The Cavendish, that lovely yellow banana that we love to peel and eat and put into our banana splits, is the perfect fruit. Well, what I mean by that is that every Cavendish is genetically alike—they’re clones. This is not necessarily a good thing. Without genetic diversity, the whole species is vulnerable. No variation among the plants means that no single plant could ensure the survival of the species from an infectious attack. If one plant is susceptible, every Cavendish in the world is in danger.
So for food, diversity is healthy, but it’s tempting to say just the opposite about Christ’s church. It would be so much easier if we all agreed on everything, shared a single point of view, were all exactly alike. That way, like with the Cavendish, you’d know just where you stand with every brother and sister. But God didn’t create the church like that. He didn’t call his people to be spiritual clones, being the same, responding in the same way to the same hardships. Paul pokes fun at such utter homogeneity: “If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where
would be the sense of smell?”
God, in His wisdom, saw fit to make us different. We bring our own experiences to the body, and the whole body benefits. Diversity among loving brothers is a good thing, for we have been called not to uniformity, but to unity.
That’s something to think about.
Westside Church of Christ 