Agree to Disagree

Bible Reading: Luke 6:37–42

First take the plank out of your eye, 

and then you will see clearly 

to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Luke 6:42

John Wesley and George Whitefield were close friends and powerful voices in the eighteenth-century evangelical revival, yet they became sharply divided over theology. Whitefield embraced the Calvinist understanding of God’s sovereign election, while Wesley emphasized God’s grace offered to all and our responsibility to respond. Their disagreement became public, strained their friendship, and divided some of their followers. Yet they did not allow theological disagreement finally to erase Christian brotherhood. After Whitefield’s death, Wesley preached a memorial sermon and asked a memorable question: “Can we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion?” He spoke of Christians being able to “agree to disagree.” Reconciliation does not always require agreement. Unity of heart does not demand uniformity of opinion.

Jesus takes us deeper: “Do not judge… Do not condemn… Forgive” (Luke 6:37). He pictures someone noticing a speck in another person’s eye while overlooking the plank in his own. Jesus is not saying that the speck is imaginary or that truth does not matter. Rather, He changes the order: “First take the plank out of your own eye” (v. 42). Reconciliation begins with a mirror before it becomes a window. Before asking, What is wrong with them? we allow God to ask, What needs changing in me? Like David we pray, “Search me, God, and know my heart” (Psalm 139:23).

E. Stanley Jones emphasized our continuing need for God’s transforming grace. Pride, resentment, stubbornness, and self-will can gather like ashes over the fire God has kindled within us. Our plank may be the need to win the argument, prove ourselves right, rehearse an old injury, or assign motives to another. Grace exposes these things not to humiliate us but to give us clearer vision. “Bear with each other and forgive one another… Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13). Wesley’s question remains searching: Can we be of one heart even when we are not of one opinion? Before reconciliation asks, “What is wrong with them?” grace teaches us to pray, “Lord, what needs changing in me?”

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, 

Teach us to hold truth with humility, to forgive as You have forgiven us, and to remain one in heart even when we disagree. Make us instruments of Your reconciling grace. 

In Jesus’ name, Amen.