Made New: An Ephesians Book StudySample

We live in a world that seems to love walls. Our world has many physical walls, but there are also walls you can’t see. Walls that separate people, creating suspicion and division. The great American poet Robert Frost wrote, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” God doesn’t love a wall.

If you’re a parent, don’t you hate when your kids fight? It’s like, “I’ve got enough to deal with. Now they’re going at it?!” As a parent, you want your kids to get along and love each other. It can be heartbreaking when they don’t.

Can you imagine being God and seeing all the walls people put up to divide, all the walls His kids put up to separate themselves from each other? That’s why God loves to tear walls down, to take away what separates so that He can be united with people and so people can be united with each other. That’s why He sent Jesus. Jesus came to tear down the walls that divide.

Many of the Christians in Ephesus were formerly Gentiles. Back then, the Jews were considered God’s people, and everyone else was the Gentiles. In fact, in the Jewish temple, there was a wall made of thick stone with a sign on it that read, “Any Gentile entering beyond this wall will only have himself to blame for his ensuing death.”

We’re too politically correct to post signs like that anymore, but that doesn’t mean we don’t harbor those feelings in our hearts. We still have walls that separate “us” from “them.” Walls based on…

•Gender
•Race
•Education
•Wealth
•Politics

But … God doesn’t love walls. God loves to tear them down because they divide His kids, whom He loves. That’s why He sent Jesus. Jesus came to break down the walls of hostility, bring peace, unite people, and give them all access to God through the Holy Spirit.

Response
1. How does Paul describe the Gentiles before Christ? In what ways can you relate?

2. Jesus is all about tearing down the walls that divide people. What walls currently divide you and someone else? What steps can you take to bring peace?

3. Jesus came to bring peace and called us to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9). Thank God for the peace He’s brought to your life. Ask Him to show you where He calls you to make peace and commit to following His lead.

Weekly Memory Verse
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
Ephesians 2:8-10

Written by Vince Antonucci