Disunity

Yesterday, it was Ephesians 4 and "Unity." Paul goes on to talk more about unity in chapter 4. He steps from "One Spirit ... one Lord ... one God (Eph 4:4-6) into "But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift" (Eph 4:7). That's an interesting transition. He's talking unity and goes to gifts. Paul writes about spiritual gifts in the context of ... unity. How does that work?

Paul talks about the "gifts" of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers (Eph 4:11). These are gifts He gave the Church. What for? "To equip the saints" (Eph 4:12). To equip us for ... what? Paul writes this long, run-on explanation about building the Body of Christ to "attain to the unity of the faith" (Eph 4:13) to achieve maturity and "the fullness of Christ" so we can avoid being "children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes" (Eph 4:14). Unity, Paul is saying, is achieved by the proper operation of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers so that we're built into maturity. That, in fact, is the primary purpose of the Church ... building believers.

In 1889, an American journalists named Edgar Nye introduced the phrase "a mile wide and an inch deep." He was talking about the Platte River. I think it applies quite well to much of today's churches. We aren't really interested in "the unity of faith" or "the building up of the body." We're pretty comfortable being tossed by waves and "every wind of doctrine." It's no wonder we don't see much unity in the church or even know what it is. We just find some church we're "comfortable" with -- you know, singing we like, not too much preaching, some friends -- and don't bother with maturity. Human cunning and craftiness seem to be virtues to some these days.