Ephesians 3:6

What does this really mean, “the Gentles are heirs together with Israel?”  That Tanzanians and Americans need the same cleansing?

I wrote this a few years ago.

I distrust dreams, always have. But, early on in Tanzania, I had a dream while sleeping. I came into the house sweating after hoeing in my garden, told Anna Ruth that I was off to the river to bathe, so throwing a towel around my neck I took the path to the river. I could already feel the coolness and cleansing of that refreshing water as I whistled my way down. Presently I saw the river.

That was good. Then what I saw disturbed me. It was full of bathing Tanzanians, all undressed, of course. I saw my dilemma. I needed a bath but I was not willing to appear like that! So, noting the flow of the river, I started upstream where I hoped to find a nice secluded spot where a sweating white missionary could bathe without being seen by anyone at all. I no sooner left the path then I heard a voice as clear as a thunderclap. “Don, there is only one place to bathe in this river!”

I was startled awake. What did that mean, if anything? I had no way of knowing but I did know that I was aware of my need for cleansing. When I finally, in reality, found myself rushing to Jesus for cleansing, I discovered that I and all like me met as sinners being cleansed. That punched a huge hole in my inflated superiority. It was the beginning of freedom for me.

And it became the meeting place for a fellowship of faith that produced, for me, some of the richest experiences of true fellowship that I have ever known, a fellowship of repentant sinners that melted the borders of every cultural bubble.