Faced with difficult issues ranging from pandemics to injustice, we often turn to the experts to help us make sense of things. Expertise is valuable: having “powers of discernment trained by constant practice” not only describes the renowned scholar and the skilled physician but also the spiritually mature (Heb. 5:14). Yet, this is where the world’s experts and God’s diverge. In our deeply divided world, we look for experts that prove our points and win arguments. Scripture teaches that well-trained discernment cures us of being “dull of hearing”– failing to learn because we will not listen (Heb. 5:11).
By any measure, the Apostle Paul was an expert (cf. Phil. 3:5-7). Yet, look at how Paul used his expertise: he became “a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles” (Eph. 3:1). He did not demand recognition but suffered to glorify God. While he understood something “which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations”, he recognized that it was God who revealed the mystery – not his own intellect or research (Eph. 3:2-5). And what was that mystery? “[T]hat the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph. 3:6).
Yet as important as this mystery was and as passionate as Paul was about it, he let God’s wisdom and his own character do the talking: “When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ” (Eph. 3:4). Humility is everything when we are trying to bring people together in Christ. Paul saw his ministry as a “gift of God’s grace” and himself as “the least of all the saints” (Eph. 3:7-8). If he was going “to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery…so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known”, it would be by compassion, humility, and self-sacrifice (Eph. 3:9-10).
How about us? As we navigate difficult issues, sometimes we are more interested in being heard than hearing. Sometimes we try to win arguments by finding an expert who agrees with us rather than letting God’s wisdom be perceived in us. Sometimes we argue – loudly and harshly – for agendas other than bringing people together in Christ Jesus. The divisions we face are not new: if we are going to heal them in Christ Jesus, we must be humble.
Ready to learn from Jesus and His apostles how to be truly united? Check out our sermon series “That They May Be One”.