Agree

             I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. (1 Corinthians 1:10)

 

            I tend to not like this verse much because people (including me) who read it tend to think it means that all those who claim the name of Christ should think the exact same thing about each and every idea that comes along. We’re to chuck our brains in the garbage at the door and become “Stepford Wives” of Christ. What that means is that if I have an “original thought” (granting that there is “nothing new under the sun,) I am automatically wrong. Of course, this problem would be resolved immediately if everyone else were to obey this verse by agreeing with what I say and not dividing themselves against me – if you were all perfectly united in mind and thought with me as the standard.

            That idea is a nightmare to at least some of my readers with good cause. It would be a nightmare to me for everyone to think like me. It’d be boring! But while we may not realize it, when we call for everyone to agree, we generally don’t mean that they would disagree with us in doing so.

            At the same time, we have no unity if we don’t have some thoughts or practices in common. This is why we need to seek God’s truth, not our own. Sometimes there are personal truths that we aren’t to impose on others. This is why I both agree and struggle with what Dallas Willard said about practicing being wrong and learning to be wrong. We need to learn to handle being wrong well, and we need to be willing to let others be right, but where Scripture is clear on a topic, if we’re standing with what Scripture says, we should not back down. We still need to treat the other person with respect, but Scripture says – and take them to the passage where it clearly says it.