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Day 34: Unity

Who was your first friend that was radically different than yourself? Who do you connect with now that is different from you?

by David Joynt on May 13, 2016


JOHN 17:23

 

The oneness Jesus prays for crosses the barriers the world erects to connection and community. The ancient world was in shock to see men and women together, Jesus and non-Jews together, rich and poor together, slaves and free together. The early Christian community was a unique phenomena in a time when ties to the local clan, racial grouping, and social status defined and separated people. As Jesus hoped, this was a unique and powerful witness to the Greco-Roman world. In an age when charity stopped with tribe and class and ethnic group, the new oneness of the church was revolutionary. This kind of oneness is still rare and powerful today.

 

Who was your first friend that was radically different than yourself?

Who do you connect with now that is different from you?

 

Tags: devotional, encountering, unity

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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