More Correct
Whenever any sort of dispute arises between individuals, until the dispute gets resolved each side believes their position is more correct. The longer the dispute or disagreement remains unresolved the more polarized the situation often becomes. In other words as time goes by the divide between the disputing parties deepens. The facts remain the same but the division increases. This is human nature and happens all the time. Unfortunately this is very much the case in the religious world today. This has always been the case in the religious world and is one of the most prominent elements that continues to give religion a bad name. How can all these people who say they are doing God’s bidding have such disagreement? The truth is they can’t. Many who claim to be doing God’s bidding are really working for the other guy. What does Jesus think of this prevailing state of disunity? Jesus Christ prayed to God the Father just before his death, notice what he says about his followers in this excerpt of that prayer:
All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name — the name you gave me — so that they may be one as we are one.
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
What Jesus Christ did and said was always in perfect agreement with God the Father. He even went so far as to say: “These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.“ His prayer for us as we see from the passage above is that we all do the same. We should all be in perfect agreement with each other because we are all in perfect agreement with God the Father just as Jesus was. So what then is our responsibility when we disagree, especially on religious matters? Well we need to get ourselves into agreement. One thing that will very much help that process along is if we each decide to keep within the boundaries of what God has given to us for our religious expression and practices. Let’s avoid clever ideas and inference upon inference that is not specifically supported by the text.
The reason why there is so much division is that most in the religious community fail to do this. If someone states some principle or practice and some other conscientious student of the Bible does not agree then this disagreement is evidence that one or both of them has gone beyond what is written. One or both of them is not in perfect agreement with God the Father. As I stated at the beginning of this post, if every effort is not made to get to the truth of this dispute, both parties will walk away believing they each are more correct and these divisions will only deepen over time. Also please note from the prayer of Jesus: the unity we demonstrate will let the world know that this is from God. If we fail to have unity our case for divine discipleship is weakened. So this is important. If we make every effort to achieve unity and we truly succeed we will only then actually be more correct.