Ephesians 3:15 - Families are forever

"...out of whom every family in heavens and upon earth is being named..."

-Family.  Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, right?  As Paul is praying for this assembly in Ephesus, he is thinking about families.  Those things and people we are around most often we are more likely to take for granted, more likely to be wounded and scarred by whatever brokenness might manifest itself.  Family.  We can tend to come to the place where we believe we don't need them, but this could not be further from the truth. The most elemental societal unit, this - it is the building block of healthy functioning civilization. Individuals do not build society, families do, providing lifelong support and nurture and companionship as well as the basic framework by which we carry out the command to be fruitful and multiply. Much of the growth of the early church we see taking place as families and entire households come to Christ.  

-But don't miss this - Paul is telling us that there are families in heaven.  And since they are not families of angels (who neither marry nor are given in marriage), we know that these must be the souls of those who have died and gone to be with the Lord, and are still a family.  Which reveals in stark relief that families are forever.  Yes, Jesus in Matthew 22.30 says in response to the Sadducees' hypothetical that in Heaven people will be similar to the angels in that we too will not marry or be given in marriage, but Jesus there is not nullifying the family unit but rather merely pointing out a diminished functioning of marriage in heaven.  But make no mistake, families are forever.  We must not let the devaluation and breakdown of the family in our modern western society (nor any distance or dysfunction in our own family) convince us of anything to the contrary.  My family is intended to be forever, and God even named it.  They are part of His plan, and He never ever makes mistakes.  If anything we ought to double down and renew our commitment to the family God has given us.  In so much as is possible with us, praying, forgiving, reaching out, communicating, serving, loving, giving them as much Heaven as we can by the grace of God.

-But neither do we here need to diminish the value of any individual soul in the kingdom of Heaven or in the heart of God.  Yes, God is the One Who named my family, but He also knows my name.  Because He gave it to me.  He knows who I am, every hair on my head, He knows every intimate detail, every hidden thought before I even think it, all the things about me that nobody knows and some which I don't even know myself.  He made me, forming and shaping me in my mother's womb, body mind and soul, awe-inspiring and full of wonder, so full of potential to show off His breathtaking goodness.  He knew the course and number of my days before there was as yet even one of them.  And part of this included my family. For better or worse, they are God's gift to me, and He wants to redeem my entire family here on earth because He so longs for us to be together with Him in Heaven.  Forever.

Ephesians 3:14 - All knees...

"For the sake of this I am bending the knees of me toward the Father..."

-Paul is back on track at last.  This multi-national Church which God is gathering and which He has called Paul to help build supplies him with the motivation and the incentive to bow his knees before the Father.  And that would be both knees, not just one.  Normally a position for prayer, this (although sadly not a normal position), but more specifically this is a picture of dependence and reverence.  I rather doubt that Paul needed any extra motivation for prayer or for depending on the Lord.  His was not seasonal or occasioned by some unsolvable crisis.  But Paul is making a point of emphasis that this thing (or things) for which he is praying is not some flippant fly-by-night request tossed up to the heavenlies, a little dab'll-do-ya and a dash of prayer for favor.  He's not just stopping in to pick up a quart of milk and a pack of blessings at the heavenly convenience store.  Paul means to do some serious business in the throne room of Heaven, and the stakes could not be higher.

-Which begs the question, what is the reason for which I bow my knees before the Father?  Is there any serious business that I ever do with the King of Heaven?  Is there any reason, anything at all that drives me to my knees, in dependence, in reverence, in worship, in desperation?  Am I ever awestruck or woefully undone or desperately inadequate in any way?  Is there anything?  Something other than some formulaic ritual in a religious service, or perhaps when I have reached the end of my rope, the end of myself, when I have exhausted all other options except the One to which I should have turned to begin with?  The sad truth is that I bow my knees intermittently at best.  Very rarely do I pause long enough to get a glimpse of God's glory and then allow myself to be floored by it (figuratively or literally).  All too often I turn to the unholy trinity of me-myself-and-I.  I can handle it myself.  Either that or I have yet to fully commit myself to a cause or endeavor big enough or daunting enough to elicit much knee-bowing behavior on my part.  Failing here, I fail ultimately.  One day I will stand before that heavenly throne, or rather bow, falling on my knees before the Glorious One Who sits upon it (ALL knees will bow), and I will be called to give an account for how I lived my vaporously brief life here on earth, how I invested the time and the blessings and the gifts He gave to me to make an eternal difference in the world and in the lives of those around me.  Believing prayer moves mountains.  What am I moving?

Ephesians 3:13 - The Why Behind The What

"Therefore I am asking not to be losing heart in the afflictions of me on behalf of you, which is [are] your glory."

-Paul here finally concludes the huge tangent he took after verse one, where he mentioned his imprisonment on behalf of the Gentiles.  Being in prison was not some grave misfortune, no tragic mistake.  God had a plan (as always), and He planned to get the glorious Good News about Jesus Christ to every nation, to the Gentiles - through Paul.  Paul was in prison for declaring the Good News to the Gentiles, yet even in prison the Gospel was not imprisoned. Somehow this circumstance, this occasion of suffering, much as Paul may have wished for it to be different, was part of God's plan.  So for this, Paul was all in - he was good with it.  And he wanted these believers to be good with it.

-It certainly makes a difference to have a purpose in suffering, to know or to remember the why behind the what.  Suffering and hardship will always conspire to slow you down and get you off track, but when there seems to be no reason for it, no higher purpose behind and above it all, that'll suck the wind right out of your sails.  Even when you are not the one who is suffering, it is all too human to observe individual suffering or tragedy on a larger scale and ask, " Why?  Why, Lord?  Why did this happen?  Why is this happening?  Why did You ALLOW this to happen?  Because You could have prevented it, right?  You SHOULD have prevented it."  And so we call into question the goodness of God, His wisdom or His power, and even His very existence.  We see the suffering, we look for a reasonable justification for it, and finding none we find God wanting.  Always, no matter what hand we or those around us are dealt, we have a choice, to doubt, or to enter in and believe, to trust that God is and that He is good and working all things together for good.  That is the very essence of faith, a daily exercise in seeing what you cannot see, even and especially when you are seeing something which appears to fly in the face of what God has told us.  To be sure, even the belief and awareness that God is good and that He has a plan does not usually change the circumstance.  What this inner conviction does is to surround our hearts with incomprehensible peace and help us to keep our head up and to keep moving forward. 

-So Paul says, Hey, Ephesians, don't lose heart, don't be discouraged, don't blame yourselves, and definitely don't stop what you are doing on account of me, because what I am doing is on account of you, for your glory and the glory of God, for your benefit, for you (and others) to be able to experience the breathtaking goodness of God.

-IS THERE SOME CIRCUMSTANCE IN YOUR LIFE (OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW) RIGHT NOW WHERE IT WOULD HELP YOU TO KNOW/REMEMBER THE WHY BEHIND THE WHAT?  OR, HAS THERE BEEN IN THE PAST?

Ephesians 3:12 - No appointment necessary!

"...in Whom we are having the boldness and access in confidence through the faith of Him."

-Note the change of pronoun.  Twice in four words, Paul uses the first person plural (the Lord of US, in Whom WE are having boldness...).  Suddenly it is not Jews and Gentiles (which has been his subject since chapter 2 verse 11), nor is it me and all you Colossians, it is all of us together.  What he says here is true of all of us, with one qualification...

-But two truths in fact.  Jesus Christ is Lord - He is Lord of all.  AND in Him we can see out and find new life and boldly go where no mere mortal in his fallen state would dare to go or could ever go - we are able to confidently approach the throne of the King of the universe.  Access refers to the ability and permission to enter the presence of a king. Normally one does not just walk into the king's presence. You must be summoned.  And depending on the king, any attempt to enter his presence unsummoned can be punishable by death (cf Esther 4.11). One does not simply walk in on the king, a truth which no doubt is lost on most in the US, as we threw off the king many moons ago - and yet not one of us would even presume to go see POTUS without an appointment (and to be sure, we're talking about Someone far surpassing POTUS).  But guess what?  No appointment needed here. The most powerful, most holy Sovereign in all the universe has given us standing permission to approach Him whenever we want, whenever the need arises. And we are more than merely allowed into His presence - boldness is for speaking!  We can go right up to Him and talk with Him about anything, anytime.  It is like a child with their father - they go right up to their dad as he sits in his regal dad chair and hop (or crawl) into his lap and start talking away (or perhaps they simply sit there and enjoy the reassurance and security of being close to him). They are not simply tolerated - Abba Daddy gives them his full and undivided attention. Of course this is a best case scenario with a gracious and kind and patient and undistracted father, but isn't this exactly what we get with our Heavenly Father?  Faith unlocks unique unparalleled access to the King of the universe.  And therein lies the qualification - faith.  Faith - faith in Jesus Christ - simultaneously unlocks our access and emboldens it (Hebrews 4:16; 10:19, Ephesians 2:18; 2 Corinthians 3:4; Philippians 3:9, 1Peter 3.18).  It's like this unbelievably awesome cheat code which completely unlocks everything in the game (but no game, this - our eternal destiny is at stake!).  We are completely forgiven and declared right with God when we put our faith, our trust in Jesus' death, in the blood He shed on the Cross of Calvary.  And if we have truly done this, if we are trusting in Christ (and in His finished work as opposed to our own 'good' deeds, the best of which are filthy rags), then in God's eyes we have done everything right.  A difficult truth to embrace, no doubt, as our reality tells us otherwise, yet it is precisely this truth which sets us free.  Having done everything right in His eyes, we are free to approach our heavenly Daddy, the King of the universe, at any time.  And we have the confidence to do so when we know in our hearts that we are right, not in an arrogant or cocky way but rather with calm unhesitating assurance.  A standing appointment - to this we have been appointed, simply through faith in Jesus.  Praise Him...!

Ephesians 3:11 - Definitely a 4-letter word

"...according to [the] purpose of the ages which He did in Christ Jesus the Lord of us..."

-The purpose of the ages...  Now we along with the angels in Heaven behold that this was God’s purpose of the ages, His idea and plan from the very beginning, from eternity, His doing, and in these last days He is finally and fully bringing it to pass, gathering in the nations from every corner of planet earth, in His many-colored wisdom creating a many-colored congregation of Christ-centered worshippers.  He had this in mind all along, before He even created the first Adam, and this is what He had in mind in sending the ‘Last Adam’ (1Corinthians 15.45), His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to live and to die on behalf of Adam’s race.  And now, being gathered from every tribe and tongue and from every corner of the globe, the Church, this assembly of redeemed and rescued souls, Jew and Gentile together, THIS is the why behind it all, the why of why's, the very reason why God has done all that He has done - assembling a multitude of eager worshippers who celebrate and spread the knowledge of His breathtaking goodness throughout the world and on into eternity.

-And to be sure, all that has been accomplished in gathering this new people, God did in Jesus Christ, through His work on the Cross and His work in human hearts, the hearts of those who are completely His (2Chronicles 16.9).  And He is the Lord of us, Jesus is Lord.  Not some distant monarch who we can reject whenever his demands seem unreasonable or out of sync with what I want.  Not some lackey president we can vote out of office every few years.  In fact, I don’t think that word at all means what we think it means.  ‘Lord’ is more than a name to use while praying or a mere title of respect, it is a designation of AUTHORITY, for which we descendants of rebels have quite a dim(inished) view.  “Why do you call me Lord and not do what I say?” (Luke 6.46, cf Matthew 7.21, Malachi 1.6)  He comes first in everything.  I do what my Lord says, whatever He asks, whatever He wants.  But when I bring it in weak, when I follow with only half a heart, when I hold back and struggle and stray and deviate in my devotion, I betray the bitter reality that Jesus is in fact NOT Lord of all, He is not Lord at all, at least not in my life, not in my heart.  'Lord' does indeed tend to be a four-letter word to my fallen flesh.  Yes, this is authority and feality which THE Lord certainly deserves, and which He could easily force (and will someday - Philippians 2.10-11), but instead what I get for my wavering submission to the King of kings and Lord of lords... is grace.  Patience.  Rich, long-suffering mercy.  He began with grace as He poured out that precious crimson flow on Calvary, He continued with grace when He formed me in my mother’s womb fearful and wonderful and yet fully bent towards self, and He continues with grace to this day, each and every day as I fall short of full-on white-hot devotion to the One Who is truly worthy of nothing less, nothing less than my all, my whole life, my whole heart, whole-hearted love (Matthew 22.37), whole-hearted service (Matthew 4.10).  He is the great I AM (with a capital 'I').  He is Lord, and He must increase.  i must decrease, must learn to live in the lowercase 'i'...

Ephesians 3:10 - Mind-blowing Wisdom and God's People 4.0

"...in order that it might be made known now to the rulers and to the authorities in the heavenlies through the assembly [what is] the manifold wisdom of God..."

-The manifold wisdom of God... The manifold wisdom of God.  How ‘manifold’ is it exactly?  poly-poikilos in the Greek, it means many-colored.  Used only here in the NT, the root is used in the LXX for Joseph’s coat of many colors (Genesis 37.3).  Beautiful, fascinating, glorious, mind-blowing, unsearchable, inscrutable - far beyond the capacity of finite man to even comprehend (see Paul’s mind blown in Romans 11.33).  Layer upon layer upon layer of beautiful, many-colored wisdom, God’s knowledge and His ability to apply it is inexhaustible, never waning or wavering or failing, always and forever infinite, glorious and unfathomably creative.  He knows the name of every star in the universe (since He made them), He knows every hair on the head of every person on planet earth (since He made them), He knows every thought in my head and every word I speak before I speak it, He knows every single thing that has ever happened, and every single thing that ever will happen, and some suggest that He even knows every possibility of even what could happen.  But wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge, and this too God possesses in vast and beautiful infiniteness, multi-layered and many-leveled and breathtakingly beautiful.  What’s more, He shares it with His image-bearers, and that generously (James 1.5).  Wisdom comes to us from God Himself (Daniel 1.17, 2Peter 3.15, James 3.17, Ephesians 1.17) and from His Word (2Timothy 3.15, Colossians 3.16, Psalm 19.7, Psalm 119.98).  That relative morsel of wisdom He bestowed on Solomon made David's successor the wisest person who ever lived, amassing for him vast amounts of wealth and land and power as well as favor (1Kings 10.23-24).  But this is about God’s wisdom on display in all it’s wonder, a beautiful tapestry of color.  This is certainly seen in the creation (Proverbs 3.19, Psalm 104.24), where God out of His manifold wisdom has OUT OF NOTHING made indescribable beauty and fascinating complexities.  An evening sky; the human eye; flowers and birds and trees in the fall - a wondrous cavalcade of flora and fauna (too many to list); the daughters of eve; the way of a man with a woman - who could ever imagine all these things, much less engineer them for real?  Man, for all his pomp and posturing, can merely try to study and explain it all and at some point perhaps he sits back and marvels (or scoffs - haters gonna hate).  This is the manifold wisdom of God on display, and it is now on display through the church, the body of God’s people...

-Get your arms and mind around this - the glorious breathtaking mind-blowing many-colored wisdom of God that we see manifested in all its slendor throughout the entire universe is now being shown off THROUGH THE CHRUCH!  This church, the beautiful bride of Jesus Christ, the worldwide assembly of those of truly follow Him and the localized expressions of this Body - this is now providing a glimpse into the mind-boggling wisdom of our amazingly creative Creator.  The glimpse apparently is primarily for angels, those rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, and no doubt they are amazed, but we here on earth also get a glimpse.  Having already witnessed a handful of what eventually turned out to be less-than-stellar beta versions of God’s people (1.0 - Adam’s wicked descendants were destroyed in a global deluge, 2.0 - Noah’s haughty descendants were deposed in a global dispersion, 3.0 - Abraham fathered a nation whose own prophets repeatedly berated it for being stiff-necked, half-hearted, self-righteous xenophobes), we now see that what God has been working towards through all of created history has been to ultimately gather to Himself a diverse many-colored congregation of contrite and faithful worshippers who freely humble themselves in His sight and whom He is transforming by His now-indwelling Spirit to be able to truly devote themselves to loving Him, to loving one another, and to loving their neighbors and the nations.  In the end these will have surmounted seemingly unassailable obstacles of sin and pride and of opposition and persecution and of language and culture and geography to reach and bring in a vast multitude which no one will be able to count, but ultimately it was God’s Who did it - no sweat.  and it was His idea - mind blown...

Ephesians 3:9 - The holy playbook

"...and to illuminate [all] what [is] house-stewardship of the mystery having been hidden from the ages in God the [One] the all things having created...’

-Paul was given two undeserved gifts by the Lord, the first being to evangelize to the nations the unfathomable riches of Christ (previous verse), and the second (here) to shed light on how God is implementing His age-old plan to include all the other (non-Jewish) nations in the assembly of His people.  The former helps bring about the latter in fact, as God’s plan to gather the Gentiles in to His forever family involves the use of human messengers - evangelists, church-planters, missionaries, teachers, disciplers, pastors, neighbors, etc...and Paul, Christ’s apostle to the nations.  And while Paul was not the first Jew to be used to lead a Gentile to faith in Christ (by all accounts that distinction belongs to Peter - cf Acts 10.44ff), he was  the first official ambassador of Christ to the nations, called and sent first to Asia Minor and subsequently to Macedonia and regions beyond.  And everywhere he went, to everyone who would listen, he was faithfully unpacking the details of God's mysterious and wonderful plan.

-But the greater point here is that God has a plan, a holy playbook if you will, and He is carrying it out.  He created all things, everything-that-is out of nothing-that-ever-was.  He simply spoke it all into existence (whoa), and all things were VERY good.  But He created them all for a reason, for the ultimate pupose of the showing off and the celebration of His breathtaking goodness, and He is superintending every last detail and minutia in order to bring it to pass.  The same mind-blowing omnipotence behind the creation is the very same power now employed in the implementation of God’s eternal plan.  God has a plan, a plan fantástico, He knows what He’s doing, and He is way more than able to make it happen...

Ephesians 3:8 - An unlikely journey of infinite proportions

"To me the least of all saints was given this grace, to evangelize to the nations the unfathomable riches of Christ..."

-From the least of all to unfathomable riches, an unlikely journey of infinite proportions... But that’s what He do, this almighty God of wonders, and this was the attitude embraced by the one who penned this letter.  Was he really the least of all the saints, the lowest of all the men women and children on the proverbial Body-of-Christ totem pole?  Hardly, but this is how he really saw himself.  God had taken a murderous persecutor of the saints and had transformed him into a Spirit-empowered producer of saints.  From saint-hater to saint-maker.  And he lived into it.  His life was indeed not his own, and he lived as fully and completely into others-first others-better as he could by the gift of God’s grace.  Obviously God was doing the heavy lifting, but Paul was the instrument, and he was all-in for letting the Lord pour him all out for the would-be believers he would have once seen in prison or worse, or better yet for those who would never even have come to faith in the first place.

-But again, God did Paul an immense undeserved favor, as his God-given responsibility was to announce to the nations the priceless Good News about Jesus.  In fact, what valuation, what price could you even place on the Gospel, or on Jesus Christ, or even on just one of the countless souls for whom He gave up His life?  How much is one soul worth?  How much are you worth?  What indeed does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul (Mt 16.26)?  Your soul, my soul, the soul of even the worst most vile and evil person on earth, is worth more than all the riches in the cosmos.  It is worth whatever anyone is willing to pay for it, and the price God Himself was willing to pay was the life of His only Son.  And THAT, my friends, is a price beyond valuation.  True riches beyond compare.  Incalculable.  Inestimable.  Truly unfathomable.  Worth your life...

-But this is in no way about me.  It’s not about how much I am worth to God, it’s about the incomparable riches of Jesus Christ.  He is better, simply better, better than anything or anyone, and we waste our lives on manure and slummy mudpies when we give our hearts and time and devote ourselves to anything else (Phil 3.8).  It is He, it is He, it is He!  The fairest of ten thousand and billions more beside.  He is the Buried Treasure for which one would sell all that he has, He is the priceless heavenly Pearl for Whom we would do well to develop a magnificent obsession (Mt 13.44-46).  Our mind is filled with Him, and we are preoccupied continually, intrusively and to a troubling extent.  Or ought to be, no?  My soul knows this to be true, but my head and my heart fall so short, so far short of full devotion, so fickle and failing, chasing after so many lesser suitors, so caught up in the fleeting and the temporal and in those things which will never ever fully satisfy.  In this, as in so much else, I myself have a long long way to go...

Ephesians 3:7 - God's Waiter

"...of which I came to be a servant, according to the gift of the grace of God, the [one] having been given to me according to the working of the power of Him.’

-Paul is a prisoner, he is a house-steward, he is one entrusted with a magnificent mystery, and now he calls himself a servant.  A minister.  The Greek word gives us our English word, 'deacon', which is typically a servant leader in a local church, but for a better picture of this word, think 'waiter', aka a server.  These are the ones who do the thankless dirty work, working hard and tirelessly on behalf of those they serve, meeting needs, not at all in it for themselves or advancing their own personal interests.  Definitely not a job to which most would typically aspire.

-Paul, however, was not catering to the whims and fancies of some spoiled, hard-to-please resaurant-goer - he served on behalf of Jesus Christ and His Gospel, THE Good News, the News which was incomparably better by far than any news ever.  and to Paul, getting to be a servant of the Good News was a gracious gift from God.  God did him a glorious favor, 'cuz there was no greater privilege on earth than this.  Altho' Paul technically didn’t have much choice in the matter - God literally called him and chose him for this, arresting him as it were on that Damascene road, but in fact God had set Paul apart and was preparing him for this work from the day he was born (cf Galatians 1.15).  All his skills and gifts and education and experiences, not one bit of it was wasted, every last ounce of preparation honing him and getting him ready for the work God had for him.  And really, is there any greater blessing than to be spent in doing that for which you were always meant to do, what God made you to do?  And is there any higher privilege than to be used of Him in helping to advance the great Good News in the lives of others?

-Now, in spending himself as a servant, frequently in extreme hardship and beyond the point of exhaustion (cf 2Corinthians 11.23-28), Paul nevertheless was tireless, constantly faithful to his God-given role and filling up his calling, up to the task because he was powered up by almighty God Himself.  He understood and lived into the truth that God of all power indeed was the One Who was constantly at work in him, giving Paul all the power and motivation he needed in order to do all that God wanted him to do (Philippians 2.13).  He was going to finish the race, and he was running to win.

Ephesians 3:6 - Denigrated denizens no more!

"...to being the nations [are] co-heirs and co-body members and co-sharers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Good News..."

-So, the precise point that God was revealing to the apostles and prophets - trying to get across to them, these custodians of the early church - was that yes, other nations (goyim) besides Israel were including in God’s promise of salvation in Jesus Christ.  In 21st century western (Gentile) Christendom, this seems like a no-brainer, a universally-accepted truth, but not so for the Jewish mind.  God pretty much had to twist their arms to embrace the (other) nations, in fact, as accustomed as they were to thinking of non-Jews as being unclean, unacceptable, and excluded from God’s purposes.  To a Jew, God only had use for a Jew, or at least that's how their spiritual sensibilities had evolved.  There was no place for an uncircumcised Gentile (i.e. filthy idolatrous pagan) among God’s people.  The best a non-Jew could hope for was to receive circumcision and begin to observe the law of Moses, and even then they would not ascend to the status of one of God’s chosen people.  Good Jews would have no dealings whatsoever with despicable goyim (which is the Hebrew word simply meaning nations but which had taken on rather pejorative connotations over the centuries), those denigrated denizens of the rest of the world.  And this is precisely what we see as the early church began to spread its wings and spread out from Palestine - those first Jewish believers carried the Gospel only to Jews.  The dramatic breakthrough came when God had to force one of the apostles - Peter, their leader to be exact - to go to the home of an unclean and despised Gentile in order to bring him and his household the Good News about Christ (Acts 10.9-20, 10.34-35, 11.2-4, 11.17-18).  Only by repeated direct revelation was God able to convince Peter to first go, and only when He poured out His Spirit on that household of Gentiles and manifested sign gifts through them was He then able to convince Peter that He fully intended to included the Gentiles in the assembly of God’s people.  The Lord subsequently used Peter to initially convince the leaders (apostles and prophets) in Jerusalem of this, and later used Paul to confirm and clarify His plan to include the Gentiles in the Church, on which the entire leadership subsequently signed off (Acts 9.15, 13.46-48, 14.26-27, 15.1-29 - especially Act 15.28).

-Same inheritance, same body, same promise - every way that God chooses and blesses the nation of Israel He now chooses and justifies and blesses those of every other nation, all through faith in Christ.  There is no longer any distinction between Jew and Greek or anyone else for that matter (Acts 15.8-9; Romans 3.21-24, 10.11-13; Colossians 3.10-11).  No dividing line, no tiers or levels of acceptance or benefit, no separation or division - Christ is indeed all, and in all.  Or should be.  How the heck are we doing?  This whole same-body thing is so messed up, so fractured.  Perhaps it was inevitable that as the Church grew and assemblies multiplied out of practical necessity that within certain more populous locales you would find different assemblies developing along ethnic lines due to custom and language, etc.  Nevertheless, so many unnecessary divisions within the body of Christ.  But I digress.  Gentiles are in, everyone’s in, case closed.