(23) Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
(23) ὁ μὴ ὢν μετ' ἐμοῦ κατ' ἐμοῦ ἐστιν, καὶ ὁ μὴ συνάγων μετ' ἐμοῦ σκορπίζει.
Jesus made this statement after explaining that Satan does not cast out Satan. He is trying to describe how He operates. Since He is God His power is divine rather than demonic. He does nothing by the power of Satan.
I think that this statement is rather fascinating given some of the postmodern conversation that goes on out there. We have this idea that ecumenicism is inherently good. That is true to a sense as long as we don't divide over peripheral issues. However, Jesus is still the focus of all true unity. If we are agreed on Jesus then we are together. If we disagree on Jesus then there can be no fundamental unity.
Can we feed the poor with Muslims? Absolutely! Can we work against abortion with Mormons? Of course we can. Can we argue for the existence of God with Jehovah's Witnesses. Sure we can. However, to lump everyone together in the name of "unity" is disingenuous to Jesus' statement here.
We first have to take a step back and define who Jesus is. Is He a God or is He God? Is He a mighty God or is He God? Who is He? How we answer that determines whether or not we are for Him because it says whether we are for Him or our idea of who He is.
Let's let His Words tell us who He is. Based on what I've seen through my walk of about 2/3 of the gospel accounts, He claimed to be God and proved it. Let's unify over that.
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