One

Some people really don't like the Church. Christian or non-Christian, there are people who will happily tell you how much they love Jesus, or God, or the Bible but that Christians are just the worst. I can understand where this feeling comes from, in fact, I've definitely felt that way at times in my own journey. Sometimes Christians are just embarrassing and the media loves to draw attention to all of our hypocrisy, our righteous anger, and the hurt that we've caused. The Church isn't perfect but we are called to be united as one, even with our imperfections.

When we think about unity, we can fall into the trap of thinking unit means Christians should all believe exactly the same thing. This is not what unity means.

If it were true then every person or church would have to believe that their theology or denominational doctrine is the only true Christianity. This would require a huge amount of confidence that you have the correct interpretation of Scripture and tradition and that if every other Christian were simply educated enough and genuine enough in their faith, then they would agree.

Unfortunately, things aren't as clear-cut as all that. People's minds work in different ways, we all have different experiences, and we all have our own biases and personalities. these things lead each of us to different conclusions even when we are presented with the same evidence. Being one does not mean we all believe the same thing.

We can also believe that unity means we never have conflict. This comes from the idea that because we love one another and have the same God leading us, we should just agree on everything. It's understandable that when the same Holy Spirit is working in all of us we should agree but the problem is we don't always understand what the Holy Spirit is saying to us. Once again, our own personalities and biases influence what we expect the Holy Spirit to do. Just because I feel God is leading me, or the church in a certain direction, it doesn't mean I have discerned that correctly.

When Paul appealed to the Ephesians to be united he emphasised the things that we must agree on but for the rest, he doesn't tell us how to think, he tells us how to treat one another. Being one and being united means that even when we disagree with the way other people in the church are acting we treat each other with humility, gentleness, patience, and love.

Thought Point

How well do you get on with people you disagree with? In your conflict with others have you been acting with humility, gentleness, patience, and love?

Prayer Point

Pray that God would bring unity to His Church, not that we would all agree, but that we would all learn how to treat one another, even when we disagree.