To dwell above with saints we love,
That will be grace and glory.
To live below with saints we know,
That’s another story.

In the first three chapters of Ephesians we’ve been learning about the formation of the church, the body of Christ, made up of all Christians everywhere, no matter how diverse their backgrounds, culture or points of view. Even those with a history of great hostility between them, like the Jews and Gentiles, are now fused together into a single family of God.

The question is: What kind of structure are you going to put in place to keep these diverse people from killing each other? If you put all these different kinds of people “under one roof” so to speak, how is that going to work?

The short answer is: There is no structure you can impose upon people that will sustain the unity that Jesus commanded and prayed for just before cross, “that they may all be one.” What it takes is for every follower of Jesus to cultivate the kind of virtues that preserve peace. And the Apostle Paul is going to tell us precisely what those are. See you on Sunday.