Biblical Foundation
Saturday, April 11, 2020
11:07 AM
Lesson 1—Biblical Foundation for Ecumenism
Ecumenism Defined
To understand ecumenism, it could help to understand the development of the term over time. The word ecumenism is derived from the Greek word oikoumene which refers to the inhabitants of the whole earth—the whole inhabited world.  In the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the author speaks of Polycarp praying frequently for the church in the whole world (5:1, 8:1). It also affirms Christ as “shepherd of the of the whole church throughout the world” (19:2). 
The term evolved as Christianity was accepted within the Roman Empire to refer the convened councils that expressed the faith intended to be accepted by all Christians. This would include the following Ecumenical Councils and the creeds and agreements that emerged from them:
Nicaea (325), 
Constantinople (381), 
Ephesus (431) and 
Chalcedon (451) 
In the 20th Century, the term was renewed with a focus on organizational expressions.  Histories and introductions of Ecumenism will focus a great deal of attention to the history surrounding the creation of the World Council of Church, National Council of Churches and the contributions of organizations like the YMCA and the YWCA. It developed a focus on regional, state, national and international organizations designed to bring together different denominations of Christians for cooperative purposes. 
Ecumenism is not restricted to councils and organizations, in a more general sense, it is the work dedicated to expressing Christian unity beyond or in spite of denominational division with or without formal organizational structures.  The word “ecumenical” and “ecumenism” can refer to really any effort among Christians to step across boundaries lines that separate one part of the body of Christ from another.  
Two Natures of Church
A biblical understanding of ecumenism begins with a biblical understanding of the church. The Greek word for Church is ecclesia. Ecclesia is a term that simply means assembly and is used outside of the New Testament (NT) with little or no theological connotation. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) uses the word ecclesia to refer to gatherings of the people for military, civil, religious, or other purposes. When the Church named itself, it chose an ordinary and utilitarian name but within its own reflection the word began to taken on greater significance.
In the NT, the word ecclesia has two related but distinct uses: local and universal. The only two uses of ecclesia by Jesus recorded in the Gospels seem to address these two natures. In the first reference, Jesus used ecclesia to refer to a local community of faith.  In Matthew 18:17 Jesus was speaking of handling a disagreement between believers and discusses the final step being the involvement of the Church. Jesus's own use of church in reference to a local believers connects to other used of the word ecclesia The local congregation met regularly (Hebrews 10:25), had offices (Philippians 1:1), cared for one another in sickness (James 5:14) among other activities. The local congregation appears to have been a tightknit gathering of people who served together and who through covenant relationship had bound their lives to one another in some way.
The other reference use of ecclesia by Jesus in the Gospel comes in Matthew 16:18. Jesus had asked his Disciples who they confessed Jesus to be. Peter said, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Jesus affirmed Peter’s response indicated that he would build his "Church" upon Peter OR upon Peter's confession of faith. We might call this the universal church. 
Jesus's use of the word church to refer to the global body of believers also connects to other passages of scripture. Jesus commanded the Disciples to go into all the world and make Disciples (Matthew 28:19) and emphasized the global nature of Christian witness before his ascension (Acts 1:8). So, while the original vision of church certainly included the local congregation it never intended Christian Disciples to keep their head to the ground looking only at the local church. 
This influenced not only their Christian mission and witness but also their collaboration with one another. This larger vision of the Church appears in the New Testament as an interrelated network of faith communities (Colossians 4:16) that worked to facilitate Christian missionary work (2 Corinthians 8:1-­‐7), settle disputes (Acts 15), and encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 1:7). The universal church like the local congregation was formed and bound together by a shared commitment to Jesus Christ and through that shared commitment to an understanding that they belonged together. For examples of the Church as Universal body. See: Acts 8:3; 9:31; 1 Corinthians 6:1; Ephesians 1:22; 3:10, 21; Colossians 1:18.  
The Earliest Christians understood that faith in Jesus Christ brought a believer into communion with other believers in Jesus Christ both within the local setting and in the larger global context.  As an invitation to more fully explore ecumenism, consider these words from the Apostle Paul: To the Church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:2-­‐3.  For examples of both senses of the Church used in the same verse see: Acts 20:28; Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 1:2. 
New Testament Unity and Diversity
One of the major struggles that tested the early church's unity came around the relationship within the church between diverse people.  The earliest Christians believed that Jesus came to announce that the God of Israel was the God of all and that all were welcome within the fellowship of believers. 
The original followers of Christ belonged to Judaism. Yet, within Judaism there was a great deal of diversity. There were people who maintained patterns that defined them as Jewish: 
eating kosher, 
observing Sabbath, 
circumcision, 
ritual washing and 
the observance of holy days. 
There were others who were Jewish but had a stronger commitment to the public expressions of Judaism like the temple in Jerusalem. Some wanted an overthrow of the Roman imperial powers and a return to national sovereignty. Some took an ascetic approach and withdrew and lived in austere conditions as an expression of devotion to God.  Judaism of the First Century was not a monolith.  
The diversity within Judaism manifested itself as tensions within the earliest followers.  Acts 6:1-­‐6 reveals that the early Christian community contained both those with a strong commitment to Jewish patterns and those who were more influenced by Greco-­‐Roman patterns (so-­‐ called Hellenists). Early conflict broke out between them and was resolved with the appointment of deacons to ensure that everyone received what they needed.  In Acts 8:26ff Philip is moved by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the gospel to the Ethiopian Eunuch who according to the legal code would not have been allowed to come near the altar (Deuteronomy 23:1) but is nonetheless baptized into the Church (Acts 8:38). Though this court official is the first recorded Gentile convert to Christianity his baptism appears largely unknown to the rest of the Church.
Acts narrates the transformation and ministry of Peter in Caesarea as a critical turning point in the way the early church would relate to the diversity among the followers of Jesus.  Acts presents Peter as opening the door of the Church to Gentiles (Acts 10:1-­‐11:18).  In Baptizing Cornelius, Peter was crossing a boundary that the Church had never witnessed Jesus cross. This was indeed a new thing. This story takes place in Caesarea (note the name CAESARea).  Cornelius—gentile, God-­‐ fearing, and good—was instructed in a dream to invite Peter to come and proclaim the gospel among the Gentiles in Caesarea. Acts 10:28 points to the radical nature of the boundary crossing. David Balch writes, “We do not usually realize how radical it is when the ‘believers in Joppa’ (Acts 10:28) hear Peter characterize Cornelius as an allophyle and then baptize him.” Balch explains that allophyle is the Greek translation of “Philistines” who are characterized by LXX as worshiping idols, uncircumcised, and frequently at odds with the people of Judea. Balch declares, “he is baptizing Goliath into the church!” (David L. Balch, "Accepting Others:  God's Boundary Crossing According to Isaiah and Luke-­‐ Acts," Currents in Theology and Mission 36, no. 6 (2009): 417.  This was an extraordinary thing for a Jewish believer in the one crucified under a centurion’s supervision (Luke 23:47) to accept much less accomplish.
Peter was prepared for his own conversion by the vision he received in Acts 10:9-­‐16.  Peter was hungry, fell into a trance, and watched as a sheet was lowered with all manner of “unclean” animals. Peter refused to partake of the unclean animals saying, “By no means Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean” (Acts 10:14). The response to him was that what God has made clean, you must not call unclean. The message points Peter to a mission to the Gentiles.
The words katharizo (cleanse) and koinou (impure, unclean, common or profane) in 10:15 in reference to animals and emerge again 10:28 in reference Cornelius’s household. Upon entering their house, Peter said to them, “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any person impure or unclean.” Peter’s culinary dream in 10:9-­‐16 foreshadows the ecclesiastical reality in chapter 11 as the church accepts non-­‐Jewish people’s capacity to (1) receive the message of Christ; (2) receive the Spirit of Christ manifested in speaking in tongues; (3) and be baptized.
Through this movement, the church accepted a reality that changed both its character and understanding of God. Beverly Gaventa writes, “By means of the issue of hospitality, Luke demonstrated that the conversion of the first Gentile required the conversion of the church as well. Indeed, in Luke’s account, Peter and company undergo a change that is more wrenching by far than the change experienced by Cornelius” (Beverly Roberts Gaventa, "What God Has Cleansed," in From Darkness to Light: Aspects of Conversion in the New Testament(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986).
The church had to convert to this paradigm for itself-­‐-­‐Do not regard as unclean any person God has made; any person God has loved; any person God has forgiven. When Peter was confronted by those in Judea for his actions, he offered a speech giving his account. The evidence that Peter’s actions were right is lodged within the presence of the Holy Spirit as seen in the ecstastic tongues. He concluded his speech, “So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God!” (11:17). To which the people responded, “So then God has even granted the Gentile repentance unto life” (vs. 11;18). And so, Peter’s speech signaled his own conversion toward accepting Gentiles and indeed the church’s conversion on this point by saying, “Now I understand.” Peter and the early church were the first to witness the momentous shift in human history with the experience of Jesus Christ. They were the first to try to make sense of it. And they struggled to make sense of how that rearranged the traditions that had shaped and defined them for so long.
Study of this text deserves a fuller treatment of “partiality.” Peter’s statement has some parallel Hebrew Bible passages.  Deuteronomy 10:17 says, “God shows no partiality and accepts no brides” and the verses following this emphasize the need to demonstrate love to the  aliens  living  in  Israel.  Similar commandments are issued in by Jehoshaphat to newly appointed judges in Chronicles 19:7. More significantly, in Sirach 35:16‐26 the wisdom-­writer offers an expanded portrayal of God’s justice where God shows no partiality. Instead, “The one whose service is pleasing to the Lord will be accepted” (Sirach 25:30). James 2:1‐12 like Acts, deal with shows of partiality of rich over the poor within the church
Through the leadership of Peter, the Church that started in Jerusalem and was based in Judea that spread to Samaria (8:1-­‐13), that had baptized one harbinger of the whole world through Philip’s baptism of the Ethiopian court official, now had a local congregation in the household of Cornelius--a gentile. In the conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch and especially in the conversion and acceptance of Cornelius, we see the early church confronting a number of possible sources of division. Ethnicity (the Ethiopian and the Roman), political commitment (Centurion), religious identity (Gentile, allophyle), sexual identity (the Eunuch), and even class (the slave on the one hand; the wealthy patron on the other) all yield to the boundary-‐crossing, all-­ embracing plan of salvation God has for the world.
New Testament Unity and Theological Consistency
In some ways the book of Acts is about the Church crossing boundaries to share the gospel and in some ways the book of Acts is about the Church redrawing the boundaries. As new boundaries were drawn, the early church had to think about what to do with the old boundaries. Specifically, what do the people included within the new boundaries share with one another? What encircles them? What are the limits of their freedom within the new boundaries?
The events of Acts 15, the so-­‐called “Jerusalem Council” refer to a gathering of Jewish Christian leaders gathered to settle the dispute of what ought to be required of Gentile Christian believers. The Apostle Paul also recounts a similar conversation taking place (Galatians 2:1-­‐10).  Scholars debate whether Acts 15 parallels the events recorded in Galatians 2:1-­‐10.  The Anchor Bible Dictionary offers 5 possible parallels in Acts to Galatians 2:1-­‐10: Acts 11:27-­‐30; 15:1-­‐30; 15:1-­‐4; 18:22; and 11:1-­‐18.  The fact that what Paul described in Galatians 2 could actually refer to several events reported in Acts points to the fact that the issue was lively.
With the emergence of the Apostle Paul and his missionary work, the evangelization among the Gentiles gained increased momentum. Yet, Paul did not seem too intent on making sure that new Gentile converts observed all the customs of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. Just as the church in Jerusalem had questioned Peter’s willingness to baptize a Gentile household so also the church in Jerusalem asked what might be expected of Gentile believers in terms of conduct.
The Church in Antioch received word from Judean Christians that they needed to observe the customs of Palestinian Jews namely circumcision (Acts 15:1). However, it is also likely that they advocated for observance of the Sabbath, the Hebrew calendar, the commands regarding dietary purity and the segregation of Jew and Gentile persons. Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem to seek an answer from the Apostles there concerning the appropriate conduct of Gentile believers. Was circumcision and all that it represented expected of Gentile believers in the Messiah?
Peter’s response (Acts 15:6-­‐11) outlines the major theological theme of Acts. The evidence that God had accepted the Gentile believers of Cornelius’s household came in the gift of the Holy Spirit not the yoke of circumcision (15:8). “God made no distinction between them and us” (15:9). Peter established an ethical principle drawn from a theological truth. Christians are to see other people in a manner consistent with the way God sees them. Salvation does not depend on people’s actions but on God’s grace (15:11). Having established the criterion by which the faithfulness of Christian converts would be viewed—namely the presence of the Holy Spirit—the Jerusalem council then listened Barnabas and Paul narrate “all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles (15:12).
The evidence appeared conclusive. James defined the council’s response saying that they the ethical instruction to be given to the Gentile converts was that they should maintain theological purity by avoiding things pertaining to idols, sexual purity, and physical purity (Acts 15:20). This challenge to the unity of the Church teaches us a few things:
The Church is the visible manifestation of God’s gathering work in the world. Luke 15, the center of the Gospel of Luke, portrays God as one who seeks out that which is lost and gathers it in. So also Acts 15, also the center of Acts, demonstrates what that looks like in the function of the early Church. When the Church excludes those whom God includes, the Church stands in opposition to God and fails to accomplish its core mission (See Eugene Boring and Fred Craddock, The People’s New Testament Commentary, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p. 416).
The Church has a concern to understand itself in continuity with the whole narrative of Israel’s God and responsive to that same God’s active Spirit. The evidence of God’s acceptance comes through the Holy Spirit’s work in people’s lives. Yet, James’s declaration relates how all that is taking place had been anticipated by the prophets all along.
One of the key ministries of the Ecumenical movement has been to have serious dialogue about how to balance continuity with core Christian doctrine with the call to embrace all who claim Christ as Lord and in whom the Spirit of God is evident.  Just as the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem understood their scripture as God’s gift to them so also churches involved in the ecumenical movement understand that their scriptures and to some extent their doctrines which are syntheses of scripture and their symbols that embody scripture are also gifts of God. Part of ecumenical work is the effort to correlate the gifts that the Church has received from God in the past with the ongoing gift of God’s spirit in the present. It has been difficult work of reconciling the evidence of the same Holy Spirit of God at work in all of the Church though not all the same doctrines, symbols or practices are shared.
New Testament Unity and Evangelism 
Nearly every discussion of Christian Unity will quote John 17:20ff, "that all of them may be one . . . So that the world may believe that you have sent me . . . May they be brought to complete unit to let the world know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." The prayer of Jesus in chapter 17 belongs to the final discourse of Jesus (John 13-­‐17) which has a very definite focus on the community of faith.  It ought to be read together with the whole of these chapters. Here's a brief outline of these chapters.
John 13:1-­‐20-­‐-­‐Jesus washes his disciples feet and calls them to wash one another's feet. One purpose of the community of faith is service.
John 14-­‐-­‐Jesus comforts his Disciples with the promise of return and ongoing presence through the Advocate. The community of faith is to receive the Holy Spirit (Paraclete) and serve as a peaceful presence in the world.
John 15:1-­‐11-­‐-­‐Jesus offers the vine and branches analogy.  The community of faith has unity in Christ. It comes as each one has a direct connection to Christ.
John 15:12-­‐170-­‐-­‐The community of faith is a community devoted to love.
John 15:18-­‐27-­‐-­‐The Community of faith along with the Holy Spirit serves as a witness to Christ in the world despite opposition from the world.
John 16-­‐-­‐Jesus predicted that the Disciples will experience trouble and hardship. They would depend on the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit to continue to teach them. Jesus predicts they will scattered. The Community of faith is a community in which people fail, pressures cause them to scattered but, they will continue to be led by the Holy Spirit.
John 17 is a prayer addressed to God but it speaks about this community of faith. The community has been formed by their belief in Jesus as one sent from God (17:8). The community of faith is formed around the shared acceptance of Jesus's death and resurrection as the salvific work of God in Christ. He spoke of the “hour” having come for Jesus to be glorified. This word links the prayer to the whole preceding storyline and ties the prayer to the coming death/burial /resurrection/gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus prays for glorification. Meaning he affirms that he has worked toward that purpose for which God had sent him and now he was going away.
The prayer makes the distinction between the community of faith and the world (vs. 9). The world cannot receive the Holy Spirit (14:17), hates the disciples (15:18), it hates Jesus (15:18), rejoices in the pain of Christ and the Disciples (16:20), And yet, the world remains the target of persuasion. Christ has lived his life in such a way that the world may know the truth about his identity within the Father (14:30-­‐ 31; 16:8; 17:5). So while the world remains in opposition to Christ, the view of the prayer is that the world would ultimately come to recognize his Lordship. Jesus prayer affirms that the community of faith is to remain in the world but carry forward the plan God had for Jesus in sending him into the world (17:14-­‐19).
The prayer prays to God for the unity of the community of faith as it carries out the work entrusted to it-­‐-­‐representing Christ to the world (John 17:20).  The unity envisioned in the prayer is a unity analogous to the unity the Son shares with the Father.  This unity refers to a unity of shared action-­‐-­‐the primary activity of the Father is shared with the Son (5:19). The work of the Father and Son is to give life (5:20-­‐21).  The work of the son is to exercise authority (5:22-­‐23).  The fulcrum of judgment with regard to the son is belief in him (5:24). So, the community of faith within a unity mirroring the unity of the Father and Son shares a common purpose, a common work to place before the world a common call to believe and receive Jesus Christ. This purpose refers to more than just the embodiment of a loving community of faith within life but extends to an eternal community granted glory by Christ's glory (17:24).
As we can see from this brief overview of Jesus's farewell discourse (John 13-­‐16) and the concluding prayer (John 17), John does present a community of faith-­‐-­‐a community of believers-­‐-­‐even though they may not be tied together with familiar images and symbols (like the word "Church"), they are defined by mutual care and commissioned to serve as witnesses in the world.  Sandra Schneiders wrote, "The community is the key to Jesus' ongoing presence in the world. The task of the community is to be, through love, Jesus' bodily presence, and thus the giver of his Spirit, to all who will come to believe down through the ages. Jesus has gone to prepare a place for his disciples because, as he prays on the night before his death, 'Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me before the foundation of the world' (17:24). In the time between Jesus' going away and his coming again to take us to himself so that where he is we also may be (see 14:3), the community is the place of encounter between Jesus and his disciples.  There we are born again of the spirit, eat and drink the life of Jesus, and share that life with fellow believers and with all those to whom we testify about him" (Sandra M. Schneiders, Written That You May Believe, New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2003).
We may believe that it takes more than that which is entrusted to the community of faith here to be the church. We may believe that church involves worship— celebration of the Lord’s Table and Baptism (conspicuously absent from John). We may believe that the Church needs offices and lines of accountability and authority. However, I hope you will agree with me that what is here in John entrusted to the Disciples is part of the church's call. Jesus Christ prayed for the unity of the believers, the unity of the Church, in order to serve an evangelistic purpose-­‐-­‐to confront the world with its sin (John 15:22, 24; 16:8-­‐9), and call them to believe in Jesus Christ (17:14-­‐19).  This is the work of evangelism as defined by the Gospel of John.
All of this stresses the importance of unity within the church both locally and universally to the work of evangelism. It seems conspicuous to me that though the Church is called to serve as a witness for (John 15:27) the means specified elsewhere are not present in John. The gospel of John does not conclude with a great commission (Matthew 28:18-­‐20).  Unlike the book of Acts with its eight kerygmatic sermons (Acts 2:14-­‐36; 3:12-­‐16; 4:8-­‐12; 5:29-­‐32; 10:34-­‐43; 13:16-­‐41; 14:15-­‐17; 17:22-­‐31), John does not envision public preaching as the means of evangelism. As 1 John says, "Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action" (1 John 3:18).Nothing like Paul's rhetorical question "how are they to hear without someone to proclaim?" is found in the Gospel of John. Instead, John envisions that the means of evangelism come in the form of loving acts. It comes in loving acts of mutual service as reflected in the washing of feet and it comes in the form of unity among believers. In short the gospel of John does not speak of unity in evangelism; John speaks of the evangelism of unity. Ecumenism seen through the Gospel of John is not an evangelistic strategy. It is essentially evangelism itself.
New Testament Unity and Caring for the Needs of Others 
Churches in the New Testament cooperated together for the sake of benevolent service for others. One example of this service comes in reference to the collection Paul gathered for the church in Jerusalem. Paul asked the Church in Corinth to help him aid the poverty-­‐stricken Christians living in Jerusalem (2 Corinthians 8:1-­‐15; 9). This text could serve as a lengthy discourse on stewardship. However, I want to make a few comments about it through the lens of ecumenism.
The gift itself was a unifying act between Jewish and Gentile Christians. As our discussion of Acts 10 and Acts 15 recount, the earliest Christians were observant Jews. They believed that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was to be recognized as Lord of all creation. The gospel crossed the boundaries from the Jewish to the Gentile world. The early Gentile Christians had the Jewish Christians generally and the Church in Jerusalem specifically for this good news. But as one reads the texts closely, the book of Galatians in particular, it becomes clear that the relationship between Jewish and Gentile believers was not easy to negotiate. Jewish Christians had accepted a great deal to admit Gentile believers into the Church but not expect them to practice circumcision, kosher eating or the observance of holy days. The collection from the Gentile church in Corinth and other places may have represented a significant act of peace-­‐making and an expression of gratitude.
The sharing for the saints in Jerusalem may have contributed to the early unifying of the Pauline Churches. In two places here in 2 Corinthians (8:1 and 9:2) as well as in the reference to the gift in Romans 15:25-­‐29 Paul made reference to the Churches in Macedonia and Achaia participating in the giving. Paul models a Christian community offering understanding to one another and to God in response to their missional impulse. This very earliest Christian community had become impoverished. Paul, understanding their situation, sought to coordinate support for this church. Paul also used this mission to create understanding between congregations—in the process of explaining this mission to the churches in Philippi and Thessalonica, Paul also deepened the connection and understanding between these congregations. These two congregations were the major congregations in Macedonia. The province south of Macedonia was Achaia and it's capital was Corinth. So as these churches were deepening their understanding of the situation of Christians in Jerusalem and deepening their understanding of one another in the process.    While its possible that Paul was using this as a gimmick to cajole the church in Corinth to match up with the other churches, Paul makes it clear that his sees mutuality not simply as a congregational ideal but as an inter-­congregational ideal (2 Corinthians 8:13-­‐15)
It is probably a misnomer to refer to this as a “collection” since Paul himself used that word only once (1 Corinthians 16:1-­‐2).  In 2 Corinthians 8:4 Paul called it the “sharing in this ministry to the saints.” He used a word koinonia which is a familiar word for Paul to use and one filled with meaning. This is the same language Paul used in reference to the gift in Romans 15:26. It is a word Paul used when the stakes were highest. Paul speaks of communion as sharing (koinonia) in Christ’s blood (1 Corinthians 10:16). He speaks of fellowship with the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:13). And Paul also desires this sort of intimacy with Christ’s life, death and resurrection (Philippians 3:10). This sort of participation and sharing with another church is described with the same kind of terminology that Paul used to describe the Lord’s Supper and the participation with the Holy Spirit and the life of Jesus Christ.
Finally, the gift is seen as an extension of God’s work through them. Paul does not interpret the gift as a purely human transaction. It is work within God’s economy where one sows in good works and reaps bountifully (9:6). Within this context, participation in the ecumenical work Paul had engaged was required free participation. It could not be done under compulsion (9:7). However, God was the ultimate source of their resources and God would supply what they needed (9:8). Paul then points them to the theological principles at work here. God is at work enabling people to respond to their missional impulse. The New American Standard Bible translates 9L8 this way, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.” This is a key conviction that often gets lost in the process of giving of ourselves. We forget that it is God who is at work at us. God is the motivating source of every good deed. God is the provider of the resources we use to serve others. God provides us with the intelligence so that we can use those resources wisely. Similarly, the unity of the whole body of Christ is not a product of our work. It does not come because we are required to be unified nor through our voluntary participation. Though we simultaneously have both obligations and freedom, Christian unity does not derive from them. Christian unity is an act of God.
Conclusion
What we have seen in the preceding survey is that we can witness the unifying work of God within the earliest descriptions of the Church. The Church wrestled with the needs of unity across race, ethnicity, sexual identity and class. The Church wrestled with the theological boundaries of Christian unity and the nature of freedom. The Church recognized unity as essential to a evangelism. Indeed unity is essentially evangelical. And the Church practiced unity through its missional collection for the saints.