Paul says that the purpose of the church is "the unity of the Spirit" (Eph 4:3). The purpose of the church is to "equip the saints for the work of ministry" (Eph 4:12), to "attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God" (Eph 4:13), "so that we may no longer be 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. What does that mean?
Well, first, it does not mean that we're all the same -- that we all think the same and speak the same and do the same. That's obvious in the text of Ephesians 4. "He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers" to accomplish His work withn the church (Eph 4:11). Not all the same. And when biblical writers encounter variants, they warn believer to believer to avoid harming the faith of the weaker brother (Rom 14:1-3; 1 Cor 8:13). There are acceptable differences. Unity does not require lockstep thinking.
Paul said we were to "be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit" (Eph 4:3). He urged "the unity of the faith." (Eph 4:13) So the Spirit is the source of this unity and the faith is its conduit. Notice how that works. We are to "live in harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus." (Rom 15:5) That is, we don't negotiate to the least common denominator. We aim for Christ Jesus (Heb 12:1-2). We share a common love (John 13:35). We contend for a common faith (Jude 1:3).
For the Christian, then, unity would not look like uniformity (e.g., 1 Cor 12:4-7). It would look like a common direction with a common source (the Spirit) and a common end (Christ) and a common aim -- love. When we aim to correct fellow believers, we aim not to beat them into submission or win the case, but to urge them together with us from the Spirit in the faith toward Christ in love. I believe that kind of unity would be less devisive and less virulent and much, much more helpful than the popular and prevalent finger-wagging and pointing in righteous indignation (Gal 6:1; 1 John 5:16).
4 comments:
Many years ago, I heard someone speaking on this topic and they stressed, as you are, that unity itself isn't nearly as important as what we unify around.
I once heard the illustration of a piano tuner who tuned pianos to a single tuning fork. They do it, in fact, in orchestras, tuning all instruments to a single note from a single violin. The same idea. If we're all focused on the same point, we all have much to offer in going there together.
To take your orchestra example to it's logical extension, only if the entire orchestra is unified around the one pitch they tune to, can they expand into pleasing melody, harmony, and all of the things that make an orchestra able to captivate an audience.
In the same way the unity of the Body of Christ, allows the parts of the body to do what they do best for the glory of God.
Exactly! And it would be a poor orchestra where everyone tuned to the same note and then played the same notes. That is "unity," but it's not the unity we're looking for. That would be a lesser unity.
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