That they may be one

“And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.” - John 17v11

John 17 is what should properly be called the Lord’s Prayer. It is the last prayer that we know in detail and it is a beautiful picture of God the Son communicating with God the Father. The beginning of the prayer is so personal we can almost feel like we are privy to an intimate conversation.

Jesus then started to pray for the disciples. Indeed, according to verse 20, His prayer is for all those who will eventually believe. In the early part of His prayer He prayed this, “…that they may be one as we are one.”

What did Jesus mean by that? Did He mean that all who claimed to be believers would be carbon copies of each other? Did He mean that we would be unified at all costs? No, His meaning was clear. Although God the Father and God the Son are both God, they manifest themselves differently and they have different ministries. We are not all going to act exactly alike.

Jesus also does not pray for an absolute unity where anything goes. He prays for a unity like He and the Father have. It is a unity based on truth and purity. It is a unity based on holiness and godliness. There is no room in unity for an “anything goes mentality.”

Still, Jesus did pray that we would be one. Godly, holy, truth-based unity in the body of Christ is His desire. In The Andy Griffith Show Barney once said, “I don’t have time to stand here and discuss trivial trivialities.” When we look at so many modern Christian publications the majority of the articles and issues are about what someone else is doing wrong. It all seems like an attempt to make our side look better. Fundamentalists attack New-Evangelicals for being too liberal in their worship and lifestyles. New-Evangelicals attack Fundamentalists as being legalists and worse. And so it goes… It seems like we are all just watching for someone else to slip up so that we can attack them. “Trivial trivialities” seem to the order of the day in the body of Christ.

Does this really honour God? Here, in what were to be His last moments He is praying for His body to be unified. We have an entire world to reach with the gospel of Christ. The job is immense. If we don’t work together we have no chance of getting the job done.

Yes, unity must be based on truth, holiness, and godliness. But let us make sure that it is, instead of being so concerned about what are, at the end of the day, trivial trivialities.