Scripture says God was reconciling the world to himself through his Messiah. In Ephesians nine verbs tell us what Jesus has done and what is now real in the Church: Jesus is our peace (2:14), he made us one (vs. 14), he broke down the dividing wall of hostility (vs. 14), created one new humanity (vs. 15), made peace (vs. 15), reconciled (vs. 16), and proclaimed peace (vs. 17). Something new has happened; something new must now happen in the church! What might that be? “Make every effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace.”
In fact we have been called into the Lord’s foreign service. We are ambassadors, official representatives of heaven’s peace making Lord, in the earth’s neighborhoods, where the Peace does not exist. That is a very high calling! Ambassadors always exist to represent the homeland; in this case, heaven! As Ambassadors we share the peace of Christ with those with whom we do not share faith in Christ.
Our trash talking, enemy slandering, speech has to stop because we “are members one of another.” It just makes no heavenly sense to continue stereotyping and slandering, our brothers and sisters. That ‘s just not what we do as Jesus’ ambassadors! Our speech is to represent the homeland! This has always been a challenge for trash talkers like me. Just like me the Gentiles and Jews of Jesus’ day also had their favorite mocking stereotypical names. Jews called Gentiles “dogs!” Gentiles loved to rub it into Jews by calling them “Pigs.” Everything sort of degenerated from there. Culture wars are not new! They are old, exhausted and nasty!
Nobody imagined that a bridge had been built by God through Christ which easily spans the Grand Canyon – the grand canyon between so called liberals and conservatives, between black and white, between the haves and the have nots, between red and blue. So the “dogs” and “the pigs” actually never existed except in our mouths. What does exist is this: “all of us are dearly beloved children of God.” That means our speech needs some major work. So to all of us fallen, yet now redeemed trash talkers, Paul says “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”