Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God.
My friend, Josiah, made this comment regarding these verses,
"The church and its members should be of one accord not just on what is written in scripture but what it means in the world. How the scripture should bleed out of our fingers and not just our tongues. This means we should be on one accord of how to raise children, how to spend money, how to vote, how to act in the workplace, what to say no to, and what to say yes to. And within all of these topics, Standing firm against our adversary, not backing down to the culture or the activists or the local principalities pressure."
Pharaoh feared a family. Jacob came to Egypt a family of seventy and several centuries later numbered in the millions. But Pharaoh didn't merely fear them because of their size, but because they were a unified block that size: one God, one tradition, one history, one vision, one sense of identity, etc... In other words, it meant something to be an Israelite. It meant something to be from those who came from Jacob. To be an Israelite said something about your diet, your finances, your service, your marriage, your child-rearing, and so on.
"Men who raise families that remain in fidelity to tradition will end up with descendants ruling the world.” – E.H. Looney
We could certainly benefit from more continuity in what it means to be Christian. There is room for diversity under the unity of Christianity in one respect, but what it means to be a Christian in the first place must be fully agreed upon and adhered to in faith and in practice. When that happens, we will get to enjoy the diversity of the parts which can flourish in that kind of unity. My kidneys are no more or less Todd than my biceps, but they are very different in form and function; but not so different that one is Todd's and the other is someone else's. It means something that they are mine. It means something to be my organs, but it also means something that each organ is not identical.
1 Corinthians 12:12
For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
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