According to the Bible unity is something the Lord is both for and against. Is this a paradox or perfectly logical?
The Bible tells us of a time after the great flood of Noah when all of the people of the world spoke a single language. They migrated from the east to the land of Shinar. The people there sought to make bricks and build a city and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for themselves, so that they not be scattered over the world. Seeing this, God confounded their speech so that they could no longer understand each other and scattered them around the world.
The Bible states in Genesis 11:4-8:
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.
Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.
Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
Now Jesus prior to His crucifixion earnestly prayed the following prayer as recorded in John 17:20-21
I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one – as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.
Clearly He is praying for believers to be unified. What may seem to some to be a paradox is actually perfectly logical. At the Tower of Babel sinful men and women were intent on edifying themselves.
Jesus desired for His church to make Christ the focus of their lives and not ourselves. There is the difference and it’s a big one.
God makes clear that when people unite “nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them”. This is true for believers and unbelievers. Take the atheists and homosexual groups as examples. They have unified and just look what they have accomplished through working together and pooling their resources. Then take a look at the church which so far is primarily silo based and refuses to untie and you see it on the decline.
God wants all believers to unite. The Jesus Alliance has its number one objective to unite the body of believers so that nothing we attempt to do in Christ’s name will be withheld from us. You can begin in your own community by uniting with God and other believers.
Eccl 4:12
Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
February 1, 2016 – Click here to listen