Originally Posted by Morganite
The ideal according to the Bible is:
One Lord,
One Faith,
One Baptism.
If that is not a scriptural prescription for unity, then there is none. However, it is not the only plea for unity. Actually, it is more a directive than a plea. Paul writes to the church at Corinth condeming the fact that there were serious schisms among them; some boasting that they were of Paul, others that they were of Apollos, others of Cephas, and still others of Christ; which led Paul to ask sharply, "Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you?"
There were endless strifes as well as divisions among them, which caused Paul to denounce them as carnally minded. They were so disunified that they were in the habit of going to law one with another, and that before the world, in violation of the teachings of Jesus Christ. They desecrated the ordinances of the Lord's Supper by their drunkenness, for which they were sharply reproved by the Apostle. They ate and drank unworthily, "not discerning the Lord's body; for which cause many were sickly among them, and many slept" (that is, died).
There were heresies also among them, some denying the resurrection of the dead, while others did not possess the knowledge of God, which the Apostle declared was their shame. This sharp letter of reproof made the Corinthian saints sorry after a godly fashion, that brought them to a partial repentance, but even in the second epistle, from which we learn of their partial repentance, the Apostle could still charge that there were many in the Church who had not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they had committed.
From this second letter, we also learn that there were many in the church at large who corrupted the word of God, and that there were those in the ministry, who were "false prophets, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ."
This is the unity that should mark the congregations of the church of Christ. Where it is absent, God is displeased. Now this is a different matter than those who are on thr broad path, for these are they who will say they are on the strait and narrow way, but unless they are unified they are found walking after some other master. How then can anyone say there is no call for unity among Christians in the Bible?
Vagrant interpretations that lean too far into allegory are capable of leading people astray much quicker than any other means, and we should avoid stretching and torturing the scriptures to make them say what we imagine is right even when it contradicts what is written. God made his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as individual covenants.
But in the time of Moses he made his covenant with the whole people of Israel, not with an individual, and it is clear from the scripture that the New Covenant was with a whole people and not wirh a woman alone.
M:)