Division In The Body

Regarding the Bible, does every passage have one intended meaning? Yes. Is there one absolute truth? Yes.

However, we, as mere humans, interpret all input, period. To deny that is a lie. We interpret what we read, hear, feel, think, and so on, through the lens of our own experiences, cultural background, prior understanding of words and ideas, assumptions made beforehand about the input, etc.

That interpretation, that we all do whether we admit it or not, includes the reading of scripture. Some claim that you can do a "pure literal reading" of scripture. You cannot. You bring baggage into it. Many people claim to just "read the text" and that it has been illuminated by the Holy Spirit, yet across those many people, they do not come to the same conclusions on a myriad of points. That is because we often make a mistake thinking that our own understanding is actually the Holy Spirit's intent. When we go there, we of course think we are absolutely right, and everyone else who doesn't agree is, therefore, wrong.

Look at the different opinions about end times. Pre-trib this and post-trib that. At least four major categories if I remember regarding the timing of the rapture and the reign of Christ. People brought baggage with them to come up with those different views as well. Again, they cannot all be right. They may all be wrong, but they cannot all be right.

So what is to be done about it? Well, we can try to learn to do better exegesis and also recognize how our prejudice's and assumptions are influencing our reading of the Bible. That takes some dedication and a measure of humility. But, even doing that as best and prayerfully as we can, in the end, many will still disagree on many things -- each thinking he is right and others are not. Maybe not on all points, but on some.

Hence, division. Disagreements are fine, but when we take them personally, they become points of contention. We argue and then split over non-essential issues. To be clear, I'm not talking about splits because a group intentionally twists the Word of God for their own agenda, or groups led by wolves who want to fleece God's flock, or any such thing. I'm talking about splits between genuine followers of Jesus Christ over things that, while possibly interesting, have no bearing on who Jesus is or what he did for us on the cross -- such as the age of the earth, mode of baptism, the sovereignty of God versus man's choice in salvation, church structure, etc. We can all think what we want about these things, but they have nothing to do with Christ crucified, coming to him in faith, or being transformed by him.

Division in the body is not a "I hold the absolute truth of the Bible and you don't" issue, despite those who really do think they hold the absolute truth of the Bible and everyone else is off in the weeds. No, much division comes from the honest differences of opinion of godly, but flawed, people each seeking to keep to what God's Word says -- people that, while divided on minor issues, can remain united in their faith in their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and treat each other with, above all, love.

Grace and Peace

Agree To Disagree

I finished up a church history paper this weekend. The last person I wrote about was John Wesley. There's a lot of good stuff from Wesley's life that encourages and inspires me, but the one I want to focus on at the moment is what prompted him to first put to print the phrase "agree to disagree."

During his life he traveled around with George Whitefield, but the two split over doctrinal differences that they could not reconcile. The primary differences they had came from the fact that Wesley was an Arminian and Whitefield was a Calvinist. The two had faith in Christ but seemed to let their disagreements divide them, as so many in the body of Christ do today.

When Whitefield died, Wesley said "There are many doctrinal differences of a less essential nature -- in these we may think and let think; we may 'agree to disagree'. But, meantime, let us hold fast the essentials..."

I respect that. I love that. I need to listen to that.

The only caution here is that we must be careful not to twist the gospel with false teaching. There are certain key things about the person and work of Jesus Christ that one cannot deny to hold true to the gospel. However, there are many ancillary things that really do not matter in the end, in which case we must agree to disagree, lest we further divide the church.

Its funny that as I was thinking this, some folks from some named denomination came to the door. After seeing I was a believer, they jumped into questions totally focused on passover. Do you know what it is? Do you know it was abolished in 325 A.D.? What?! What does your line of questioning have to do with my relationship with God and what Jesus did on the cross? Not wanting to get into an argument, I bid them farewell, saying that the folks who typically go door to door want to get into a discussion about some particular doctrine, that I think they're doing that, and to keep preaching Christ and focus on the essentials.

Later I looked up the denomination on the Internet, and sure enough, there are various secondary doctrines they try to prove with scripture and elevate so highly such that they can claim to be the "one true church" because they believe and practice ancillary things that others do not.

No. Not okay.

There is a point where Christians can legitimately agree to disagree and a point where the gospel is changed. Praise anyone who preaches the gospel and promotes the name and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ! Shame on anyone who preaches a false gospel and elevates secondary doctrines above the name of Christ!

Grace and Peace

To Divide Or Not To Divide

I'm listening to Brian Broderson go through Ephesians now and thought I'd share these thoughts that were also in one of his talks. Its a good thing now and then to get a healthy reminder that Christ and the cross are central and of vital importance.

So here goes.

There's a lot of division among those who claim to be Christian today. There is a lot of it within the actual body of Christ and even more among all who claim the label of Christian. Division of the latter is completely appropriate, because there are some essentials that are, well, essential. Without them, the label will be just that -- a label. Division over the latter is rather pointless though. Too often folks part ways because of issues that are not key. And when we cannot agree to disagree amiably, it certainly doesn't do much to draw unbelievers in to church buildings.

I'd like to go through some of the essentials versus non-essentials.

The essentials:

1. There is one God.

2. That God exists in three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

3. Jesus is God.

4. Jesus died for our sins.

5. Jesus was born of a virgin. If the savior was conceived with a human father and not the Holy Spirit, than Jesus is a sinful person just like us and not the Son of God. He would not be able to save us in that case.

6. Jesus led a sinless life. Same argument.

7. Jesus rose from the dead in bodily form. Without this we have no guarantee that anything Jesus said was true. We have no guarantee that the sacrifice he made to pay the price for our sins was acceptable.

8. We are saved by grace through faith. We can't do anything on our own to get right with God. If any human effort could make us right with God, than Jesus died for nothing.

Some non-essentials:

1. Modes of baptism. Immersion versus sprinkling. Adults versus infants.

2. Ministry models. Bishop rule versus elder rule versus congregational rule.

3. Eschatology (end-times). Amillennial versus post-millennial versus pre-millennial views. Pre-tribulation versus mid-tribulation versus post-tribulation views.

4. Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

5. Human freedom versus God's sovereignty.

6. Eternal security.

7. Creation of the Earth (6 literal days versus millions of years).

There are many more non-essentials. I'm sure if one thinks hard there are more essentials, but this is just an example of the kinds of things we should and should not split over. Really I haven't even given much thought to most of those non-essentials, other than the beginning and end of the world. I listed because they are just that, non-essential. Bickering over them distracts from the central message of the cross.

Grace and Peace

God Working Through What's Broken

Something popped into my head, which I will write about in a minute. But first, some background. God often uses broken people to accomplish his purposes. Any doubt? Look in the pages of his word. Moses. Rahab. Jacob. David. Matthew. Paul. Where these people not used by God? They were certainly far from perfect. Murderer. Prostitute. Trickster. Adulterer/murderer. Tax collector. Persecutor. Look around in different churches at people who had a lot of sin in their lives or were victims of tragedy -- God uses such people all the time to bring help and healing to both the ensnared and the hurting.

There is no doubt that God uses broken people.

Another phrase popped into my head regarding what someone said regarding their non-christian church: "The people aren't perfect, but the church is". Bunk. Bunk for that church, bunk for any local Christian church. Period.

We're in a broken world filled with broken people, and from that come a lot of broken churches. True, there is really only one church made from the body of believers in Jesus Christ. Some of the members of Christ's church attend a Lutheran church, a Methodist church, a Baptist church, a Pentecostal church, and so on. No doubt some of the members of Christ's church even attend a Catholic church, a Mormon church, a Jehovah's Witness church, etc. Yes I realize what I just said. Calm down. We don't know the hearts of all people all around the world. I said some.

My point is we're one church yet we don't seem to function that way. We've got new zealous spirit filled believers off in the weeds and they don't even know it yet. We've got solid Christ followers across many different denominations whose leaders foolishly quarrel over disputable matters. We've got new converts in parts of the world that just first heard about Jesus and don't know about all this division (how fortunate for them!).

We're one church, one body, united with one purpose, spread across a broken mess.

Yet God can use that. He's God. He's pretty good with the whole "take the mess you silly men have made and pull something good out of it" thing.

There's probably a believer in every church denomination/style/flavor/whatever that has genuinely come to Christ through God's work in them through that particular church. You can't put God in a box and say he only works through A, B, or C. Its about individuals and God, not some particular man-made group and God.

There are those who have been saved while stoned and listening to songs about giving their souls to the devil (realizing that's a bad idea and they don't really want to do that!). There are those who have been saved through the false preaching of bona fide heretics on television. There are those who have been saved through their immense efforts trying to prove Christianity false and realizing its not.

Don't tell me God isn't big enough to work through whatever mess we've made of things to draw us to him.

Grace and Peace

Luther's 95 Theses

I have known of some of the teachings of the Catholic Church for some time and that many of them were bogus and based on tradition rather than Scripture. I learned about Luther's 95 Theses back in grade school and later since coming to Christ heard various pastors talk about them and websites refer to them.

But until tonight I never read them. I found them here:

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/95theses.htm

An interesting read if you take the time.

Until I read them I thought there were actually 95 different points he made, but its reall a few major points in 95 sentences.

Division

I thought this was an interesting read. Parts of it echo something running around in the back of my brain:

http://paceebene.org/blog/jarrod-mckenna/heretics-calvin-and-luther

Here is a highlight that caught my attention (after the statements from Calvin and Luther that made my jaw drop):

Why is it that the litmus test for orthodoxy for many evangelicals has been frozen in the 16th century in the thought of brilliant men who never the less had theologies that made it possible to disobey Christ's commands to put away the sword, love our neighbor and even enemies like God has loved us (i.e. not drowning, beheading or burning those who disagree with us).

The underlying attitudes behind such statements haven't gone away today. Rather than "killing for Christ" instead of "dying for Christ" we now have a bunch of division in the form of "denominations" (and splits within individual denominations!) and even animosity between them.

I just don't get it. We're supposed to be united. A house divided against itself cannot stand. We don't follow Paul or Apollos or Cephas. We follow Christ. Was he divided? No.

Now this is just a bunch of rambling on my part. I don't say any of it to reflect what I see in my own church home (CRB) or in churches that have archived sermons I listen to (New Life London, Shadow Mountain, Cavalry Chapel Costa Mesa, etc). Its just a rambling comment on the whole idea behind why all these various "denominations" exist in the first place.

So I still don't get it. But I see that its not a recent thing. Its not a Reformation thing. Apparently it was around 2000 years ago and isn't going away anytime soon. C'est la vie.

Praise God for solid Bible believing churches that preach Christ crucified and don't get hung up on other crap.

Grace and Peace