I've
been thinking (a dangerous task for an otherwise peaceful Sunday morning, I
understand).
I
suspect that we can learn a lesson from disagreement: the degree to which we
are able to remain in relationship with someone who holds opinions contrary to
our own is an indication of the maturity of our relationship. If I can continue
to be friends – not an acquaintance: real, genuine, share-your-lives friends – with
someone whom you disagree about significant subjects with, that is a sign of
maturity in the both of you, an din them.
There
are many among us who appear to be compelled to be right in their relationships
(or to bee seen as right, which – unbeknownst to them – is NOT the same thing).
There are numbers among us people who cannot abide the idea of divergent
thought among friends! Free will? Predestination? Grace? Judgment? Pre-trib?
Post trib? Sola Scriptura? Revelation? Gay marriage? Abortion? There are some who seem to think that it
is their calling in life to convince others that they are right, and if we’ll
only shut up and listen to them, our eyes will be opened and we’ll see the
error of our ways and repent from disagreeing with them.
They
demonstrate their immaturity.
Jesus Himself is a fine model; let no one say that his choices are the result of immaturity! And yet His best friends, the men with whom He shared every aspect of life while he was on this planet, did not even understand the things He most treasured. One of His best friends so completely disagreed with both His end and his means that he sold Him out for a month’s wages. And yet Jesus – until the very betrayal – was as good a friend to him as to Peter and John.
Jesus Himself is a fine model; let no one say that his choices are the result of immaturity! And yet His best friends, the men with whom He shared every aspect of life while he was on this planet, did not even understand the things He most treasured. One of His best friends so completely disagreed with both His end and his means that he sold Him out for a month’s wages. And yet Jesus – until the very betrayal – was as good a friend to him as to Peter and John.
Consensus
about doctrinal issues, or political, social, vocational issues, is not a
requirement for mature friendship. Two cannot walk together unless they are
agreed, but nobody said there needed to be any more agreement than just
agreeing to walk together as friends.
Our
unit, we remember, does not come from what we have learned, what we believed,
what nation we were born in; our unity comes from our Father: if we are
children of the same Father, then we are brothers. If one of us has an agenda
ahead of the Father’s agenda, then that other loyalty is the issue, not the
fact that we’re somehow, mysteriously, brothers, sons of an amazing Father.
