As I have been thinking about how Streamside will work in the real world beyond the book soon to be published, I returned my friend, Father Joseph Girzone, a priest who wrote the “Joshua” series of books about the nature of Jesus. Father Joe once served us a scrumptious breakfast, welcoming us as long-lost family, even though we had never met. It was as close to foot-washing as one can get.
In his book Joshua – the Homecoming (Doubleday, 1999), Joe arrived at the same theme as I had in finishing my book Faith in Motion at exactly the same time in late 1998, yet we came from two diametrically opposed Christian traditions. Joe said, “[t]he integrity of Jesus’ message is of prime importance…His message has been fragmented and twisted in a thousand different ways…God’s mind is one and His message has to have unity to give proper guidance to people. It cannot be taught in ways that are contradictory…It is not right for God’s family to be divided and estranged from one another. I know this will take time, but leaders have to persistently work toward unity if they are to be faithful to Jesus.”
But there is a catch and it is unity’s great divide. How do we learn how to teach in unified, non-contradictory ways? And who is the ultimate authority?
Yesterday God gave me a vision, straight out of the Bible, concerning what He intends for this to look like.
Over the coming week or two I will address this in detail. I will first illustrate how vast the chasm is that we must cross, which will be hard to do because of historic conflicts dating back almost two thousand years.
But then, if you follow this closely, you will see that God has already given us the answer, which He reminded me of so beautifully yesterday.
We just haven’t listened.
In his book Joshua – the Homecoming (Doubleday, 1999), Joe arrived at the same theme as I had in finishing my book Faith in Motion at exactly the same time in late 1998, yet we came from two diametrically opposed Christian traditions. Joe said, “[t]he integrity of Jesus’ message is of prime importance…His message has been fragmented and twisted in a thousand different ways…God’s mind is one and His message has to have unity to give proper guidance to people. It cannot be taught in ways that are contradictory…It is not right for God’s family to be divided and estranged from one another. I know this will take time, but leaders have to persistently work toward unity if they are to be faithful to Jesus.”
But there is a catch and it is unity’s great divide. How do we learn how to teach in unified, non-contradictory ways? And who is the ultimate authority?
Yesterday God gave me a vision, straight out of the Bible, concerning what He intends for this to look like.
Over the coming week or two I will address this in detail. I will first illustrate how vast the chasm is that we must cross, which will be hard to do because of historic conflicts dating back almost two thousand years.
But then, if you follow this closely, you will see that God has already given us the answer, which He reminded me of so beautifully yesterday.
We just haven’t listened.
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