Luke 12:49-53 :

“I came to throw fire on the earth. I wish it were already kindled. But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, no, but rather division. For from now on, there will be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. They will be divided, father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother; mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

You can see here that it wasn’t Jesus intention for Christianity to “coexist” with other belief systems. To suggest this is to go directly against Jesus Christ and to do that is to to make Christianity something other than Christianity. Jesus pronounced Himself as the only way to God without any exceptions.

You might ask yourself why Jesus would say things like “I came to throw fire on the earth. I wish it were already kindled.” The reason we as humans wonder about this is because we fail to recognize our true condition. We are actually quite detestable. We corrupt and defile the things of God as we walk around in His image. It is a horrible thing that goes on as long as we have sin in this world. Some people say we are actually a part of God, but nothing could be further from the truth. We have nothing to do with God and in fact, only Jesus holds the fire back from us. If it wasn’t for Him, this world would be destroyed but Jesus made a way for us, as wicked people, to be saved.

Jesus clearly states that He didn’t intend to come to bring unity but to bring division. Jesus is calling out people not bringing them together. The whole New Testament is filled with this theme. To extract it is to damage the message of New Testament. We can observe what Jesus is talking about in life. As soon as someone becomes a Christian in this world, they are different than the rest of those around them. This is extremely obvious in a family where people live close together and Jesus highlights that fact here. This is the reason why Christians and non-Christians should not marry. Listen to what the Bible says about that:

2 Corinthians 6:14 :

Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

As you can see here, the Bible says that there is a difference so big between Christians and unbelievers that it can be compared to light and darkness. In other words, this is a “black and white” issue. Christians can’t have “fellowship” with unbelievers. It isn’t that we don’t want to, it’s that we actually can’t because there is no real connection. That’s the kind of divide that Jesus has produced on the earth and no amount of protesting will change this fact. It will all be made very clear when Jesus returns but by then it will be too late because it will be the time “to throw fire on the earth.”