About the Book
Across the barriers of race, class, culture and denomination, Christians are united through the transforming power of the gospel of grace. Yet instead of walls dismantled and alienations healed, churches are often characterised by ugly division, narrow tribalism and painful fragmentation.
In a world characterised by growing social division, hostile identity politics and polarised cyber tribes - all compounded by shrill voices on social media - the author unfolds the profound biblical vision of true unity, founded on the redemptive purposes of God to create a single new humanity. This book provides crucial help for handling differences and overcoming division, calling for attitudes and behaviour that portray Christ-like character and reflect true Christian community.
Applying key biblical texts, it addresses practical issues of handling conflict, managing change, using words wisely, avoiding tribalism, strengthening partnerships and building counter-cultural community in the local church. Urging us to make every effort to promote godly unity, this is a thoughtful yet passionate call to remember that we are essentially one - for the sake of God's honour and the credibility of our Christian witness in a fractured world.
About the Author :
Jonathan Lamb has worked in leadership roles with UCCF and IFES and as Director of Langham Preaching. He is an author and Bible teacher, and now works as Minister-at-Large for Keswick Ministries, travelling internationally in Bible teaching and training roles.
Review :
Unity between Christians, and their partnership in the gospel, lies at the heart of our relationship with God and the mission of his church. This book addresses the subject in a biblically faithful and pastorally sensitive way. Jonathan Lamb combines a careful engagement with a wide variety of Bible passages with a practical application of the truth and a passionate plea for unity. Highly recommended.
This book made me think rather carefully about my attitudes and behaviour towards other Christians, inside my own church and more widely. At times that was uncomfortable, but as well as feeling quite convicted, I found I was being given spiritual energy to love them better - and a set of practical ways to do that. I feel sure that many others will experience the same if they browse Jonathan’s wise, mature, godly words.
A powerful appeal for believers to repent of ungodly divisions and share God’s passion for Christian unity. Jonathan Lamb’s combination of clear biblical teaching and deep pastoral wisdom, forged in years of close engagement with believers from varied cultures and traditions, results in a book that will inspire and challenge in equal measure.
I wish I had such a book as a student at Moody Bible Institute over 60 years ago. This book is greatly needed and represents very solid biblical thinking so urgently needed in our day. Many people will not even know about the book unless people like you and me help spread the word, or even just give them a copy.
A very beneficial resource for Christians, particularly in the light of current conflicts in churches and within denominations. From a firm biblical foundation, Jonathan Lamb expounds God’s desire for unity within the Body of Christ. This book is both theological and practical, providing helpful examples of how we can strive for the unity God loves.
Jonathan has produced a tour de force - powerful, persuasive and pastoral. This excellent book has renewed in me a fresh heart to 'strive for the unity God loves'.
Unity is a Christian buzzword, easy to say. But what does it mean in practice? Essentially One is the best book I have read on the subject. Jonathan Lamb is one of those rare writers who combine a deep understanding of the New Testament's teaching with clarity in communication and down-to-earth application for the local church. This new book is realistic and yet profoundly inspiring. I highly recommend it!
For the last decade I feel as if I have been ambushed by the great John chapter 17 prayer of Jesus and his request of the Father ‘they might be brought to complete unity’. I’m convinced within the prayer we capture something of the very heartbeat of God. Jonathan Lamb, with his wonderfully biblical and hope-filled focus, explores how this unity can be outworked within the 21st-century church. Short, sharp chapters, with helpful illustrations and great questions at the end of each one, encourage reflection and discussion. This is a book which I’m sure churches will wish to work through, either as a leadership team, a preaching series or small group study.
This is not the first book on the topic of evangelical unity, but what is inescapable in this volume is the urgency of the appeal to make every effort to strive for the unity God loves. It is biblically rich and theologically deep, and every chapter affirms the personal integrity and vast experience of this honoured practitioner who has been striving for decades to deepen the essential unity of evangelical believers.
It is a fundamental tragedy that evangelicals have consistently failed to align themselves with God’s purposes for unity so clearly set forth in the scriptures. In too many places, the church landscape is littered with the casualties from church conflicts.
Healthy churches will benefit by reading the preventative measures set forth so clearly in Essentially One. I suggest this book can be likened to a final prophetic call to this generation of evangelicals. Heed its message, or forfeit the credibility of Christian mission.
Among evangelicals our strong desire for doctrinal clarity has not always been matched by an equally strong desire for visible unity, a concern addressed by Jonathan Lamb in this book. This is a thoroughly biblical, profoundly challenging and helpfully practical treatment of how to build community, handle differences, manage conflict, and strengthen partnership.
Jonathan demonstrates that striving for unity has sometimes been one of our blind spots, something which needs to be addressed both because it is a biblical imperative and because it impinges on the vitality and effectiveness of our testimony before the watching world. The book’s value is enhanced by a very helpful series of searching and practically helpful questions at the end of each chapter, which could usefully be discussed by leadership teams as well as home groups in churches.
Jonathan looks at the challenges we face as Christians to preserve the unity Christ won for us on the cross. With a pastor’s heart, he presents not an easy but a biblical way to deal with division and maintain unity.
This is a timely book. In an increasingly fractured society, church unity is a testimony to the truth of the gospel and its transforming power. The stakes are high. Our children and the secular world are watching to see if the gospel really does make a difference to how we live together.
In this excellent book, Jonathan skilfully takes us on a journey to help us rediscover the centrality and importance of Christian unity. Each chapter is developed from a key biblical text, and, after being challenged about God’s heart for unity, the realities of diversity and division are tackled before we are urged to consider our heart attitudes and behaviours.
I highly recommend this book which - especially in this age when the central truths of the Christian message are being challenged - reminds us of God’s heart for all true Jesus followers to ‘stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel’ (Phil 1:27b).
This biblically, theologically and story-informed book is very powerful. It enhances our biblical understanding of what is our unity in Christ, and what is involved for the church to live it out in reality. As I read it, I found my heart burning with things God wants to pass on to me and to the Global church, often witnessing as a divided and fragmented body. With the pastoral touch of Jonathan Lamb, the book brilliantly encourages, inspires and generates hope. It is very relevant for our time and it’s publication is so timely.
Dr Daniel Bourdanné, former General Secretary, IFES
In a culture where the idea of tolerance is held in high esteem but is not always practised, this book, filled with grace, humility and wisdom, offers us a vision of what true unity should look like - the unity for which Christ himself prayed. Now we - the local church - just have to put it into practice!
A strong, clear and biblical cry for the kind of unity in the church that Jesus longs for. Read it and play your part.
Some of the most misunderstood and mis-preached verses in the Bible are from Jesus’s prayer for unity in John 17. What sacred ground that chapter is. Jonathan Lamb takes the kernel of that prayer, and invites us to look at ourselves, and at our churches, in its light. We have rich study material here for small groups over a term.
