Ruth 1 leads us to reflect on this snowy day on the radical commitment of church membership -- a radical commitment to one another. The passage shows many contrasts. Bethlehem means "House of Bread" and Moab is the people who would not give Israel any bread when they came out of Egypt. The church is where we feast on the bread of life. Ruth and Orpha are another contrast. Here is where we see the text as a challenge to radical commitment -- marriage like commitment to one another. And then Ruth and Naomi are contrasts as well. Ruth as a type of Gentiles coming to Christ and Naomi as a type of the Jews coming to Christ. Both Jews and Gentiles coming together to form one church.

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Labels: bread, church, Gentiles, membership, moab, ruth

Ephesians 2:11-22 interprets many of the common passages we hear around Christmas and Easter in the light of Christ. The point is that Jesus is our peace, that He has made peace between us and God (and thus also made peace between Jews and Gentiles), and that He published peace through the apostles. We looked first at the Gentile Christians and then at the Jewish Christians and then saw that Paul's point was there is one new man. In fact, we are not Christians separately but only together. Likewise, we are not members of the youth group first or members of this organzation or that committee, we are not young or old first, we are not adult converts or children of the covenant first: we are Christians first.

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Labels: church, Gentiles, peace, unity