The Coca-Cola Company has come out with a new soft drink machine. This contraption has just one spout to dispense drinks, but it allows users to choose from more than 100 distinct drinks. If you want to drink Sprite, you can choose this basic drink or have your Sprite flavored with strawberry, cherry, grape, peach, or even raspberry. A similar choice is available for those who wish to drink Coca-Cola, lemonade, fruit punch, etc. A picture of this machine and a description of how it works can be found here: http://bit.ly/jmJvGi.
One of the marketing pitches for this new drink dispenser is “Drink it your way.” This is a catchy slogan. This is also the way a lot of people approach religion.
In today’s religious world there is a religious group for virtually every belief. From witchcraft to the various forms of Christianity, our world is full of religious faiths and rituals so people can enjoy a “Have it your way” faith.
If we examine the Bible, we find an unusually strong emphasis on the word “one.” Under the Old Testament era God selected just one special nation to be His people (this was Israel). When the church was instituted, God gave it a single foundation (1 Cor. 3:11). In Rev. 21:2 the Bible speaks of a “bride” (singular). We also find words like “kingdom” (Mk. 9:1) and “church” (Mt. 16:18) being expressed with the singular instead of the plural.
Our world boldly claims there are multiple religious bodies that have God’s approval, several hopes we can choose from, and a variety of baptisms, faiths, Lords, and Gods. The Bible says there is only one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God (Eph. 4:4-6). Jesus made a similar claim when He spoke of “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6).
Man now has more soft drink choices than ever. Man’s choice of religion, if he wishes to please God, will always be limited to the one way described in the New Testament (compare Mt. 7:13-14). Are you following this one and narrow way?
Brad Price
www.abiblecommentary.com