Same But Different... No, Different But Different

“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” (Ephesians 4:2)

Living as becomes you] with complete lowliness of mind (humility) and meekness (unselfishness, gentleness, mildness), with patience, bearing with one another and making allowances because you love one another. (Amplified)

In light of all this, here's what I want you to do. While I'm locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don't want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don't want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences. (The Message 4:1-3)

I love what can happen when you see multiple translations side by side like this. "Humble" takes on "lowliness of mind" and "making allowances" gets added to what it means to "bear one another." Such richness!

These comparisons also give me the opportunity to consider the differences in meanings and wrestle with each possibility. I don't know that I agree with The Message's take - how does "humility and gentleness" result in a steady pouring out of oneself? And how is being "alert at noticing our differences" a good thing that results in "bearing one another in love?" Hmm.. I don't know. I guess I can see the humility leading to being more steady in our walk... It probably is more often than not a matter of my pride which keeps me from the road God has called me to travel. So, okay, I will buy that one. But since when does pointing out differences result in greater love for one another? That certainly doesn't seem to be the case as I look around at different denominations and sanctions of the Church. We don't seem to appreciate differences we find in one another. To me, it seems we (myself included) judge differences and don't like them very much. Perhaps that's why the humility and gentleness come FIRST in the list? Certianly, if we are humble, we gain the ability to see our differences as interesting instead of divisive.

And, let's not loose sight of what the Amplified says - we do all this out of love for one another. "Eye, there's the rub." Why doesn't the Church love it's members? Why do we fail so miserably at this? It enrages me. We have lost such a huge part of our witness when we are turned inward dealing with our own "disputes." And lately, I have realized just how much I participate in this. We simply have to stop. But, again, I am brought back to trying to figure out how to do this while also "noting our differences." Because my assumption is the way to create unity in the body is to focus on the areas of agreement. The areas of sameness. And apparently, we are supposed to be alert to our differences and not let them get to us. Whew! That is a toughy, at least for me! I guess that's where the power of the Holy Spirit comes in!

This is one I will have to meditate on and work out with fear and trembling for quite some time...