The Calling to Which We Have Been Called

“I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” (Eph. 4:1-6)

As I look around at the world and study contemporary culture, I must admit that I sometimes struggle to understand how the church is different. In the first century, the church was a countercultural body. It stood squarely and boldly in the face of the division and separation that was inherent in first century culture, simply by the ways in which people came together as a unified family of faith in Christ. In a culture that demanded a stark separation between races of people, between the genders, and between social classes, the kingdom of God that broke into the world through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus created something new, a new humanity in Christ that was one body and could not be divided by these differences (Eph. 2:13-16; also Gal. 3:28). Yet, the division continues.

For two millennia the church has struggled to understand its own identity and its relation to its contemporary culture. In the church we continue to struggle with segregation and racial division. We still struggle to be overcome economic divisions between those who have and those who have not. We still struggle with divisions between people of different ages and generations. We still struggle with division over matters of opinion. Yet, God has called us to be countercultural. God has called us to be unified in our diversity, to embody the new humanity that is unified on the core foundations of our faith: one body (1:23; 3:6); one Spirit (3:16, 20); one hope (1:11-14, 18; 3:6); one Lord (2:19-22); one faith (1:13); one baptism (2:1-6); one God and Father of all (1:2, 3, 17; 2:18, etc.)…

Because of the way God is breaking into the world through Christ Jesus, Paul begs the Ephesians as a body, a family of faith, to “lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” We have been called neither to uniformity nor to division, but to be a body of faith-full believers who are unified through the unity of the Spirit that draws us together into that body. The Gospel has never demanded uniformity on all matters of faith and opinion, but the Gospel does demand that we live in unity in our diversity. Today, Paul begs us, as he did the Ephesians, to remember the foundation of our unity, and on matters other than these, to humbly and gently “bear with one another in love.” There have always been and there will always be differences between us, but we are called to embrace the difficult task of living together in unity as one body in the midst of those differences. That is the true sign that the kingdom of God is breaking into this world through the unifying gospel of Christ.