Agreement was never the goal. Communion is. Scripture nowhere promises uniformity of opinion among the people of God. It promises one body with many members, which means the real task is not winning the argument but learning to remain at the table when agreement fails. Whoever leaves the table has already lost something greater than the debate.
We were not made to imitate God from a distance. We were made to share in the divine life. The likeness of God is not restored by trying harder. It is restored by participating in the One who is the Image of the invisible God. Apart from communion with Christ through the Spirit, the image in us remains a buried treasure no one can spend. In Christ, the likeness begins to surface again from under the rubble of what we have made of ourselves.
Mockery is the cheapest form of social bonding. It welds a group together by giving them someone to laugh at, and it costs the one being laughed at something real. We have learned to do this without flinching, in comment threads and at dinner tables and from our pulpits. The laughter feels like fellowship, but it is built on a small humiliation, and the soul of the one mocked is paying for it whether we know it or not.
A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
Christ is gentleness.
Christ is kindness.
Christ reveals the true nature of the Father.
Any “god” who does not bear the fruit of the Spirit is an idol of violent human projection. Jesus came to cast down every fallen image of His Father from our imagination.
The Artemis II astronauts were all smiles on the flight deck of USS John P. Murtha after they were extracted from their Orion spacecraft after splashdown.