I don’t think it’s easy for us to understand the barrier that existed between Jew and Gentile in the first century. Not so much in terms of social interaction (although that definitely existed), but especially in terms of religion. It would have been extremely difficult for a Jew to look on a Gentile as an equal, spiritually speaking. This was still true even in the early church.

Because of this, it was a stunning message that Paul and others preached, a message of equality in the gospel: “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:14-18) Christ had torn down the wall of division. He had brought Jew and Gentile into one body.

To Paul, this was one of the great truths of Christianity, a mystery that God had kept hidden in the past: “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 3:6)

At the heart of all of this was the church, God’s masterpiece which he had to show off to all creation: “Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Ephesians 3:8-11)

The rulers and authorities which would divide people, placing them in rival clans, tribes and nations, these powers would be shown God’s power to reconcile, to bring people together. Where is that power seen? In that church. Because of this, the Lord’s church must be an agent of reconciliation, a force for bringing all people together, regardless of nationality, language, race or other human division.

Tribalism is an enemy of the church, a tool of the powers and authorities that set themselves up against God’s authority. God’s truth is that all men are made in his image and all men can be brought into the body of Christ, the holy Christian nation. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28-29)

Because of this, Christians must work at bringing people together. We must learn to ignore nationalities and other aspects of tribalism that would separate us from others. We have to come to an awareness of the length, depth, width and height of our kingdom, spanning borders, time zones and continents. The church is God’s answer to man’s tribalism.

Tribalism was a problem in New Testament times. Although the universality of the gospel seems obvious to us, it took the early Christians years to realize that the message of salvation wasn’t just for Jews. Then they shared it with Samaritans, since they already believed in the same God, practiced circumcision, and held to a very similar religion. It took divine intervention to get the early disciples to share the gospel with non-believers, and even then, some weren’t too happy about it.

In Acts 11, we see that the believers were scattered from Jerusalem and went out spreading the good news… to Jews. Over time, some came to share the message with Greeks, and many non-Jews were converted. The church in Antioch was one of the first integrated churches. The people around this church came to realize that this was not just another Jewish sect, yet it wasn’t one of the Greek mystery religions either. Astonished at the disappearance of tribalism, the citizens of Antioch had to invent a new term for these disciples: Christians.

When Christians overcome the barriers created by man, the world takes notice.

I don’t want to stray too far away from the topic of our Christian nation. I want to talk, though, about the concept of tribalism. It refers to the way that we define “us” and “them.” Every society has a set of rules that applies to our dealings with “us” and our dealings with “them.” We react differently to what happens to “us” than we do when it happens to “them.” (I discussed this in the post “Glad No Parrots Were Involved“; some read this as “America bashing,” when it was intended as “tribalism bashing”—that’s why the first illustration in that post was from Great Britain).

Tribalism says we can steal from them, but not from us. We can kill them, but not kill us. We can cheat them, but we’re expected to deal justly with us. If one of us is killed, we will avenge it by killing them. We see an innocuous form of tribalism in our sports; penalties against our team almost always seem to be unfair, while penalties against the other team are justified. If our team scores a lot of points, they are going for style points. If the other team scores a lot, they are showing a lack of sportsmanship.

Tribalism can occur at different levels. It can be based on family. Gangs operate via tribalism. Tribalism can be present based on religion, geography, or politics. In the West, people are often tribalistic at a national level, while much of the rest of the world divides itself along different lines.

We have to understand that the Christian nation doesn’t respect manmade borders and territories. As Paul so ably said it, “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” (Colossians 3:11) The church isn’t made up of Haitians, Egyptians, Filipinos and Canadians. We are Christians. We are one nation.

Here’s what we have to understand. A believer in China is more “us” than a non-believer next door. A Christian Iraqi is more “our people” than a non-Christian U.S. soldier in the same place. When we talk about “our people overseas,” we aren’t talking about U.S. troops, we’re talking about our Christian brothers.

Does that mean we will operate by the rules of tribalism, cheating non-Christians because they aren’t “one of us.” Of course not. But we will put as much importance on the well-being of Haitians as we do on that of people in our own hometown. More than citizens of the world, we are citizens of heaven, which makes us ambassadors of good to the whole world.