We Want the Same Things
When we think of community, most of us long for the same things. Things like joy, safety, love, camaraderie, and a place where we’re seen, supported, and encouraged. Those are good and right desires that reflect the kind of fellowship for which we were created. But because of the presence and power of sin, our experience of community often falls short. Whether in our neighborhoods, families, or churches, community is hard. Sin has fractured human relationships, distorted our expectations, and shaped the ways we pursue or withdraw from others. Even in the church, which is meant to be the clearest picture of what redeemed community should look like, we experience tension, disconnection, and relational pain. So what do we do when our reality doesn’t align with that vision? How do we respond when we’re disappointed, disillusioned, or tempted to disengage with our respective communities?
I’ve personally wrestled with these questions. I live in the Mississippi Delta, a place I love dearly. I often describe it as the land of blue skies and catfish ponds, cotton fields, and tail winds. There’s a lot of richness here—from the alluvial soil to the culture and the food. There’s so much to love. Contrarily, this is also a place marked by painful histories, visible divides, and deep-seated temptations toward separation. It’s common for people here to stay in their social, cultural, and geographical corners.
This accessible study by Bible teacher Portia Collins leads women in an 8-week exegetical journey through Galatians where they’ll uncover the liberating and transformative power of God’s grace.
A few years ago, my family began sensing the Lord calling us to respond to what we were observing in our community. We had been studying Scripture and praying about what it truly means to live out the vision of gospel-centered community. And over time, we felt a deep conviction that we couldn’t just keep reading about—we needed to embody it. That conviction eventually led us away from the familiarity of our predominantly African-American church to a place that was unfamiliar and, in many ways, uncomfortable. We are now active members of a Presbyterian church, where we are the only African American family. And while we’ve been warmly welcomed (we genuinely love our church), it is hard to be different. Still, we believe God has called us to move toward others, across lines that often go uncrossed in our community, for the sake of something bigger than ourselves—the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When it comes to living out the heart of God and his design for community, we can’t rely on our preferences or personal experiences to guide us. We need to hear from God. Specifically, we need Scripture—the very word of God. The book of Galatians is especially instructive on what it looks like to live in gospel community. In it, we find both a theological foundation and a practical vision for building communities shaped by grace, truth, and the Spirit of God.
Gospel Community Is Built and Sustained by Grace
Galatians makes it clear that we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ, not by works of the law. In essence, this is the sum of the whole book. But this foundational truth doesn’t just shape our relationship with God; it also reshapes how we relate to one another. Paul says, “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5:14). The law was never meant to be a checklist for earning righteousness. It was always pointing toward something deeper—a life changed by the gospel. When we are truly transformed by grace, we’re free to reflect God’s heart in how we treat one another. That’s why Paul urges the Galatians to stop devouring each other with judgment and pride (Gal. 5:15) and instead to use their freedom to serve one another in love (Gal. 5:13). Real community requires the kind of humility that flows from knowing we’re all recipients of the same mercy.
One of the most powerful examples of this is when Paul confronts Peter in Galatians 2. Peter had been eating with Gentile believers, fully embracing the freedom they had in Christ, but when certain men came around, he withdrew in fear (Gal. 2:12). While Peter didn’t outright deny the gospel, his behavior sent a message that contradicted it. So Paul addressed Peter’s behavior publicly and directly, “because their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:14). Paul’s correction to Peter is incredibly instructive for us today. Paul demonstrates that a gospel-centered community is also a gospel-corrected community. Sometimes, living out the gospel in love means having hard conversations and preserving good, gospel community means addressing behaviors that undermine grace.
When grace shapes our relationships, we become people who really reflect God’s design for community. Grace makes space for love, gentleness, patience, and burden-bearing. But it also makes space for more. Grace moves us toward others, even those who don’t easily fit within our existing community. It compels us to seek out and welcome those who are different, whether ethnically, culturally, socioeconomically, or even denominationally. And while we are here, it’s worth noting that sometimes, we mask our reluctance to pursue this kind of fellowship under the banner of doctrinal conviction. We say it’s not about race or background but about theology. And while sound doctrine matters deeply, we have to be honest with ourselves. Sometimes what we call conviction is really a way of protecting ourselves from discomfort. Sometimes it’s not doctrine that keeps us from one another but fear. The same kind of fear that kept Peter from sitting at tables with the uncircumcised. And at its root, that too is a behavior not yet corrected by the gospel. Grace doesn’t just change how we talk about community; it also changes how we live in said communities.
We All Need Reminders!
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Gospel Community Isn’t Built on Sameness
One of the most radical things Paul says in Galatians is that our unity in Christ transcends every earthly category that typically divides us. At first glance, it might seem like Paul is erasing identity when he says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek . . . for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). But that’s not what he’s doing. Paul isn’t flattening cultural or ethnic distinctions. He’s re-prioritizing them. He’s showing the Galatians that faith in Christ gives them a new, primary identity—one that transcends every other marker they’ve used to define themselves or others.
In Paul’s time, the divide between Jew and Greek was deep and often hostile. These groups didn’t just misunderstand each other, but they looked down on one another. The idea that they could share full equality, full belonging, and full inheritance in Christ would have sounded absurd to them. And yet that’s exactly what Paul declares. He’s not saying Jews stop being Jews or Greeks stop being Greeks. He’s saying that the most important thing about them is no longer their ethnicity, their background, or their social status—it’s their union with Christ.
This is what makes the gospel so radical and so beautiful. It doesn’t erase diversity. It redefines how we relate to one another in light of our shared identity in Jesus. In gospel community, we can say, “I am Black, but above all, I am in Christ. I am Jewish, but above all, I am in Christ.” And that means if you are in Christ too, we are standing on level ground. No distinction gives us more access to God or more reason to boast. Christ alone unites us, and He gets all the glory. While our differences don’t disappear with the snap of a finger, they do become a living testimony for the watching world. People naturally divided by race, culture, or social class display the kind of community God designed from the very beginning when we come together under the banner of Christ.
When grace shapes our relationships, we become people who really reflect God’s design for community.
Community Is Where We Reflect God’s Character Together
At first glance, the fruit of the Spirit may seem like a straightforward list of desirable moral traits to embody—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22–23). However, if we dig a bit deeper, we’ll realize that these aren’t just behaviors to aim for, but attributes that reflect the very character of God. Communicable attributes are those qualities that God graciously shares with his people. So when we walk by the Spirit, we’re not just becoming better and more moral people. We’re actually being transformed into the image of the One who made us. As image bearers, we were created to reflect God’s nature in how we live and relate to others. Sin distorts that image, but the Spirit restores it. As we follow the Holy Spirit’s leading, we begin to live more fully as we were originally designed to live, reflecting the truest image of God.
God’s Beautiful Design for Living Together
The book of Galatians calls us to true community. It calls us to be a people marked by grace, humility, and Spirit-shaped love. And while that kind of community won’t always be comfortable, it will be beautiful, because it reflects the heart of the One who brought us together in the first place. Maybe you’ve been hurt by your community. Maybe you’ve felt unseen or misunderstood, even in the church. Perhaps you’ve struggled to love others who are different from you, or to extend grace to those who don’t deserve it. I encourage you to pray and ask the Lord to guide you in walking by the Spirit, not just to be the model Christian or to check some spiritual box, but so that you can genuinely live in community the way he designed.
Ask him to show you where you’ve seen others through the lens of personal preference or performance instead of through the eyes of God’s grace. Pray for opportunities to build meaningful communities with people who don’t look like you, think like you, or live exactly like you. Ask God to give you the courage to step toward those relationships rather than away from them. And if there’s a friend or fellow believer who’s hesitant to associate with people who are different, pray for boldness to speak the truth in love. Above all, ask the Lord to give you a heart that is fully vested in gospel community. God’s design was never just about a personal relationship with him. It has always included how we relate to one another. That is the beauty of gospel community. And by His Spirit, you can walk in it.
Portia Collins is the author of Finding Freedom in Christ: An 8-Week Study of Galatians.
