The Ideal for All Communities

Deep longings pervade the human heart. We long for selfless, trustworthy, unending love from someone we can trust to be faithful and helpful. We long for unity within the great diversity of humanity, some means by which we can live in peace and oneness that benefits each of us. We long for communication—from face-to-face conversations to the proliferation of modern technology created for the purpose of letting us know others and be known by them—and have a seemingly insatiable passion to speak and be spoken to. We long for community, significant and earnest relationships with others, so that we are part of a people devoted to something larger and greater than our individual lives.  We long for humility, where people pour themselves out unreservedly for the benefit and well-being of others.

We long for peace, harmony, and safe altruism for others and ourselves so that abuse, cruelty, misery, and the painful tears they cause could stop. We long for a selfless common good, a world in which everyone does what is best for all and is not so viciously and exclusively devoted to self- interest and tribal concerns. 

Why? Why do we have these persistent deep longings that occasion- ally compel us to action and often leave us frustrated or disappointed? From where do they emanate, and how can they be satisfied? 

Our longings for love, unity in diversity, communication, community, humility, peace, and selflessness are in fact—by design—longings for the Trinitarian God of the Bible and a world that is a reflection of the Trinity. Tragically, human desires corrupted by sin turn in on themselves; rather than finding satisfaction in God, longings become lusts—bottomless pits of selfish desire, never quite satisfied, inevitably leading to despair. Because we are made in the image of the triune God to reflect his glory, we will never stop longing; yet, our sin-stained longings distort that reflection. 

The Trinity is the first community and the ideal for all communities. That community alone has not been stained by the selfishness of sin. Therefore, in the diversity of God the Father, Son, and Spirit is perfect unity as one God that communicates truthfully, loves unreservedly, lives connectedly, serves humbly, interacts peaceably, and serves selflessly. In a word, the Trinity is the ideal community in every way. Or, to say it another way, God is a Friend and has Friends.

- Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe (RE: Lit), p. 11, 12