A company might have executives setting policy and strategy, engineers designing products, managers handling personnel and others handling various functions. They all do different things -- but if they're doing them with a shared underlying purpose, the company -- and the individuals in it -- will likely be successful. The Lord wants all human society to function in a similar way. We have different skills and individual loves, but if we all share a mutual love -- a love of serving others -- then society will function as one, will be a reflection of heaven and will be a good receptacle for the Lord's love. This can also happen within each of us, as we unify our talents and ideas around a central love. And in an abstract sense, it illustrates how a wide collection of varying ideas can be unified around a shared good intention. That is the kind of love pictured when “one” is used in the Bible, either as a specific number or in the sense of several people or objects “being one.” In more casual references -- when used to identify a specific person or object -- the meaning is relatively literal, and is connected to that person or object.

76. The Church Is Formed by the Word, and Its Character Is Such as Its Understanding of the Word

That the church is formed by the Word is not something to be doubted, for the Word is Divine truth itself (see nos. 1-4). The Word is the source of the church’s doctrine (nos. 50-61). And the Word makes possible a conjunction with the Lord (nos. 62-69).

But that it is an understanding of the Word that forms the church — this may be doubted, since there are people who believe they are part of the church because they possess the Word, read it or hear it from a preacher, and know something of its literal sense. But they do not know how this or that in the Word is to be understood, and some people place little value in it.

We must show here, therefore, that it is not the Word that forms the church, but people’s understanding of it, and that the character of the church is such as the understanding of the Word among the people in the church.

Confirmation of this is as follows: