Live in the tension

Today we fully engaged wrestling with what we think we know and what culture tells us. That started with the 1 am departure from our Jerusalem hotel. Today we say goodbye to Israel and hello to Turkey. We are at the second part of our journey and looking forward to what God has for us here.

Now that some seeds have been planted from our time in Israel, we have the opportunity to see how the early church lived out love. So we make our way toward the ruins of Priene. This city wasn't part of the Bible necessarily, but they exemplify how to be a community of believers. The Jewish people had a house synagogue that welcomed all people. They wanted to live in culture and still have their community. How often do we struggle with how to tell the world around us a different story? And yet, we have people who walked before us and reminded us of how to live out the words of 1 Corinthians 8:1–6. We are reminded that we are a community of brothers and sisters who are set apart to live out love and put God on display.

Living in community was essential to the early church. They built one another up, made decisions based on love, and remembered to walk the path so they wouldn't be a point of confusion or a stumbling block for others. In a world that says me, they said us. In Priene, and many other cities, they live in the tension of how to serve the God of Israel because everyone around them serves the Greek gods Athena, Zeus, and others. These gods have huge temples. The Jewish people had a temple too: the people themselves. Do you know it? Acts 17:21–25 demonstrates that the brothers and sisters in Christ are the temple. The early church's temple is not made of human hands, and they love as the temple. How do we do that? We must remember those that came before us and to make every decision in unity from love. We are the temple.

Written by Emily