Unity in the Christian Fellowship

“And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way” (NIV Ephesians 1:22-23. Read Ephesians 1:15-23).

“Unity in the Christian fellowship”—the church: how do we gain it, how do we maintain it? This has been a deep question ever since Christ established the church and commissioned his disciples to “go into all the world…teaching, preaching, baptisting, teaching them to observe all things” (Mt. 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8). One aim Paul had in writing Ephesians was to warn the church about forces that would undermine unity: false doctrine, enticements of worldliness, internal bickering, and forgetting to make Christ Lord of all. Do these seem relevant to our present day as we consider our own church? If we are honest, we would admit that these and other forces are at work to undermine the effectiveness of a local Christian fellowship.

We need to recognize, first and foremost, that God has chosen believers to be His children. We are part of the family of God. A family is bound by ties of love. The ideal is to quell petty jealousies and for “each to esteem the other better than himself.” This ideal is hard to reach in a family setting, and it is also hard to attain in a church family. We have our “pet agenda” and often vie for it at great expense to the fellowship. We are prone to blame, slow to forgive. All of this, unfortunately, occurs within the confines of the fellowship founded by the Lord Christ Himself.

One of the best ways to ensure unity in the fellowship is demonstrated within Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. This, which is believed to be a general letter to the churches (and hence to us) not just to the Christians at Ephesus, Paul does not pinpoint one particular problem and dwell upon it. Instead, he emphasized who they were in Christ Jesus, all that was available to them through Christ, and the importance of oneness within the body of Christ. He knew they would be facing persecution, scattering, divisions and grave opposition. He wanted them to be strong in the faith that would give them confidence and boldness. He was praying for their wisdom and revelation (v. 17) and that “the eyes of your heart be enlightened” (v. 18). In this way they (and we) can come to know “the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance…and His incomparably great power for us who believe” (v. 19). These are the keys to unity in the fellowship of believers. It takes much prayer and putting the Lord first.

c Ethelene Dyer Jones; Monday, June 14, 2010