The Church Divided ©Byrl Keith Chadwell 11/2008
Where could you go in the world today to avoid divisive conflicts over Christian doctrine and teaching? Perhaps into a cloistered society in some isolated geographic area. Or, perhaps you wouldn’t have to go any farther than to the next Church or fellowship you find down the road, as long as you didn’t venture out to talk of your Christian beliefs to anyone from a different church or fellowship. Or… you could crawl into a cave somewhere and avoid all Christians.
Divisions in “The Church” are nothing new. However, this is not God’s plan for His Church in the earth. 1 Corinthians 1:10. “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment”. (Are their any options here?)
The body of Christ in the earth today is truly like the dry scattered bones of Ezekiel’s vision. You don’t need to know a lot about the details to know that a variety of doctrinal differences seriously divide us. We just can’t ignore this fact. Yet we do! “Ig-norance” is tolerance and tolerance is to continue in division, which, I would guess, is exactly where the enemy would like us to remain.
We can not continue to duck into our own doctrinal bunkers and pay lip service to Christian growth and maturity. “The Church”, cannot come to maturity in Christ unless we meet this issue head on. Yes, it will be painful, unpleasant and messy. For, there are those who will choose to remain entrenched in their own doctrinal comfort zones and hinder those who won’t.
Jeremiah 2:” Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant”. (Also see; II Cor. 10:4)
The rebuilding of the temple, subsequent to the Babylonian captivity, was a lot of work and a lot of trouble. They first had to clean out the old rubble, before building new, while simultaneously defending against resistance from both within and without. (Ezra, Nehemiah) However, the Lord was with them and God, thru the prophet Haggai, promised that when the building was complete, He would fill it with His Glory, and the glory of this latter house would be greater than the first. (Haggai 2:)
Ecclesiastes 1:9 is correct; we can predict what men will do by what men have done in the past. Sadly, only about one sixth of the Jewish population in Babylonian captivity took the opportunity to return to Jerusalem when it was offered. The others chose to remain and were assimilated into the Babylonian culture.
To remain divided is to remain apart from the maturity and purpose that God has ordained for “The Church” in the earth through Christ Jesus. The choice is simple; return to rebuild and fulfill our destiny in Christ or remain divided and be assimilated into the world system until another generation of Christians picks up the vision of “Unity” and “Maturity” in Christ.
