A protocol is the current and accepted system of rules that govern our behavior. It applies to medicine, science, our diet, and the medical procedures we choose to follow. It also applies to our faith.

In medicine, it was once the accepted protocol to bloodlet a patient. In science, we believed the planets revolved around the Earth and there was no such thing as gravity. In our diet, we once believed tomatoes were a poisonous fruit. In recent history, we thought anything our doctor told us had to be true. Closed and narrow protocols can become foolish, even deadly if we close the door on other possibilities. 

These narrow protocols can affect our faith. Some have changed their opinion about the way and timing of the Lord’s return. Others are seeing an expression of the Church beyond a well-crafted Sunday gathering and its need to finance buildings and staff, and making a continual appeal to support those things. 

The only unchanging protocol of our faith is that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8) and that Jesus is “The way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6) and no one comes to the Father except through Him. The rest of our faith is open to interpretation. Until the protocol of Jesus is firmly established, our faith will wander into non-essential issues. When a single protocol about the Lord is in place, we can fellowship with other believers not demanding that we must all be on the same page about lesser matters of faith. 

We might think the original twelve disciples all walked in religious and cultural lockstep, but that was not the case. While they were Jewish in their faith, their opinions about life varied. Each one considered their point of view to be the correct interpretation of life and faith until Jesus appeared and challenged the narrowness of their understanding. 

The same is happening today. Once we establish our faith protocol regarding Jesus, we can be free to love others who see things differently. That is the unity of our faith in Jesus – our protocol – that He prayed to the Father about in His High Priestly prayer, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me, and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:20-21).