rMag

Becoming Bereans Diversifying Unity: Pursuing Christ

David Ketter

Note: Weʼre going to listen in on a conversation between some friends to make the points that need to be made on the topic of unity in the Body of Christ in the face of multiple lines of division. Points of application are in bold. In the Gospel, David.

Cephas: All Iʼm saying, Paul, is that people have got to follow some leader, to make a commitment to doctrine somewhere and listen to that leader. It would be a different matter to talk about strict, official unity with all Christians if all Christians could agree on all the major points of doctrine.

Apollos: And practice. People canʼt even agree on how to baptize or how often to receive the Lordʼs Supper, and you expect them to be united? Besides that, they are loyal to the traditions and men that God used in bringing them to the Gospel.

Cephas: Exactly.

Paul: It is true, brothers, that we are faced with a formidable challenge if we are looking to persuade believers to unify. But donʼt the Psalms tell us, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” and expect us to live up to it? ¹

Cephas: Sure they do, Paul, but we are human. We canʼt do that on our own. And, yes, I know our Lord gives us grace to do it. Just remember, though: itʼs not me you have to convince of the way things should be. Iʼm simply trying to be realistic: Christians cannot and will not be united together. Theyʼve taken the course of their convictions and practices, and many keep them as central as they do the Gospel.

Paul: You know as well as I do, Cephas, that God has made all believers one. There is one body and one Spirit — just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call — one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. ²

Cephas: But that does not give them one culture or one understanding of how our faith is expressed. The Scriptures tell us that “the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth.” ³ That is not without significance, and we are not those who will insist on one culture for believers. Was it not I myself who said to the apostles and elders at the Council, “Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” ⁴ We accepted the Gentiles on few conditions — among them being that they not participate in that which is idolatrous.

Apollos: Brothers! Let us prove to outsiders that believers can be united! I begin to see that God has indeed bound us all together and there must be a foundation for unity. We clearly believe the Scriptures. We clearly believe the Christ. Can we not find a common root for being united as the Lord prayed for us, “that they may all be one” and tells us in that prayer that “the glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.” ⁵ And what is this glory but the Gospel of Christ?

Cephas: “We are brothers in Christ united in one great cause – to stand together for the Gospel.” ⁶

Apollos: Amen! It is the Gospel that has brought us together, made us one. You said yourself, Paul, that “in Christ Jesus,” those “who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ,” that he “might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” ⁷ No matter the cultural or ethnic differences in this regard: all who are in agreement on the Gospel are to be united in the love of Christ, which ended all hostility between the nations and peoples of the earth.

Paul: Aye, brothers. It seems good to me that we can say with confidence that all who are saved by the Gospel and believe in the Gospel ought to receive and recognize each other as brothers and sisters in faith, with no distinction. And what is the Gospel but this? “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” ⁸ and we know that God did this by “sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin”. ⁹

Cephas: It is like our Master said, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” We are one man, one nation, one body in the Gospel of Christ. So, we must start to act like it. We must love one another, by the Gospel, with a brotherly love that demonstrates Christ.

Paul and Apollos: Amen.

Cephas: But what about the brothers in Jerusalem? And the brothers in Antioch? And, more so, the brothers in Rome? They do not do all things the same. Do not the believers in Jerusalem, under the leadership of James, our Lordʼs brother, observe Torah and keep the commandments as our fathers have always done? Yet, our own council released the Antiochian believers with no commandments, except those universal laws that were given to all the world under Noah, after the flood. ¹⁰ We might be one in the Gospel, but we are certainly not one in the way that we demonstrate our faith, and to witness for the Master in the world.

Paul: That is true, Cephas. Do we dare demand a common rule in all the churches? After all that God has done among the Gentiles, dare we demand that they become Hebrews in practice? Have we not said that “Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called”? ¹¹ So have I already instructed the churches, for it seemed the will of God.

Cephas: Yes. Iʼm not going to make the mistake again of encouraging conformity to one tradition or way of expressing the faith. Such hypocrisy does not speak well of the Gospel. ¹²

Apollos: Indeed, Cephas, but let us not concern ourselves, again, with the past. The Savior covered all sins, even your pride and hypocrisy. We should respect the reality that the Creator God has given cultures and the Gospel renews and regenerates them, to show people how to live rightly in them, by the blood of Christ, for the glory of God.

Cephas: So, then, we can allow the brothers in Jerusalem to keep kosher, observe Torah, and live as Jews. So, too, can we allow the brothers in Antioch to live apart from the regulations of Jewish culture, for they are not Jewish. Rather, they can live as God would have them in their own Gentile context. But, brothers, can the Jews of Antioch be expected to live as the Gentiles of Antioch, where they do not agree in the form and practice of our glorious Gospel?

Apollos: I think so, Cephas. Remember that for many centuries now, foreigners have lived among the Israelites, not according to Torah, but fearing God and bearing the protection of Him on whom they had called. And they gathered to hear the Scripture in the synagogues.

Paul: Aye. Though it will be difficult for our Jewish brothers to stay long with a Gentile gathering and bear with the way that they worship and pray and preach, and even work with converts. Therefore, it seems to me that things would best be handled by each according to their convictions, and that they should abide by those within the will of God, bearing in mind that they cannot and should not judge one another.

Cephas: Such seems good to me, brother. It denies neither the Gospel, nor the good that the Gospel brings to the creation that should be redeemed by the same. So we ought to let the churches, and all the brothers know that where dealing with the churches beyond the local church, we are to unite ourselves solely in the Gospel, and on that stand together. So also, where dealing with the local church, we should agree in doctrine, form and practice, not condemning our brothers with whom we are united in the Gospel.

Apollos and Paul: Amen.

1 Psalm 133:1, ESV
2 Ephesians 4:4-6, ESV
3 Genesis 11:8, ESV
4 Acts 15:10, ESV
5 John 17:21, 22, ESV
6 Together For the Gospel, “Affirmations and Denials”, http://t4g.org/beta/doc/ 07/17/08
7 Ephesians 2:13, 16, ESV
8 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, ESV
9 Romans 8:3, ESV
10 Acts 15. The Council of Jerusalem placed the Christians in Antioch under the Noachic or Noahide laws.
11 1 Corinthians 7:20, ESV
12 Galatians 2. This is an allusion to Paulʼs confrontation of Cephas.