Pray for the Persecuted Church in India

Persecution in India: Francis' Response from Cornerstone Church on Vimeo.

Unified in Our Division

1 Corr 1:10 I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.

This verse struck me tonight. I started reading this chapter and in the first nine verses I decided the following:

1. Verse 7 says Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. The Greek word translated into “Spiritual Gift” is actually the word “charisma” from which we derive the word charismatic however the translation of Charisma is actually “deliverance” it is not at all intended to allude to the Spiritual gifts commonly associated with the charismatic movement.
2. Verse 9 says God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. Barnes says “The word “called” here does not refer merely to “an invitation” or an “offer of life,” but to the effectual influence which had been put forth; which had inclined them to embrace the gospel.” Therefore Paul was a Calvinist.

Now those of you reading this may be getting a bit uneasy at this point which is why I would like to digress to the first sentence of this post. Verse 10:

1 Corr 1:10 I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.

Paul begs the Corinthians to be PERFECTLY UNITED in mind and thought. Man, we have fallen so far from that standard. I have fallen so far from that standard. We spend so much time and energy trying to be right, and in the process we are wrong automatically because we become disunified.

I’m thinking about all the believers who feel the need to meet separately because of the charismatic issue (on both sides of it), all the believers who are disunited over the Calvanism/Arminianism issue. And then there are a million other stupid things we fight about. It’s no wonder many look at the church and just laugh and turn away. We can’t even agree about what songs to sing in our churches let alone what we believe.

Sure I believe that arriving at truth is important. I believe that driving out heresy is important as well, but we have gone way beyond that.

Paul offers us the answer in verse 17:

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

He says, God sent me to preach the gospel to you, but not with human wisdom. Why…because we are dumb, and when we try to understand an infinite and holy God who is WAY bigger than we can imagine we get it wrong…every time. When we try to do this with our own wisdom we empty the cross of its power and THAT is where our unity must lie…in the cross. That’s the one thing we can all gravitate to and be united around. It’s the only thing that really matters.

God takes our unity very seriously because it is partially through the unity of believers that he calls the lost. My prayer tonight is that God would help me to be more concerned with the unity of His church than with being right.