Separating and Dividing

The Church ought to be an example of unity amidst diversity in our polarizing world. It doesn't seem to me that this is what is happening.

This week I began a new teaching series that will keep the fine folks of Faith Baptist church in the book of 1st Corinthians in May and June. We’ll hear the Apostle Paul’s responses to some of the struggles in this especially messy early church and look to how we can contribute to creating unity in our faith community.

Since we’ll study this book for a little while it’s beneficial to get an overview of the purpose, organization, and major themes. The Bible Project has a great animated description of this letter that packs a lot of good information into about 8 minutes - check it out here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiHf8klCCc4

If video isn’t your preference, Charles Swindoll’s description here is also helpful: https://insight.org/resources/bible/the-pauline-epistles/first-corinthians

For this week’s Overflow I'll expand on one concept from Sunday’s message (which you can check out on video here or listen here).

This begins with the diversity of the church in Corinth, which I referenced along with noting that the early Church was unique in bringing otherwise incompatible groups together in community.

There was nowhere else in that society where you would find such different people coming together. In that world Jews and Greeks didn’t mingle. Men and women didn’t worship, learn, and serve together. Rich and poor certainly didn’t sit at the same table for fellowship. But these first Christians changed all of that because they became a new kind of family, brought together by a shared faith in Jesus.

But, fully understanding how differently the people of this church saw certain things, Paul makes this request of them:

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. (1st Corinthians 1:10)

That’s strong language. Agree with one another. No divisions among you. Be perfectly united in mind and thought.

Perfectly united in mind and thought? I’m not sure my own thoughts are always perfectly united! Is Paul calling on this diverse group of people to achieve uniformity - to all think exactly the same and be in total agreement?

Perfectly united in mind and thought...

That’s just not possible in our present world. No group of people agrees about everything and thinks the same way about each subject, not matter how godly the members of that community.

So what is being asked here? Let’s break this down a bit.

“Agree with one another in what you say…”

Not agree about everything. Agree in what you say. What you say about what? Where Paul is very concerned about the church’s witness I think this is call to make sure that there are no mixed messages about the core Gospel message of Jesus and what He has done. Likewise, the church should have a consistent story about how they are trying to live as a people set apart for God.

“That there be no divisions among you.”

No divisions is not the same as no disagreements. Despite the different groups of Corinthians who were championing different leaders (Paul, Apollos, and Peter), Paul did not consider the church in Corinth to be divided. Yet. None of the factions had decided they couldn’t live with the others and broken away from them or disowned them. Paul feared that their disagreement could lead to division, but these are not the same thing.

“Be perfectly united in mind and thought.”

This is the toughest. Is there some hyperbole there? One approach to grappling with this led me to this response on Sunday:

How can you be perfectly united while disagreeing or seeing certain things very differently? By putting Jesus far above all the rest, and by taking His command to love one another as the bottom line, vastly more important than our interests and preferences.

I hope that’s a good practical perspective. But I think there’s another aspect to it. I suppose as I interpret Paul here I’m assuming that there are a couple of unwritten words that go with this appeal. “Be perfectly united in mind and thought” on the most important things. On those things essential to our faith.

Focusing on what is essential is one way the Church has tried to manage the task of seeking unity amidst our diversity. It obviously hasn’t always worked, there have been plenty of division in the Church through history, the Protestant reformation being the best-known example. But there has always been an effort to try to distinguish the essential beliefs of Christianity from other doctrines or beliefs so that these essentials things can help serve as a bond of unity among all those who follow Jesus. As Paul reminded the Corinthians, they were “together will all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ - their Lord and ours.”

Christians commonly break up our beliefs and practices into three categories. I'm calling them first, second, and third order here, but you'll also see them referred to as primary-secondary-tertiary or dogma-doctrine-opinion, or other ways of describing the same thing.

First Order issues are those that are essential to Christian faith. They define what it is to be Christian. As Christians have grappled with the big questions of what they believed they have created a variety creeds to try to summarize the essentials. Some of the best-known are the Apostle’s Creed, which is affirmed by most Christian denominations, as well as the Nicene Creed which came out of the first major councils of the Western Church.

Christian denominations, associations of churches, and individual churches typically also have statements of faith that include their understanding of what is essential, which might include things like the nature of the Trinity, the authority of the Bible, or how a person becomes a follower of Jesus.

First Order things try to define the boundaries of Christianity. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, for example, are not usually considered part of orthodox Christianity because they have differing beliefs about Jesus’ nature, and therefore about the Trinity (among many other things!). This means that there is a division between these groups and the Church, because they don’t agree on the essentials. Catholics and Protestants also spent a lot of their histories refusing to recognize each other as fellow Christians, a division that has only been actively healing for a couple of generations in many cases.

Second Order issues are those that are very important, but disciples should be able to differ while still respecting each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. Female church leadership is one example. Within my own family of churches, the Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada, there are congregations that believe that women can (and should!) serve and lead equally. The more I experience and learn the more strongly I affirm this. But there are also churches who believe the Bible restricts certain roles, such as Deacon, Elder, or Pastor (or at least the Senior/Lead Pastor) to men. This belief has huge implications. People who differ on this question don’t tend to remain together in the same local church. But they still recognize that those who differ are fellow Christians. And, in the case of Atlantic Baptists, these churches still cooperate on many larger endeavors, like missions, hospital chaplaincy, church planting, etc.

Another example of a second order issue is the meaning and mode of baptism. Baptists baptize adults who have publicly professed faith, Presbyterians baptize infants, and the Salvation Army doesn’t baptize at all. This kind of difference of belief results in a separation - people often separate into like-minded local churches or denominations. But I would argue that this is not the same as division because there is a mutual recognition that we are still part of the one family of God.

Third Order issues are things that Christians can disagree on while remaining in close fellowship, including within a local congregation. How will the end times work? Is the earth 6000 years old, or 4.5 billion? Should Christians keep the Sabbath? Do I owe my church a 10% tithe of my income? What songs of worship are best to sing together? These are issues that a mature Christian can wrestle with while living, serving and worshiping alongside fellow believers who disagree.

In Corinth people were in a dispute over which leader they preferred. That’s not a first order or second order issue. There shouldn't be division, or even separation, brought about by this. Paul tells them so, and points them back to Jesus, the true leader of the Church. And, not having had two thousand years to generate as many non-essential doctrines as exist today, I think Paul is appealing for them to all get on the same page about what matters most - the truth of who Jesus is and what He has done for them.

All of this may sound theoretical or academic but it’s actually quite relevant and important for Christians to understand so that they can properly address questions and controversies in churches and the wider Christian community. It helps us keep things in perspective to understand the relative importance of a particular issue.

It’s possible to drift in two dangerous directions. At one extreme you can have someone who doesn’t think there should be any such thing as a first order doctrine. That can prevent division, because anyone can believe anything they want. But this doesn’t lead to unity, because with no boundaries to establish what the community believes you end up with confusion. There will be no accepted answer to the questions of who those Christians are and what they are called to do in the world in a community like that. No early Church community functioned like this.

On the other extreme are Christians who try to turn everything into a first order issue. This results in constant division, because every disagreement is raised to the highest level of importance. One common trick is to claim that anybody who doesn’t agree with your interpretation of the Bible on some matter must not believe in the authority of scripture. It might sound like this: "If you don't believe X about Y then you don't believe the Bible!" This bad-faith tactic intentionally confuses believing in the authority of the Bible with agreeing with someone’s interpretation of the Bible.

For Christians like me, who were raised in a particular church or denomination and stayed there, it is important to be exposed to different kinds of Christians. You may have been taught, or come to believe, that your understanding is obviously correct and what "they" believe is clearly flawed. But the more you engage with other Christian groups or study how they came to their beliefs the more you tend to appreciate that they aren’t usually unfaithful or foolish, just different.

You may not end up agreeing with them, but you might wonder if that’s just because you were raised in your community and not in theirs. There are billions of Christians across the globe representing a lot of diversity in culture, language, and theology. We need to agree on some fundamentals about Jesus to affirm that we are in the same family, but on many other things we would do well to try to come to a humble understanding rather than offering ignorant criticism.

Or, to sum a lot of this up succinctly, there is the quote from an otherwise obscure 17th Century German theologian, Rupertus Meldenius:

“In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.”

Devotional

Did you know that January 18th-25th each year is the international week of prayer for Christian unity? I didn’t until researching this week’s Overflow! It’s been observed annually since 1894 by Christian groups around the world. Here are a few prayers for unity that might be a blessing:

Lord Jesus, who prayed that we might all be one, we pray to you for the unity of Christians, according to your will, according to your means. May your Spirit enable us to experience the suffering caused by division, to see our sin and to hope beyond all hope. Amen.

(Prayed daily at Lambeth Palace, home of the Archbishop of Canterbury)

Loving God, we ask that you grant us the spirit of wisdom and unity, so that we may be one, even as you are one with our Lord Jesus Christ - and he with you.

Enable all the members of the body of Christ to live together in unity and fellowship with one another, and lead us into the paths of peace and righteousness so that we may be well pleasing in your sight.

We ask you to teach us how to love one another as Christ loved us and help us to show one another the unusual kindness that can only come from knowing your Son, Jesus. May the Spirit stir up in our hearts a desire to be united as one, in the bond of peace and fellowship. This we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

(From the Catholic Diocese of Portland)

We pray for the visible unity of the Church. Lead us to fulfil Jesus’ prayer that we may be one and work together to manifest your Kingdom. Today we ask you: O God, hear our prayer and grant us passion for unity.

(From the United Church of Canada)

Scripture Reading: John 13:31-35

When he was gone, Jesus said,“Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Sending and Blessing

Go now and live as children of light.

For the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness.

Let us wake from sleep and Christ will shine upon us.

Peace be to the whole community, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace be with all who have an undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen. Thanks be to God.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E280L4wNs0s