Unity Among Believers: Strength Through Dissimilar Members

And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul (Acts 3:32). Melancthon mourned in his day the divisions among Protestants, and sought to bring them together by the parable of wolves and dogs. The wolves sent a spy who returned with crucial intelligence: though the dogs were many and strong, they possessed a fatal weakness. "As they came marching on," the scout reported, "I observed they were all snapping right and left at one another. Though they all hate the wolf, yet each dog hates every other dog with all his heart." The wolf concluded that Christian professors often snap at their own brethren when they ought to save their teeth for the wolves. If enemies are to be put to confusion, it must be by the united efforts of all the people of God—unity is strength.

Christian unity, however, requires dissimilarity. True unity subsists between things dissimilar and unlike—not in separate atoms of sand nor in a flock of identical sheep. The Church comprises dissimilar members, each imperfect in itself, yet each supplying the deficiencies of others, like members of a physical body. Cut off any one member from this spiritual body, and you destroy the unity of the whole. As a blacksmith cannot weld two cold, hard pieces of iron by hammering alone, so believers cannot achieve Yahweh's unity without the heat of the Spirit binding dissimilar gifts into one soma (body).