Jesus spoke of Christian unity what does thus mean to you?

[Bob Crowley]

It's amazing considering we all have the same book. But of course, here in the West, what do we do with it? The truth must adhere to logic. It must be concretely factual. So we make assumptions about the nature of truth, and we proceed to analyze, extract, systematize, formulate and construct some semblance of an idea we perhaps all can worship. We assume we must be done, until we have disagreements. We're fairly good at keeping ourselves busy.

But what if the mind of Christ is really a mind? How do we access it and what kind of mind is it? Is it concerned only with itself? What are we supposed to do with it then, and what are we supposed to do with our intellectual constructs?

We Westerners have a long history of being so absorbed by our own magnificent ideas that we seldom stop to think about what precedes us. We don't care to, I think we've missed some of the most spectacular benefits of Christ as a result, and christian unity has suffered for it.

Maybe a bit off topic, but I recently read most of a book "Fifty Major Philosophers" which I borrowed from a library.

Fifty Major Philosophers

They were all Western Philosophers, starting with the Greeks and going through to modern philosophers. They included Aquinas and Augustine, who were more theologians than philosophers. They were also all male.

One thing I noticed is that every single one of them was a man of his time, tailoring his philosophy to current issues and developments.

But it appears the same author/s wrote another book "Fifty Eastern Thinkers". To get a more balanced view of things, I 'm trying to see if I can get a copy through our local library. If I can't I'll probably buy it.

Fifty Eastern Thinkers

The East tends more towards an inherent spirituality, whereas the West tries to analyse and catalogue everything.

I remember a missionary saying in church years ago that "In the West, if you were at a party and said 'There are spirits in this room' the person you were talking to would say 'Aah, that's nice. Say, that's Fred over there. I'd better go and talk to him.'"

But if you were at a party in the East, that would be like saying "The sky is blue." So what? They'd all know that.

 

[Albion]

That said, and I probably shouldn't put this here, but my rather prophetic old Presbyterian pastor once said to me (and he predicted I'd become Catholic) "I think you might have some trouble with the Baptists. They're very much aware of being Baptist, much more so than Presbyterians are of being Presbyterian for example."

Your pastor was exactly right about that. Concerning those churches in the USA anyway.

 

[lismore]

Jesus spoke of Christian unity but yet, many of us are divided. What does this mean to you? That people who are ununited are not really Christians? That we won't be united until after he comes? That we are so divided because of sin? What is Christian unity to you?

I think the key is to have a gospel centred life and ministry. As the book of Romans says: 'I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Gentile'. If we put any other teaching or philosophy, tradition or supposed new revelation at the centre then division ensues. There are people in churches, some have spent their entire life as members, who are not saved, who are not united to Christ or to other believers because they have never heard the gospel. In these last days we can expect more of the same, leaders and churches moving away from preaching gospel truth. God Bless