Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Grace and Peace

Finally getting a quick blog in here. I'm really sorry. Not that I haven't had anything to say. Believe me, I have! Just haven't had time to get it all down.

Something struck me this morning during my nice, quiet, Bible-reading time. Decided to start reading the book of Galatians. Usually I skip over the intro and get to the good stuff. You know, where Paul is supposed to tell me something profound and eye-opening.

I got stopped at "Grace and peace to you...."

A quick glance at my footnotes and I find that "grace" was the word used in a common greeting in Greek. And "peace" was the common Hebrew greeting. Big wooo, right? Woe there, Nellie. What? Greeks and Hebrews. Jews and Gentiles. Paul is crossing cultures. Not they I didn't already know that, but what this means is that not only were Jews and Gentiles believers, they were worshiping together.

I have been so focused on breaking down cultural barriers (not so much physical barriers as those created by ignorance) that I couldn't help but realize that God is in the business of making us truly One Body. So, the liberal Christian, the conservative Christian, Chinese Christian and Honduran one. The Palestinian Christian and the Messianic Jew. The Christian neighbor and the Christian homeless man in the tunnel. Yep. One Body.

Grace and Peace.

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