In the Reformed tradition reading the Bible in community really matters. Scripture is not something we simply consult on our own; it is something we listen to together. That’s why I value gatherings that bring Christians from different traditions into the same space—opening the same text, asking what God might be saying to us now.
During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, that shared listening feels especially important. Not because it smooths over our differences, but because it reminds us that before we speak about unity, we are already standing within it.
Last Sunday, I found myself reading Ephesians 4 in a very particular context: an inter-church memorial service for people who have died seeking refuge. These are familiar words—often read at ecumenical gatherings—but in that setting, details surfaced that I might otherwise have passed over.
Most of all, I was struck by the fact that when Paul urges the church to live “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,” he is not speaking metaphorically when he calls himself a prisoner. Paul is quite literally in chains. He is writing from confinement, awaiting trial, dependent on the mercy of others.
The context matters. It tells us that these are not sentimental words. This is not advice offered from a place of safety or control. These are the words of someone whose body already knows what it means to be restricted, vulnerable, and exposed.
And it is from that place that Paul urges the church to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”
What does that mean?
The first thing that strikes me is this: unity is given before it is negotiated.
Paul does not ground unity in shared culture, shared opinions, or even shared traditions. He calls it “the unity of the Spirit.” In other words, unity is not something we manufacture. It is not the outcome of successful dialogue or institutional agreement. It is a gift that precedes us—something we are entrusted to keep.
That means unity is not the goal of ecumenical engagement; it is the starting point. It is given before it is negotiated.
The second thing that matters here is Paul’s image of how that unity is held together: “the bond of peace.”
The Greek word he uses—sýndesmos—is often translated as bond, but it could just as well be translated as ligament. A ligament, significantly, does not eliminate tension, it holds different parts together under strain.
My brother’s fiancée, a keen sportswoman, damaged a ligament in her knee last year. Anyone who sustains an injury like that quickly becomes an expert in anatomy. Ligaments, it turns out, are what make movement possible. They stretch. They strain. Sometimes they ache. Sometimes they need healing. But without them, the body cannot stand.
Peace, in Paul’s imagination, is not the glue that neatly fixes a broken ornament. It is not the absence of conflict, or polite agreement, or a thin veneer of harmony. Peace is the ligament that holds the body together while it learns how to move again.
That changes how we hear Paul’s exhortation.
In a divided world—and within divided churches—he is not calling us to easy agreement. He is calling us to something more durable: a unity that can bear weight, a peace that can stretch without snapping, a bond strong enough to hold difference, grief, and unresolved pain together.
During this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, that feels like both a challenge and a hope.
As churches on this island—shaped by different histories, traditions, and wounds—we are not asked to pretend those differences do not exist. We are asked to make every effort to keep what God has already given us: the unity of the Spirit, held together not by sameness, but by peace.
A peace that costs something. A peace that requires patience. A peace strong enough to sustain belonging.
May that peace hold us—especially when it strains us—as we seek, together, to walk in the way of Christ.