On 13 August 1961 barbed wire was stretched through the middle of a European city, and a concrete wall running 156 kilometres divided families, a nation and an entire continent. That scene opens a reflection on the walls we cannot see yet keep building today, and on how Paul wrote to the Ephesians that Christ tore down the hostility between Jews and Gentiles (Ephesians 2). The message moves from division to a surprising picture of the church as a household and a shared building in which ordinary people become God’s temple. Listen and see which wall in your life is still standing.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- In Ephesians 2:11-12 Paul reminds the Gentiles who they were without Christ: excluded from Israel, without hope and without God. How might the first readers have felt hearing these words?
- The sermon mentioned the temple wall with a warning that any Gentile who crossed it would die. What did it mean for the first hearers that Christ tore down the dividing wall through the cross and opened access to the Father?
- The speaker noted that we often build our identity on whom we exclude, like the man on a desert island with two churches. What divisions and barriers do you most often notice around you or within yourself?
- The story of the Korean man and the Japanese woman shows that a shared identity in Christ can outweigh old grievances. What does it mean for you in practice to be a Christian first and only then Polish, Ukrainian or anything else?
- Paul says we are fellow citizens, members of God's household, and a building that keeps growing. Which of these images speaks to you most, and what does it say about how we should live together as a church?
- C.S. Lewis wrote that it takes a whole community to know a person well, and even more so to know Jesus. What do you keep only to yourself, and what one step can you take this week to open up to others in the community?
