This is a point of pain for Paul. These are two women who are close to Paul, who have been in the trenches with him, so to speak, with regard to the gospel ministry (the form of work that is about talking on and on about Jesus).
Paul is saying they should agree in the Lord.
We don't know the details, but it's something important and maybe not easily resolved. But Paul, at that point, wants them to come together. He wants them to agree in the Lord.
Paul had earlier expressed a burden for the people in this church to be one (Philippians 2:1-3); now he is naming names.
The prayer of Jesus comes to mind, where he prayed to the Father that we would be one as He and the Father are one (John 17:21-23).
And Paul is appealing here, rather than demanding. He is not trying to go through the route of force, but rather persuasion.
Here we have two people who disagree and need to come back to alignment.
Similarly, sometimes we need to come into agreement with God, come into alignment with Him.
In another place, Paul appealed to some other people to be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20).
These are Christians who need to come into agreement with God. God is not going to bend to us; we have to bend to him. And that is why we have to learn His ways, and embrace His thought by the Holy Spirit.
To come into agreement with God starts with humility, knowing that at a basic level, His plans are not like our plans and His deeds are not like our deeds (Isaiah 55:8-9).
And you need to give it time, dedicate time to learning and consistently too, and there is a sacrifice to pay, a cost-benefit analysis that goes into it.
Look at Mary and Martha.
Mary particularly risked the ire of her sister Martha when she dedicated herself to soaking in the word of God from the mouth of Jesus (Luke 10:38-42).
And one thing ministers do on the pulpit is to get people to be in agreement with God. We are in a persuasion business.
We are not demanding that people agree, but appealing to their reasoning, engaging with doubts and issues, and giving responses.
The bible says we should be ready to give a response to anyone who asks us for the reason for our hope (1 Peter 3:15).
That means explaining, bringing people from where they are to where they are supposed to be.
The point is, it takes some time. When we agree, then we can go on a mission together.
God recognized that (Matthew 18:19-20), so much so that He intervened to scatter the people when He did not like what they had agreed to.
They were not in agreement with Him before they embarked on agreeing with one another. He was not in their thought, based on what we read (Genesis 11:1-9)
They embarked on self-determination apart from God. These were a group of people who sought to have their own way, would not come to an agreement with God, would not follow God's lead, or be defined by God. So God decided to mess with their plans in a surprising, almost laughable, way.
When man disagreed with the limits that God put him in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), that was the beginning of the problem.
But that is not the end of the story.
God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.
In other words, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s trespasses against them, and he has given us the message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:19)
So God is making a concession (through the sacrifice of himself) and is saying, "guys come on, come back to my embrace, I am now overlooking trespasses." That is an attractive truth, right?
So God did not just make a concession; He is sending men and women to tell people in the nooks and crannies of the world about the concession (that is, the gospel).
Jesus himself said, He who receives the ones He sends receives Him (Matthew 10:40).
God is actively speaking in this world through the men He has sent.
The law outlined the barrier of sin between man and God in bright neon lights. That came through Moses (John 1:17). But the Grace and Truth that came through Jesus is God coming to us so that we can come again into agreement with him through the foundation of his grace (welcoming stance apart from anything we have done or can do) and the embrace of his Truth in Christ Jesus (the right knowledge about him) (John 14:6).
And more than that, He comes to live in us, so that we can be one with Him, so that we can be of one mind with the Lord, agree with the Lord.
Paul takes it a step further. He said that we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16).
John even said we have no need that any man teach us anything because we have an anointing from the Holy One, and we all know (1 John 2:20, 27), meaning God is not hiding; the anointing teaches us the truth, and we are equipped to reject the error.
Therefore, we are not mindless agree-metons, where we agree with any and everything. Our agreement with God means we would disagree with some people, and that is okay. That is life. It is the way we disagree that is important, not the fact that we do (2 Timothy 2:24-26).
Let's also note again what Paul is saying about the agreement between the two women in the focus verse. They are supposed to agree in the Lord. It's not agreeing just to agree.
The Lord becomes the basis of the agreement. And it is the Lord, the one we ultimately have to submit to as master. And we can agree based on our mutual agreement with the Lord.
The agreement is not for our own personal agenda; it is for His agenda. Then the ego is pushed aside, and the preoccupation with self-image is suspended as the focus is on the glory of God. And forgiveness flows freely.
From Addiction to Freedom by Favour Oyinloye (repeat)
Nature Song: Experience the Holy Spirit
Audiobook of the Month: The prayer of deliverance: a journey through Psalm 107
