At our Bible Study on Saturday at our quarterly fellowship at Forest Hills Mennonite Church. we concentrated our attention on the meaning and generosity of the Blood of Jesus Christ.  May I suggest that we pause a bit and think of the meaning of Christ’s spilled blood, human blood, common blood.

Paul stood in the place of some of the world’s great orators of his day, Athens in great Greece.  Listen to Paul, anointed by the Spirit of the Lord.

And [God] hath made of one blood all nations.” Acts 17:26

Paul made this statement before the Athenian Senate, made up of white, Greek philosophers who stress the unity of mankind.  Their army was victorious in fending off enemies to a degree. Some of the other Greek City-States were much more militant like Sparta.  The Athenian elders preferred dialogue to war.  They clearly preferred peace to war.  Their philosophy was based on that hope.

Interestingly enough, the Apostle Paul also preached, lived and promoted peace as what God wanted all along.  When he was offered an opportunity to speak before the foremost promoters of peace in Athens, he spoke directly to their concerns.  Paul, too, was a man of peace.  Many philosophers wanted to hear from him.

He reminded them of the fact that all human beings, (remember, he is a Jew) no matter from where, had the same blood flowing in their veins, the basis of human life itself. Human blood binds all humans together, no matter what race, language or nationality.  We have what we might call interchangeable blood.  I find that amazing. I found that my blood can be transfused into an African, for example and vice versa. There are billions of people on the earth today.  There is one thing that is indisputable, we share a common blood.  We may differ in a lot of things but not on that.  We are of the same blood.  The blood that flows through my veins right now is like that of every other human being!

That is absolutely amazing and pregnant with meaning.  There is not a blood for white people, another for black people, etc.  Act as different as we may or believe as different as we may, we have a common blood, with small differences, perhaps, but my blood which is “O,” the largest category, can be injected into the blood system of any other human being.  And it is the same for all of us.

Paul cites this as something we should be aware of and think about.