Think about all the barriers between different groups and dividing lines in America today. Right now there people writing blogs and advertisements to target specific groups of people. The groups are divided and subdivided by age, wealth, gender, nationality, education, hobbies, career, interests, health or lack therefore. They track our every internet move and shopping purchase in order to bracket us into the right boxes.
Yet the Apostle Paul divides humanity by one thing: those who belong to God and those who don’t.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus – Ephesians 1:1
“Saints” in New Testament usage means “those set apart by God,” emphasizing the difference between the sacred and the common. The temple was sacred, pasture land was not. The difference is one belongs to God and is dedicated to the things of God while the other is not. In New Testament usage, all believers are “saints”, as they are set apart as belonging to God.
No other category is ultimately important. We might be really interested in whether we are rich or poor; whether we are popular or not popular; whether we are male or female; whether we are educated at the right schools or the wrong schools or not educated at all; whether we have the right skin color and accent, etc. etc. Those kind of divisions are all realities we have to face. While they do shape and influence our lives, ultimately they are not important.
I could be in every category that popular opinion claims you don’t want to be in (poor, uneducated, wrong skin color, wrong gender, whatever) — but if I’m in the category of saint, then I am blessed.
I have everything worth having. That is the only important distinction.
