John 17:20-23
20“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
Let me get this straight… I pray to Jesus, and He prayed for me? WOW!
Maybe that’s not real earth-shattering, but it’s something that should be (if it isn’t already) a comfort to each and every one of us who have faith in Him. Jesus cared about us as believers, enough to plead for us before God the Father.
But what did He ask God for? This is where it gets convicting. Unity. Unity amongst the church. Amongst believers. Amongst the saved. Amongst God’s children! Unfortunately, we’ve fallen WAY short of this — we have Catholics, Baptists, Episcopals, Assemblies, Unitarians, Lutherans, Methodists, and many others — all with at least partially differing beliefs about God’s will and ways. I can’t help but think, “Jesus must be SO disappointed”.
It’s a difficult topic to address, if you ask me. Unity is such a difficult thing to achieve, yet that’s Christ’s desire for His children. Where do we draw the line when it comes to differing views on Scripture or on God’s will? I don’t have the answer (I wish I did). I would have to say that certain things cannot be compromised (the divinity of Christ, salvation though faith, the virgin birth, inerrancy of Scripture, etc.), but the others? I guess we just have to learn to agree to disagree on things that are not clear-cut in Scripture (as so many things can be read more than one way). It’s a hard thing to do, I know… but absolutely necessary. That doesn’t mean we have to water down our faith, but it does mean that we need to maintain harmony amongst believers. How sad it is that our disagreements become yet more excuses for a lost world to reject our Savior.
I pray that God may touch the hearts of people of all denominations of Christianity, that we may all realize that our commonalities outnumber our differences, and that with Christ as our foundation, we can move forward in unity to make a difference in this world. Big goal, I know… but with God, all things are possible.
Was looking for something meaningful to post tonight (again, haven’t had much time for original thought), and this devotion I wrote back in December 2003 seemed particularly appropriate given the current turmoil over the IMB baptismal requirements / tongues issue amongst Baptists.
I think if I were to re-write this tonight, I’d have definitely included the following at some point…
“Oh how our self-assurance and prideful attitudes over small theological differences and doctrinal correctness must disappoint our Lord!”
You know, we Baptists should really be praying over this situation, asking God to intervene in the hearts of those involved in this dispute, and bring peace so that together, we Baptists can move forward to make a difference for the Prince of Peace. (Obviously, I ask that this not just be a Baptist prayer.)
John- those are good words. i have stressed for a long time now the need for unity and even as i read your words i have to ask myself whether i’m embracing unity myself. i hope that we can remember the value of unity as we seek to enhance our missionary ability. i hope the we do not dissapoint God in our rush to “do the right thing.”
I like the following expression attributed to St Augustine:
“In Essentials, Unity; in Non-essentials, Liberty; in All Things, Charity.”
Historically the principal division in Christianity was between Roman Catholic and Protestant. These days I believe it is between liberal and conservative – between the “content-free” revisionist liberal theologies and the conservative orthodox mainstream believers who take Biblical truth at face value.
I have difficulty seeing the liberals as Christians at all since they have lost their faith in what is the essentals of Christian belief. With the liberals fallen away, among the rest of those left we may well have more unity than you had first thought.
In essentials, unity… and here we have many Christians of all denominations including Roman Catholic holding to the central core of Christian belief – that the historical Jesus of 2000 years ago was born of a virgin, was crucified, rose from the dead, and by the grace of God by faith in Him we can obtain our salvation.
In non-essentials, liberty… to hold differing interpretations arrived at honestly with due humility. Who says that one size fits all? One size does not fit all, and because of our individual differences we will all have different ways and means of glorifying God and perceiving matters about him.
I am talking here about peripheral, not central, beliefs.
In all things, charity… faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love (1 Cor 14:13), and the two summary commandments of Jesus to love one another as ourselves and love God with all our heart, soul and mind (Matt22:37-40). We can still love someone who is different from ourselves, and perhaps we don’t need to be quite so concerned that all their peripheral beliefs don’t match all our own.
John, you have an intermittent fault with the comments part of this software – as I do on my blog as well. The text area runs off the page (although can be resized by dragging the edge of the site page) and so it is difficult to check and edit errors as you go.
In my sentence beginning “These days I believe it is between liberal and conservation…” please read conservative for conservation.
Also, the missing final word on the last sentence would be “own”.
Yeah, I’ve noticed the problem with the comment form… Not quite sure what’s causing it. I’m wondering if I can edit the stylesheet for the site or the template to fix it somehow. Anyway, I corrected those two things in your comment for you.
Speaking of unity, the post on internetmonk.com linked to in Micah’s blog is an EXCELLENT one on this subject.
Thanks for fixing the errors for me.
If you ever fix the problem, I would appreciate a copy of the re-worked code so that I might apply it to my own Journal since we are using the same software. I can’t see myself figuring it out in the near future.
Yes, that is an excellent article on internetmonk.com and expands on my comment above “In non-essentials, liberty… to hold differing interpretations arrived at honestly with due humility.” I had already come to the conclusion that parts of the Bible were indeed ambiguous, especially as I could see where my Catholic friends were coming from, and also my Protestant friends, and I have felt like I have a foot in each camp. But that is not quite the same as being a fence-sitter in the sense of one who cannot make up one’s mind, but more in that each side has a validity that needs to be recognized honestly and with humility.
In my case, there has been a very productive spin-off from this ambiguity in that I have been propelled back into the Scriptures to tease out answers for myself, and have been amazed in retrospect by the amount of learning I have achieved in the process. My knowledge has increased exponentially in the short time I have been a Christian.
P.S. It is that humility that will lead to unity. 🙂