loveall
And then this idea about circumcision in Israel. And we’ve said this, and I don’t want to overstate it, but I do want to just reiterate briefly, I think it is hard for us to come to terms with the reality of the separation and the division between these two groups in Paul’s day. The idea that in a church, you know, in a religious environment, you’re going to try and make a spot, make a place for Jews and Gentiles to come together and allow them both a unique understanding of Christ that doesn’t simply throw Judaism out the window, but honors it as a covenant.

00:02:07:33 – 00:02:41:15
Clint Loveall
The living God has made with those people, but then also argue that Jesus opens the door for Gentiles to be a part of that covenant, to tell the Jewish people that circumcision, the primary mark of their identity through centuries of hardship and exile and occupation, now does not really have a bearing on anything religious, is simply a mark in the flesh and not a mark of the covenant any longer.

00:02:41:20 – 00:02:51:15
Clint Loveall
These are hard messages for these folks to understand, Michael. And I think I just sometimes think they’re so foreign to us that maybe we don’t resonate with them fully.

00:02:51:19 – 00:03:15:45
Michael Gewecke
Well, and it’s worth noting there’s clues here in the text. I think that human nature is already set in, in the Ephesian context in this region, because look at the way that this section starts here in verse 11. You have this. So then remember, as if you never tell someone to remember a thing that they’re actively remembering, right?

00:03:15:45 – 00:03:44:06
Michael Gewecke
So, so remember that at one time you Gentiles, remember verse 12, you were at that time without Christ. It, the subtext is here. This is something that you might need reminded of and that what an amazing turn that would be. Paul, the apostle for the Gentiles, right, has been encouraging church growth. He’s been nurturing these Christian beauties.

00:03:44:11 – 00:04:13:19
Michael Gewecke
And to everyone’s surprise, and we see this in acts, especially to Peter and especially to some of the church leadership, the idea that the gospel is spreading like wildfire amongst Gentile communities is, at least a pleasant surprise and at most, completely shocking. So here we have a text in which the Gentiles need reminded you. Remember, there was a day you were cut off from this whole thing, right?

00:04:13:28 – 00:04:36:14
Michael Gewecke
You were cut off from the Jewish family lineage. You weren’t part of that understanding and part of God’s story that’s reached back for thousands of years. You are immigrants. You are adopted children. You are ambassadors. All of these were things we see throughout the different Pauline letters. I think what’s fascinating here, Clint, is that there needs to be a reminder.

00:04:36:28 – 00:05:07:31
Michael Gewecke
Hey, you all also don’t have a head start, and I think it does show us some things. There’s some church history stuff happening here because there was struggle not just in these churches, but across the Christian movement. And it beginning times, you know what? How the synagogue would play into Christian worship and all these things. And here we may have a sense that the Gentiles had a bit of a chip on their shoulder and need reminded, hey, you also are not direct heirs to this thing.

00:05:07:31 – 00:05:09:49
Michael Gewecke
It comes to you by grace as well.

00:05:09:54 – 00:05:39:45
Clint Loveall
And a pretty strong reminder being aliens from Israel, being strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world, I mean that that’s relatively strong language about the position that the Gentiles were in pre Christ. Before we move on to that next piece, Michael, I do want to back up and point out that, I, I love this about Paul.

00:05:39:45 – 00:06:08:19
Clint Loveall
There are these moments where he just it feels like he can’t help himself. So he says, you are sometimes called the uncircumcision by those who are called or called themselves the circumcision. But but he just can’t go on from there. He has to stop and add a physical thing done in the flesh by human hands. So, Paul is not a detractor of circumcision.

00:06:08:24 – 00:06:34:44
Clint Loveall
He understands the place that is played and the importance it plays. He’s not saying it’s worthless, but what he’s saying is that it is no longer necessary in Christ. Or at least that’s what he’ll go on to say, that that, I think, is what he has in mind. But he he has to stop there and and just say, yeah, they call himself a circumcision, which is a human thing done to the flesh and doesn’t really count and isn’t really about Jesus at all.

00:06:34:53 – 00:06:40:43
Clint Loveall
But it’s fine that they call themselves that. So I just think it’s fun when he has those moments.

00:06:40:48 – 00:07:06:10
Michael Gewecke
Well, and this really does exemplify your initial point, and it’s worth noting that one of the reasons we struggle to read a text like this is because I think we often just skip over the part that says circumcision, because that that seems to us to be relatively irrelevant to the point that’s being made. But it does exemplify the real challenge being lived out here, because the groups are not just religious groups.

00:07:06:10 – 00:07:26:36
Michael Gewecke
In other words, it’s not like Paul’s just trying to write to Methodists and to Lutherans and to say, hey, you guys, you’re similar, but you have a little bit of differences. But mostly no. And it’s also not fair. I don’t think to say that the analog that Paul’s simply writing to different racial ethnic groups, that’s also not exactly the case.

00:07:26:36 – 00:07:54:27
Michael Gewecke
It’s actually far more nuanced than that. In the ancient world, because you could have citizenship in one country, but also be racially ethnic from a different country. You could also have done pretty well in life. And then you end up for some time as a slave. There’s a lot of moving pieces in the ancient world. And so the analog here is striking because there are people who are circumcised, which is a physical mark of spiritual devotion, of of racial heritage.

00:07:54:27 – 00:08:17:29
Michael Gewecke
Yes, but also a way that you’re participating in what God is told you to do it. It’s a unique connection between divine, community and covenant and also basic human functioning and communities and tribal identities. This is how you know, you’re in a not and it’s a it’s a fascinating, complicated topic which we struggle to get our minds around.

00:08:17:29 – 00:08:31:10
Michael Gewecke
But the point is, in the midst of that complexity, Paul is saying yes to both groups and saying, but the yes isn’t totally inclusive of all that. Yes. Towards the third thing, who is Jesus Christ? Yeah.

00:08:31:10 – 00:09:12:07
Clint Loveall
And let’s take a look at how he gets there. Verse 13. But now in Christ Jesus, who you once, who once you were far from, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. So now in Christ Jesus, you who were far off have been brought near to the blood of Christ. And then I’m just going to go through verse 14 here also, for he is our peace, and in his flesh he has made both groups into one, and has broken down the dividing wall that is the hostility between us.

00:09:12:12 – 00:10:04:39
Clint Loveall
The transition between 13 and 14 is drastically, dramatically important. First he says to the Gentiles, now you were these things. You were lost. You didn’t have hope, you were without God. But now you’ve been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he is our. And this is where we go to third, the third way. The big picture he is now our peace, and in his flesh he makes both groups one and tears down the dividing wall, which is the hostility between us, seamlessly here, incorporating the argument to the Jewish people as well, who have not really been named and don’t seem to be he he seems here clearly so far to be addressing

00:10:04:39 – 00:10:39:20
Clint Loveall
the Gentiles, but then he can just very easily shift gears here and say, we are now all in him. And because we are all in him, whatever stood between us has literally been torn down. Broken down. Jesus has demolished the wall that separates us and therefore should also erase eradicate the hostility between us. It’s such a powerful word here, you know it’s not Paul is not lecturing.

00:10:39:25 – 00:10:49:48
Clint Loveall
But if you follow carefully the argument, it’s it’s it’s very it’s profound, deep. And I, I think it hits hard.

00:10:49:53 – 00:11:20:51
Michael Gewecke
And it’s incredibly contemporary because it’s incredibly human in the address. And I do want to note there, this is a slight turn into a devotional reading of the text here, but I want to make note broken down the dividing wall, that is, and once again defining it, the hostility between us. Hostility is a strong word. It’s worth pausing there to recognize that hostility is a basic reality that comes in the midst of trying to live out the faith.

00:11:20:56 – 00:11:46:10
Michael Gewecke
And I think what a word like that does to push back against some of the ways that we trivialize the real differences in church, is it forces us to realize that sometimes the walls of hostility that we’ve built are not just walls to keep the other person out, but walls that we build because we like the freedom, safety, security of keeping the other person on the other side.

00:11:46:10 – 00:12:14:36
Michael Gewecke
In other words, it’s worth noting that sometimes we like the walls. We prefer the walls to be there, and the fact that Christ has knocked them down, that can make it incredibly challenging to live in Christian community because it takes the security that we’ve built between each other, it removes it and it asks us to reckon with. Then how are we going to live in this new unity in Jesus Christ?

00:12:14:36 – 00:12:37:57
Michael Gewecke
And that is where this, this, but now in Christ Jesus, that this is intended to be theologically literal, that the idea that we are living our life in Christ, that Christ by the power of the spirit, has done nothing constitutionally to bring us in. That would not be the case if we hadn’t received the grace of the one who gave himself for us.

00:12:37:57 – 00:13:03:24
Michael Gewecke
And the mechanism of that, that Paul references by the blood of Christ. He’s our peace in his flesh. He’s made it so. Jesus has done this thing and everything from that sort of unsettles the hostile tensions that we’ve created to make things work. And then where that leaves the Christian is to navigate, what is this new life going to look like without the wall?

00:13:03:28 – 00:13:33:58
Clint Loveall
I am, I’m amazed often at the applicability and the contemporary ness of the Scripture, and I find it fascinating that you can be reading in a passage talking about the circumcision and the uncircumcision in your eyes, or glossing over, and you’re trying to just figure out, what could this say to me? And then a verse like this just just goes off like a neon sign.

00:13:34:03 – 00:14:19:06
Clint Loveall
Wherever there are groups in Christ that have hostility between them, Christ wants something else. Christ wants fundamentally to break down the barriers that divide people and the peace that Christ offers in his flesh is that those divisions and the divisiveness with which we live become destroyed by the sacrifice of Christ and people’s response to it, that this is, those of us who have effectively nothing to do with Jewishness or gentleness.

00:14:19:06 – 00:14:44:45
Clint Loveall
We don’t think in those terms. We don’t live in those terms. Those things mean nothing to us in our day to day life. I guarantee each of us can think of some person or some group with whom we have some hostility, with whom we carry some lack of peace, some division, and Christ comes to tear those walls down.

00:14:44:47 – 00:15:16:21
Clint Loveall
It’s a it’s a beautiful idea. It’s desperately hard to live. The church has never done it particularly well. Though we have tried it, it is not something I think we see, good examples of in the world. This is a, this is a Christian calling, a thing that has been done in Christ and notice the implication is we don’t do it, we receive it.

00:15:16:26 – 00:15:26:20
Clint Loveall
Jesus does it. We just have to be aware of the reality that it has been done, and we have to act accordingly. And this is this is really, really good.

00:15:26:31 – 00:15:54:45
Michael Gewecke
And to recognize the costly ness of it. Because know this, you’ve been brought near by his blood. He has made, and then just right beyond that, the idea that in his flesh he has made both groups into one. This is a costly gift that we’ve received. And to forsake that gift, to trample on it, to take it for granted, would be a great miscarriage of justice to practice.

00:15:54:50 – 00:16:24:27
Michael Gewecke
Gratitude for the blood and flesh, for the one who who gave up his actual life for us would be to completely miss the expectation and the calling of the gospel for us, which is the same way it’s embodied. We’re called to live our life with the same seriousness that Christ was willing to give up his own. And that is the kind of strength that we find at the center when we find these walls devilish.

00:16:24:27 – 00:16:47:20
Michael Gewecke
Because make no mistake about it, this is a challenging reality. It was to those who received this letter. That’s why a leather needed to be written. And that’s why the top of this section said, remember, right? There were things that they needed to be reminded of. So the same for us. We need reminded it was at the cost of Jesus’s blood and his flesh.

00:16:47:20 – 00:17:16:13
Michael Gewecke
It was the cost of God giving up his life for us that we now see these walls torn asunder. And then the question is, will we have the courage to live together in that reality? And of course, that’s a commitment that we have to renew day by day. That’s what Christian community is. And I think it’s it is inspirational, but it’s inspirational in a way that doesn’t turn away from the reality of the difficulty.

00:17:16:13 – 00:17:29:24
Michael Gewecke
And I think that Paul knows what he’s saying. And to be fair, he understands the challenges of it. And yet, because this is God’s intention for the world, this is the message that needs said.

00:17:29:29 – 00:18:06:33
Clint Loveall
I don’t want to I don’t want to get political here, Michael. But I do want to say that I think this texts and texts like it. This text and texts like it cast a vision that in, Facebook, Partizan divided culture. It’s kind of hard to see, whoever you imagine these groups to be conservatives and liberals, Democrats, Republicans, black, white.

00:18:06:37 – 00:18:40:18
Clint Loveall
Imagine that in the course of the world, the outside of the church world, those divisions are real and painful, and there’s judgment between the two groups. And then they come together to church to sit under Christ. And they hear these words, those walls are gone. Quit living like they’re still up. Quit living like there’s division. Quit rebuilding the hostility that Jesus has knocked down, that that is.

00:18:40:22 – 00:19:10:00
Clint Loveall
That’s incredibly difficult for people to do. And yet that’s the invitation we’re given to subject the divisions and the divided ness that we seem to live with and sometimes even lean into, and lay it down at the feet of Christ, whose very intention was to destroy it. That that is a that’s a beautiful calling for the church.

00:19:10:04 – 00:19:28:55
Clint Loveall
It’s a difficult calling for Christians, something we continue to strive to pursue and something we have a fear. I mean, if we’re going to be honest, the church is made of people. And so we have a checkered history with not being able to do it particularly well at times.

00:19:29:00 – 00:19:53:07
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I think that’s well said and we’ll leave it at that. The only thing I’ll add is to say, take some heart that Christians of every generation have struggled because of the reality of that, that that we have been human every leg of this marathon. And we will continue to struggle. But we stand yet under these words and that’s the gift of the gospel, is that we wait today again, the power of the spirit at work to do these things in us.

00:19:53:07 – 00:20:04:40
Michael Gewecke
Thanks for being with us. Hope you found this conversation helpful. If you have, give it a like certainly subscribe so that you can stick around with, future studies like this. And we look forward to seeing you all next week.

00:20:04:40 – 00:20:05:24
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.