Biblical Unity among the Christian community can only really be achieved through Maturity.

vs 1-6 Walking (or "living") worthy of the calling is a rare thing.. Paul is using the aorist tense, which is the snapshot tense. From time to time Christians may manage to walk worthy of the calling. But he is not speaking of earning or maintaining one's salvation status. But rather exhorting the saved to behave appropriately. For although we are freely given the title of children of God, who really lives a life worthy of such a title? This sense of walking can be contrasted with the next section in verse 17 which speaks of walking in the present continuous lifestyle sense, in which he speaks of Christians not living a lifestyle like the rest of those in their ethnic group.

Christians are called to be children of God and so they should behave appropriately. Living in a family with brothers and sisters there inevitably arises conflicts due to the diversity of needs and diversity of maturity in the family. (See also the web page on An Exhortation on Christian Unity) Generally the immature in the family have the greatest needs and thus the parent's sacrifice of their time and efforts is often inversely proportional to the maturity of those on whose behalf they are making such efforts. There are of course times in which even the mature will get injured or sick and require special attention. However as members of the family mature, they generally become more independent and thus less of a burden and ultimately ready to start a family of their own.

The Unity of the Spirit is that sense in which Christians are united in a common family - the family of God. But as in all families, conflicts can arise. The history of post-Biblical Christianity is filled with examples of how not to handle such conflicts. Take for example the attitudes during the Reformation.

Reformers took infant baptism very seriously, even though the Bible speaks nothing of it. At the time the Menonites and early Baptist thinkers believed that infant baptism was not the type the Bible spoke of, but rather that baptism should following putting faith in Christ. Thus they believed, correctly I might add, that adults should be rebaptized as believers. But they were in the minority as the church had been previously dominated by Catholic theology. Now this seems like a minor difference of opinion that surely could be tolerated, as each follows his own conscience in the matter. And I'm sure if the reformers matured in their faith they would come to the same conclusion as the anabaptists. But instead the reformers set about to persecute and even murder the anabaptists.

Similarly even in the Reformed camp, the Lutherans and Calvinists divided. And what did they divide over? They divided over how one should think about the communion service. The Calvinists thought of it more symbolically, while the Lutherans more substantively. Zwingli had heated debates with Luther over this leading to the split. But surely there could be some toleration over such a minor issue. But not among the immature!

There is a great deal of immaturity in the modern era of Christianity as well. But today such immaturity tends to be expressed differently as I will comment on later.

The perspective mature Christians should have towards such conflicts is to help other Christians grow in maturity of their faith. Yes there are times when division is called for and when the beliefs and practices of other Christians should not be endured. But one should do all things out of the spirit of edification. In 1Corinthians 5 and 6, Paul speaks of it being the Christian's responsibility to judge other Christians in essential matters and even himself disfellowshipped a Christian practicing sin in that section. However, even in matters of which the Bible is explicit on or strongly implies, there should be some tolerance for diversity so as to allow time for the maturity of the believers. One does not make the same demands of young children as one does of older ones. It is only in extreme cases of deviant doctrine or deviant behavior when such disfellowship should be applied. In Romans 14 and Colossians 2:16 he speaks of not judging when it comes to non-essential matters, but forebearing in love.

Having an attitude looking to the edification of others takes humility. The proud tend to be either unduly divisive or apathetic, not really caring about the maturing of others, but are only concerned for themselves. And similarly we've seen how violent immature Christians in the reformation behaved, contrary to the gentleness of mature Christians. Parenting takes patience. Children don't grow up over night. It takes time.

vs 5 "One baptism" I would like to comment on this as it is misunderstood by some. From verses 4-6 there are seven "one's" mentioned. But realize that each one has in itself different aspects. There is one body, but as he will mention in verse 7+ there are many aspects to that one body. Similar there is one Spirit, but he has different roles. So also there is one baptism, but it also has different aspects. There is the baptism into Christ, as called the baptism of the Spirit, in which a person is born of God. But there is also water baptism, an act of faith which is an outward sign of the believer's acknowledgement of his faith in Christ. But these are different aspects of the same baptism - one is symbolic and the other substantive.

vs 7-11 While in the family of God there should be a striving towards unity of faith, there also should be a healthy diversity of giftedness. Spiritual gifts are not limited to an elite few, but rather are given to each and every believer. See also the web page on Spiritual Gifts for different listings and descriptions. This particular listing focuses on ministry roles.

vs 12-16 Each of us has been given spiritual gifts in order to bring the body of Christ to maturity. We must focus outwardly with our gifts, ministering to others with their edification in mind. Maturity is the goal, Unity is an effect, and the Diversity of Spiritual gifts are the means. But each must be allowed to exercise their gifts. Unfortunately Institutional Christianity has historically drastically limited the activities of the congregation resulting in the suppression of spiritual maturity, resulting also in disunity. Institutions have made attempts to create an sense of unity while suppressing maturity, but such unity is often only surface deep. One way in which unity is attempted is through a Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

While the institutional emphasis on denominationalism had its time, now the pendulum has swung in the other direction. For just as racism had been predominant in the past, the spirit of which infected the Christian community then, so globalism with its pluralistic ecumenical philosophy infects the church today along with other worldly philosophies.

Today institutional churches try to obtain unity by not allowing anything remotely controversial to be discusssed, no matter how Biblical it may be. Christians are not allowed to voice any difference of opinion. The lecture format you find in most churches supports this philosophy. The congregation is basically gagged. They go to church, sing some songs, listen to a lecture and go home. Very seldom are Christians allowed to expressed their opinions or talk to one another about spiritual things outside of a controlled environment. And God forbid they should criticize the pastor's sermon!

Such institutional philosophy and practices do little to edify the body of Christ. Consider this chapter. It is written that each person is given giftedness to contribute to the edification of all. And that the goal is to prepare God's people for works of service, which is the practice of the mature Christian. But what we find in institutional Christianity today is an elitist mentality in which a few are allowed to speak and minister while the others are treated like a bunch of stupid sheep. And why is it so typical that when professional ministers think of "works of service" about all they can envision their stupid sheep being capable of is setting up chairs and the like? But congregations are also willing accomplices in this charade of institutional church life. For while having great potential for doing great things for God, they are lulled into laziness and purposely remain immature so as to avoid responsibility, being quite content with being treated as stupid sheep. This is a sorry state of affairs.

"Speaking the Truth in Love"

Christians should feel free to speak the truth as they perceive that it will result in edification of others. Today it seems that there is too much concern about hurting people's feelings Which really means hurting people's pride. But such humiliation didn't hinder Jesus nor the apostles from speaking. If we walk as Jesus did and as Paul did, it seems that humilating the proud is simply part the ministry. It's part of our responsibility. For it will help to bring the wandering to repentance and develop the essential character trait of humility in those who respond properly. And even regardless of the motivation, truth is always edifying to those who appreciate the truth. But in developing Christians unto maturity we should exercise wisdom as to what truths would accomplish the objective most efficiently.

I have met some Christians who have the bizarre idea that rather than tell the truth we should speak lies in love! Their reasoning is the following. People may get turned off to the gospel if they are told that they are sinners in need of being saved from eternal damnation in hell. And furthermore we should not tell them that they must believe in Jesus as Lord, but only as Savior. That way more people will respond. We should tell people positive things about how good they'll feel or how good their life will be if they accept Jesus, and not tell them negative things.  This idea I find not uncommon in this era of feel-good Christianity. This is not speaking the truth in love. And it is not the way the gospel message is presented in the Bible. This false gospel simply increases the leaven in the Christian community and the proportion of make-pretend nominal Christians who have false concepts of the gospel and false expectations of the Christian life.

Immature Christians tend to be overly gullible. Too easily they get caught up in some false teachings by those who simply want to get something from them. The mature are more skeptical, not so easily swayed in their convictions. The same is true in life. Infants are gullible. They easily believe lies, like Santa Claus. But the mature are not so gullible. We should no longer have the gullibility of infants. The Christian faith is not a blind faith. Not even Jesus demanded the Jews believe in him without giving them evidence of who he was.

But to achieve maturity, everyone has to do their part. Everyone is important.