But there were also lying prophets among the people then, just as there will be lying religious teachers among you. They’ll smuggle in destructive divisions, pitting you against each other—biting the hand of the One who gave them a chance to have their lives back! They’ve put themselves on a fast downhill slide to destruction, but not before they recruit a crowd of mixed-up followers who can’t tell right from wrong.
2 Peter 2:1-3 in The Message.
In 1966, a Catholic priest and musician by the name of Peter Scholtes was trying to find a song.
A parish priest at St. Brenden’s on the South Side of Chicago, Father Scholtes directed a youth choir from the basement of the church and was looking for an appropriate song for a series of ecumenical, interracial events. When he couldn’t find such a song, he put pen to paper and wrote this now-famous hymn in a single day:
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored.
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.
I would like to believe that in all of his religious, music, and organizational studies, Father Scholtes read the second chapter of 2 Peter and knew about the warning against lying prophets. He knew that these prophets would be known by dividing people and not unifying them. He understood that these false leaders would recruit a crowd of mixed-up followers who wouldn’t know right from wrong.
Perhaps he was thinking about this when he wrote “They’ll know we are Christians by our love” for an ecumenical, interracial event.
Winston Churchill said: “I no longer listen to what people say. I just watch what they do. Behavior never lies.”
Maya Angelou said: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Rachel Maddow often says on her news show: “Watch what they do, not what they say.”
The apostle Peter taught us that we can know false prophets by what they do, not by the slick and divisive things they say. Father Scholtes directed us to spot Christians by how they loved. The Holy Spirit directs us now to walk with each other and to work side by side. And when we do, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.
Let us pray.
God of our lives, by the power of your Holy Spirit we have been drawn together by one baptism into one faith, serving one Lord and Savior. Do not let us tear away from one another through division or hard argument. May your peace embrace our differences, preserving us in unity, as one body of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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