I find it interesting that David the psalmist uses two words in this verse to describe the unity of God’s people: good and pleasant. Just one of those words would have been sufficient to communicate the main idea, but he chose to use both, making me ponder the nuances of each word and why he included both. 

We frequently use the word “good” in our daily lives: with it we make moral statements (something as the opposite of “evil” or “bad”) or evaluate something (that movie or that cookie was “good”). God’s people living together in unity described as being good makes sense to us; we understand the value judgment that Christians exhibiting unity is a good thing. 

But David also includes the word “pleasant,” a word that perhaps strikes us as more of a sensory word or a word that addresses the effect of something on us. A walk on a sunny day feels pleasant. Beautiful music in the background sounds pleasant. The smell of old trash on the street during summer is not very pleasant. David describes the unity of God’s people as being pleasant – as having a pleasant effect on the surrounding world. 

What does unity actually mean? Does it mean “sameness” or “being identical”? Does the Bible teach that all Christians have to dress in the same styles or vote for the same political candidates or enjoy the same music or make the same parenting decisions? Does being unified mean that we can never disagree on anything?  

If you’re like me, living cross-culturally and attending church with people from a variety of cultures has served as “learning on the job” for this idea of unity. We may not wear the same clothes or come from the same backgrounds or feed our kids the same foods or see the world exactly the same way; the cultural diversity we encounter in the body of Christ makes hiding behind surface-level “pretend” unity very difficult but creates beautiful, gospel opportunities for the deep unity we have in Christ by the Holy Spirit to shine more brightly. This real unity is good and pleasant and brings glory to Jesus!