27 Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. ²⁸ For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. ²⁹ Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, ³⁰ since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. ³¹ Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

As I was working over this passage last week, I was truly struck by just how absurd the early church must have looked to either people of different faiths or members of the secular community. Here you have a this little sect of Judaism (and believe me, when it started, that’s what it was, the reforming faction of the Jewish faith) whose main theologian was a guy who had been killing Christians only a few years earlier. Yes, Peter may have been the inspirational leader of the church, and James, the brother of Jesus, may have been the person who helped to create the church in and around Jerusalem, but it was Paul who helped to direct the theological thought and understanding for the next two millennia.

Paul’s presence on the scene was a huge problem for the early church. They didn’t know what to do with him. Were they supposed to believe the amazing conversion story of this formally devout Pharisee? Were they to believe his tale of being knocked to the ground, blinded, and hearing a voice that claims to be Jesus telling him to stop "persecuting his church", only to be healed by a Christian? If you don’t think that it was a problem, all you have to do is go through the book of Acts and hear how Paul had to raise money (yes, fundraising even happened back then!) to give to the church in Jerusalem before they would give him the sort of credibility that he sought.

Basically, the leaders of the early church were afraid that Paul may be trying infiltrate the church in order to garner all of the inside information that he could obtain, and then use that information to bring the church down form the inside. To put it in a different light, they were worried that Paul was a double agent. At a bare minimum, they did not trust someone to go out and lead who had not been there to actually experience Jesus. Paul’s presence in the early church, because of his controversial history but also his call to spread the Word of God, ended up breaking down many of the preconceived walls that had already been formed. Paul’s presence forced the early church to see him with God’s eyes, and not the cautious (dare I say prejudiced?) perspective that was already being formed.

This is one of the big reasons why Paul speaks so impassionedly regarding his belief that God is open to all people who place their faith in the Almighty. He had faced it. He knew what it was like to be on the outside looking in and now that he had been begrudgingly admitted to the inner circle, he was not going to let all those people who were standing out on the peripheries, who weren’t too sure about this whole Christian thing, but were checking it out because they were feeling called to it, he was not going to let these people be left to the biases that all of us have. He was going to do everything in his power to let the entirety of the church see all people as he had been seen: with God’s eyes. He does not say, "there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God since God is one" and "he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith" because he feels that God differentiates who people are dependent on where they have come from. No, in God’s eyes it’s where you are right now, and also where you’re going.

I’ve spent the first half of last week with my family on Jennifer’s side down in Emerald Isle, North Carolina. It’s located in what is called the Central Coast of North Carolina and if you standing on the eastern side of the island, you’re able to look out at the Atlantic Ocean for as far as the eye can see. We stayed in a rental vacation home that was three stories tall and, while not directly on the beach, had a beach access walkway literally just across the road. These sorts of rental homes were all over the part of the island where we were located and as you drove around, it was obvious that a fair amount of building of both these sorts of vacation homes as well as condos was taking place. The house, the beach, the whole setting was absolutely beautiful.

Here’s the thing (and I have no problems admitting that this illustration is derived from my naivety in regards to the shore because it has been a long, long, long, long time since I’ve been in that sort of a setting), all around these rather expensive vacation homes were the people who actually lived on the island: a good sized percentage of those folks lived in single wide trailers. Some of them were well kept. Many of them could use some TLC.

And yet, as I walked around I never got the sense from the people who were living there that there was this huge expanse between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. Everyone seemed to be living their particular variation of an island dweller, out on the beach four days a week sort of dream. From the outside looking in, there appeared to be this huge difference. However, once you got in the distinctions began to disappear.

And that is absolutely the way that is should be. We do such a wonderful job searching out even the smallest of distinctions and then highlighting those differences to the point that we think that we are a different species. But we’re not. We are all human. We are all sinners. We are all looking for a little piece of paradise where we feel appreciated, loved, and respected. But instead of realizing that, we highlight the differences and those differences become gigantic stumbling blocks to our coming together and actually seeing one another; actually knowing one another.

Much like Paul was a stumbling block for the early church, individuals of different socio-economical backgrounds, cultures, you name it, we’ve created a distinction, all of these things have been points where many in the modern church has tripped up. As I read the scriptural history, Paul was one of the ways that God started to bust through the walls of what was deemed acceptable by the leaders of the early church. We need to follow that example. We need to move beyond the biases that we absolutely do carry and get to a place where we garner a new vies. We need to see the world around us, as well as all of the people that we have yet to meet, with God’s eyes.

From Paul’s perspective, as one who was outside the norm, he was able to write, "is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also". This message passes on to us today in this way: is God not the God of all people? Yes, of all people as well. Let us grow in Christ; let us view our neighbors, let us view the world with the eyes of God.

God, we have seen through the history of the early church in regards to Paul that there are so many ways that we can view people as less than what they really are. Lord, we pray for the ability to see people with Your eyes. Help us to look beyond the biases that each of us do carry and instead instill in us the desire to see each other as You do, as Your precious children. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.