“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household…” Ephesians 2:19
Paul was arrested and imprisoned in AD 58 to protect him from a Jewish mob in the temple. Paul spent a year and a half in prison in Caesarea and two years under house arrest in Rome.
In Caesarea, there was open hostility between Jews and Gentiles over the right of citizenship. Unlike other early Christian leaders, Paul strove to make the Gentile believers welcome in the largely Jewish churches of the first century. Paul points to their joint membership in the kingdom of heaven. When Gentiles become one with the people of God, they are not simply patched on. They, along with Jewish believers, are made fellow citizens of the kingdom of God and equal members of God’s family.
God’s blessings on your day…