August 18, 2006
Unity Oath
More than 40 men bound themselves together with a solemn oath to not eat anything until they had killed Paul, (Acts 23). Obviously Paul was spared, so I wonder how many meals these guys actually missed before they were released from the oath. Nowadays there appears to be commitment, an oath of sorts, in church eldership. One of our elders described the current leadership by saying, “This is the most unified staff and eldership that I’ve ever seen.” Ah, for the good old days when elders were individually directed by the Spirit, meetings lasted until midnight and agenda items were tabled until agreements could be reached. Factions aren’t all bad, “No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.” (1 Cor 11:19 NIV)
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Gail;
----Jesus prayed for us to have unity so that the world would know that God sent Him. (John 17:20) That makes unity fundamentally important. I personally believe that unity among the whole family of God is more foundational in the church than the Great Commission.
----But how can anything be more basic to the church than the Great Commission? Jesus upbraided the Pharisees one day, saying, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are." The Mormons are very active in evangelization and proselytizing (the Great Commission), but how much good will their converts be served by the false doctrine they teach. So also with the Muslims, the Krishna's, and the myriad other ways of man. Outreach is counterproductive if inreach is tainted.
----So there is at least one thing more fundamental to serving the Lord than the Great Commission. There is at at least one thing that must be in place before the Great Commission will do benefit rather than harm.
----But there really are several things fundamentally important for the Great Commission to produce its greatest effect. One of those is unity. I believe that the accomplishments of the church have been sverely damaged by the lack of unity. Over the centuries, converts have been won into a warring church to become twice the brawlers that their teachers were. I remember when I had been attending a Pentecostal church for three months, it was announced in one of our gatherings that there was to be a "Jericho March" around a local Baptist Church scheduled for the upcoming Friday. This would occur in spite of the fact that Jesus had prayed for their unity with the Baptist Church so that the very ones the Great Commission tried to reach would know who sent Jesus.
----The leaders of whom you write point to their unity as evidence that God has chosen them and commissioned them to do the things in the church that they are doing.
So then why are we not believing that what they are doing is commanded by God if they have such great unity?
----A substantial portion of Romans and I Corinthians as well as portions of Colossians and Philippians lay out guidlines that safeguard differences in belief. Romans 14:5 is straight forward about it, "One man considers one day more sacred than another, another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind." How then can there be unity if even the Bible tells us that each should be fully convinced in differing beliefs?
----That question is answered by Romans 14:19, "Let us therefore make every effort to do what makes for peace and mutual edification." Understand that it does not say , "...make every effort to do what makes for one belief and mutual acceptance of it." Paul has already dismissed the necessity to believe the same as having any part of unity. And in Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12 he dismisses the diferring functions and the diferring purposes of calling in the body from having to do with unity.
----So how is it then that this dissunified mass can have unity? One of my favorite short, one-liner examples in the Bible is Philippians 4:2, "I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord." (NIV) The place for their agreement is to be in the Lord. Please, don't treat "in the Lord" as a cliche. There is a lot of meaning in that phrase. To the people of the New Testament times, the name of someone was also the character of someone. So then, agreeing with one another "in the Lord" is agreeing with one another in the character of the Lord In other words - to agree with one another as Jesus would agree with one another. (Now there is a timely study!)
----Wait though, there is more to "in the Lord" than that. Jesus was also called the Word, because He lived the Word, spoke the Word, and gave the Word. Therefore Euodia and Syntyche were bid to agree with one another as Jesus would find agreement using the Word of God.
----And finally, there is one more greatly nuetritious morsal in this little, dynamic verse. Paul did not bid Euodia to agree with Syntyche. He did not bid Syntyche to agree with Euodia. Neither of them, nor their respective ideas, were to be the basis of their agreement. But they each were to be a part of the agreement. Paul did not say to ignore Euodia, or to ignore Syntyche and agree with something else. Just because neither were the basis of the agreement does not mean that neither were included in the agreement. In fact, Paul specifically voiced the inclusion of both in the agreement, "...to agree with each other..." Therefore, there was a combination of Euodia's ideas, Syntyche's ideas, and the truths of Word of God that could be found, if they gave it every effort to do what made for peace and mutual edification (which is in the character of Jesus).
----The Word of God bids us to have unity in the Spirit and unity in love, not unity of beliefs, practices, and techniques. Rather, it commands the facilitation of the diversity of these! The unity that Christ prayed for is a bonding to one another that only acknowledgment and acceptance of one another in all our glorious diferences can make. And that bond is not only in spite of our diferences, but even more, it takes advantage of our diferences to develop a fuller service to the Lord, and a more believable Great Commission.
----And these elders are so proud of their unity in their chosen direction for the church. I think it is obvious now: they have indeed chosen the church's direction. For they have shown no effort to do what makes for peace or mutual edification towards those who disagree with them. I am a witness and example before the whole church that their unity is not the unity commanded by the Word of God, or beseached by Jesus of His Father. But it is just the conspiracy of mere men. God have mercy.
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