It’s relatively easy to love folks who are just like you. But the church is to show Christ’s love across racial, cultural, generational, and economic divides as we worship together and care for one another. There was no greater divide in Paul’s day than that between Jews and Gentiles. But Paul emphasized that the glory of the church is that Christ removed the barrier between those two diverse groups and made them one (Eph. 2:14-22). He insists (Col. 3:11) that in the church, “there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.” When people who are divided in the world display their love for one another in the local church, the world takes notice.
What kinds of things can be different in a group? Use the disciples for instance... Take the church at Philippi or Corinth. What differences were present? Name some. (Language, ethnicity, status, background (Jewish, Gentile)