“Put
away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander,
together with all malice, and
be kind to one another, tender-hearted…” ~Ephesians 4:31-32
The above verses lies in the middle of a longer passage calling the Christian faithful to unity and harmony. And because it was important enough to write down, apparently there was little of either at that time. It remains a work in progress now.
Unity does not mean uniformity.
There is tremendous diversity known in the generosity of God’s gift giving to build up the church.
Diversity that works hand in hand with harmony as we read in Oxford Languages online dictionary:
“harmony: the combination of simultaneously sounded
musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions having a pleasing
effect.”
Think Beach Boys or The Drifters or One Direction; or as the photo suggests among an orchestra.
And there’s a 2nd definition for harmony…
“An arrangement of the four Gospels or of any parallel narratives which presents a single continuous narrative text.”
As there’s diversity that brings the harmony in music…
…there’s tremendous diversity across this part of the Bible that zeroes in on Jesus.
Diversity among His first 12 disciples, plus the several dozen more disciples Jesus sent out.
Even more among the named and unnamed people who are prominently featured in Jesus’ ministry…
…plus the countless scores of many more people who are not so prominent.
All from different societies and cultures, with different dress, languages, attitudes, etc, who we may not be quick to count…
…but each one of them did count to God and God’s Kingdom building plans and that continues forward today.
And if we -- as the collective Christian church -- would work at the above over and over until we could actually live it…
…imagine the life changing power this unity could bring.
There’s an Ethiopian proverb that helps us understand this:
“When spiders unite, they can
tie down a lion.”
Pastor Mike