Gospel Unity Requires Homework

Getting Fit to Follow: Moving Beyond Bias to Embrace God’s Unity

Our brains are remarkable organs, designed to help us navigate a complex world by creating shortcuts and recognizing patterns. But what happens when these same helpful mechanisms that organize our daily experiences begin to shape how we see people? What happens when the efficiency that helps us solve problems becomes the very thing that prevents us from truly loving others?

The Hidden Architecture of Bias

Before prejudice ever takes root in our hearts, something subtle happens in our brains. Research reveals that by three months old, babies’ brains already respond more strongly to faces of their own race. As we grow, our brains continue building preferences for what’s familiar, creating neural pathways that favor the known over the unknown.

This isn’t a design flaw. It’s actually a feature that helps us manage the overwhelming amount of information we encounter every day. Our brains instinctively rely on patterns that seem predictable, bringing coherence to a chaotic world. This system works beautifully when we’re solving math problems, shopping for groceries, or building something in the backyard.

The problem emerges when we apply this same categorical thinking to people.

When Categories Become Cages

A stereotype is what happens when we allow an initial impression of some to become a final conclusion about all. We take our limited personal experience with a particular individual or group and project it onto everyone who shares similar characteristics. Our brains, seeking efficiency, reduce complex human beings to oversimplified categories.

Here’s a truth we must confront: My experience does not define anyone else’s existence.

Your personal experience is valid. What happened to you, what you saw, what you felt—these are real. But they don’t define the totality of any other person’s reality. People don’t exist on our terms. They aren’t required to live according to our expectations. They are always infinitely more than anything we could perceive about them.

The Gospel Disruption

Jesus directly challenged this pattern of categorical judgment. When religious leaders criticized him for healing on the Sabbath, he exposed their superficial thinking. In John 7:23-24, he said: “Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”

The religious leaders had organized their understanding of God’s law into rigid categories. They measured Jesus against their familiar framework and found him wanting—not because he violated God’s heart, but because he didn’t fit their expectations. They were so focused on maintaining their categories that they completely missed the mission of God unfolding right before their eyes.

Jesus calls us to something radically different: Stop judging by mere appearances.

The Path Forward: Intentional Exposure

If we know our brains naturally organize people based on what’s familiar, then the solution becomes clear: we must intentionally familiarize ourselves with a broader range of people. The best way to move beyond our bias is by increasing our exposure to diversity.

This isn’t just good advice. It’s baked into the gospel mission itself.

When Jesus commanded us to “go,” he wasn’t just talking about different physical locations. He was calling us beyond what’s comfortable, normal, and familiar. The Great Commission is an invitation to develop our hearts and minds in the direction of loving people who are different from us—people who value things differently, who do things differently, who speak differently.

Why? Because they are made in God’s image, not ours.

Unity Requires Homework

The apostle Paul understood this when he wrote to the diverse church in Rome: “May God who gives this patience and encouragement help you live in complete harmony with each other as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus. Then all of you can join together with one voice giving praise and glory to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept each other just as Christ accepted you so that God will be given glory” (Romans 15:5-7).

Notice that word: “accept.” Not tolerate. Not endure. Accept each other just as Christ accepted you.

Unity is fitting for those who follow Jesus. But here’s the reality: unity never happens accidentally. Unity always assigns homework. It requires:

• Willingness to be uncomfortable – stepping beyond familiar spaces and relationships
• Commitment to learning – acknowledging what we don’t know and seeking understanding
• Humility about personal preferences – recognizing that our way isn’t the only way
• Endurance – staying committed even when it would be easier to retreat to what’s familiar

The Ultimate Example

There’s nothing God requires of us that he hasn’t already demonstrated. The cross proves he opened himself to being uncomfortable. The incarnation shows he committed himself to learning our experience. His prayer in Gethsemane—”not my will, but your will”—reveals his willingness to humble himself. And his continued pursuit of us, even when we resist, reject, and deny him, demonstrates his willingness to endure.

Love won’t allow him to change his mind about us.

If that’s the case, the best thing we can do is change our minds about him—and about each other.

The Challenge

Bias should never be viewed as a value to embrace because diversity should never be viewed as an obstacle to avoid. When we increase our exposure to people different from ourselves, we aren’t compromising our faith. We’re expanding our understanding of the God whose image is reflected in every human being.

Are you serious about unity? If so, what homework are you doing? Have you opened yourself to being uncomfortable? Have you committed to learning about experiences different from your own? Are you humbling yourself in light of your preferences? Are you willing to endure?

The journey from bias to love isn’t easy, but it’s essential for anyone claiming to follow Jesus. It requires intentionally disrupting the normal patterns our brains prefer. It means choosing depth over efficiency, relationship over reduction, and love over familiarity.

The gospel calls us beyond learning people as categories. It calls us to love people as individuals—complex, image-bearing, infinitely valuable individuals whom God loves without reservation.

That’s the witness the world needs to see.