Fidelity to the Truths vs Maintaining Christian Unity in the Church
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Maintaining the Unity of the Body of Christ
There are texts like the one we read at the beginning from our Saviour's Prayer in John 17 that teach us that maintaining the unity of the body of Christ is to be a supreme interest of every one of us. "That they may be one", our Saviour prays; and when did he pray that prayer? He prayed it at the very last moment of His ministry. He was unburdening His heart regarding the thing that mattered most to Him: "That they may be one". Why? Because God the Father and God the Son are one and we are supposed to be like our God. We are supposed to reflect His life in our life. His life is to be seen through our life. "And", Jesus goes on to say because real unity, real loving loyalty between people and especially between people like me and you, like all people who inevitably have disagreements, don't see everything in the same way, don't see eye to eye about every subject, He said, that kind of loving unity is so rare in the world. But when people see it, they have got to find out where it comes from. How can people be like this? How can they love one another in spite of their differences of opinion? How can they care so strongly about one another when they disagree about politics or sports or something else more important?
"The world will know", He said in that prayer to His Father, "That I am the incarnate Son of God, that I have come to the world, sent by the heavenly Father for the salvation of my people. The world will know that when it looks at a Christian community and sees a unity in love that they can't find in any place in the world.
We have the Apostle Paul's lengthy instruction to that effect that a large number of differences of opinion between Christians are simply to be borne charitably and patiently and cannot be made the basis of a division.
Indeed, those who maintain one position, are duty-bound to bend over so far backwards to accommodate the different opinions of other brethren, thus virtually to leave the impression that they are in agreement, not disagreement with their views. That is what happened to the Apostle Paul. He made such a thing of unity; he made such a principle of not allowing people whose opinions were different from his opinion to divide them, that people actually got the impression that he agreed with people, with whom he didn't agree at all.
Paul himself says that he became all things to all men, overlooking even such issues as the very different and controversial views of the law of God that upset the first-century church. He did that not to let differences of viewpoint interfere with his gospel witness or with the unity of the Church. The Apostle Paul was anybody's doormat when it came to issues where he felt he could be flexible. And there were a lot of issues about which he felt he could be flexible.
Even when he knew that one position was right, and the other position was wrong; he refused to make an issue of these differences of opinion.
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Maintaining the Unity of the Body of Christ
There are texts like the one we read at the beginning from our Saviour's Prayer in John 17 that teach us that maintaining the unity of the body of Christ is to be a supreme interest of every one of us. "That they may be one", our Saviour prays; and when did he pray that prayer? He prayed it at the very last moment of His ministry. He was unburdening His heart regarding the thing that mattered most to Him: "That they may be one". Why? Because God the Father and God the Son are one and we are supposed to be like our God. We are supposed to reflect His life in our life. His life is to be seen through our life. "And", Jesus goes on to say because real unity, real loving loyalty between people and especially between people like me and you, like all people who inevitably have disagreements, don't see everything in the same way, don't see eye to eye about every subject, He said, that kind of loving unity is so rare in the world. But when people see it, they have got to find out where it comes from. How can people be like this? How can they love one another in spite of their differences of opinion? How can they care so strongly about one another when they disagree about politics or sports or something else more important?
"The world will know", He said in that prayer to His Father, "That I am the incarnate Son of God, that I have come to the world, sent by the heavenly Father for the salvation of my people. The world will know that when it looks at a Christian community and sees a unity in love that they can't find in any place in the world.
We have the Apostle Paul's lengthy instruction to that effect that a large number of differences of opinion between Christians are simply to be borne charitably and patiently and cannot be made the basis of a division.
Indeed, those who maintain one position, are duty-bound to bend over so far backwards to accommodate the different opinions of other brethren, thus virtually to leave the impression that they are in agreement, not disagreement with their views. That is what happened to the Apostle Paul. He made such a thing of unity; he made such a principle of not allowing people whose opinions were different from his opinion to divide them, that people actually got the impression that he agreed with people, with whom he didn't agree at all.
Paul himself says that he became all things to all men, overlooking even such issues as the very different and controversial views of the law of God that upset the first-century church. He did that not to let differences of viewpoint interfere with his gospel witness or with the unity of the Church. The Apostle Paul was anybody's doormat when it came to issues where he felt he could be flexible. And there were a lot of issues about which he felt he could be flexible.
Even when he knew that one position was right, and the other position was wrong; he refused to make an issue of these differences of opinion.
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