How Unity in the Church Happens
Photo by Pedro Dias on Unsplash
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.
I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. (Rom. 16:17-18)
The Bible says that Christians are to "be united in the same mind and the same judgment" (1 Cor. 1:10-13) and "love one another" (John 13:34). Yet, why is there so much division in Christ's church?
We love our way of thinking more than God's truth.
Much division in the church is caused by differences in doctrine: What is the Trinity? What are the attributes of God? Why did God make people? What did Jesus do to save us? How are we saved? Can we lose our salvation? What does it actually mean to be a Christian? How do we rightly apply biblical teachings both in the church and in daily life? We have only to look at all the different Protestant denominations to realize there is great disagreement in the body of Christ regarding how God's word answers the above questions and more.
So how do we know what is biblical truth and what isn't? The first step is to read our Bibles. The second step is to engage with the statements of faith of the historic church, such as the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dordt, the Belgic Confession, and the Westminster Standards. God has given us faithful believers throughout church history who stood for the truth of God's word and wrote down summaries of the Christian faith. While these statements of faith are always subordinate to Scripture, which is God-breathed, they are still helpful guideposts for avoiding doctrinal error and heresy.
We need to love the truth of God's word more than our pre-conceived ideas and opinions of what God's word should say or what we want God's word to say, always seeking to understand what the Bible is actually teaching us. With this knowledge we can better seek out a local church that faithfully preaches God's word without division or strife.
We don't love one another as Christ has loved us.
Much division in the church is caused by not loving one another as Christ has loved us. We think we know best how the church should be ordered or how someone else should be living his or her life. We might be right, but we also might be wrong. We need to approach our efforts to love our brothers and sisters in Christ with humility and godly wisdom, not assuming our opinion is always right or our efforts are always loving. We need to be open to the truth that we don't have all the knowledge or wisdom to love perfectly. We need to let go of our wants and desires in order to love others well.
We have too much love for ourselves and the world.
Much division in the church is caused by the outworking of our self-love and attraction to worldly things. We want to be admired by the world, and we don't consider how we may be harming other believers and Christ's body as a whole by our actions. Some of this harm is caused by professing Christians who claim that they are making the church more relevant, more appealing to the world, so that more people would come to Christ. Yet, as Paul writes, it is possible that "such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive" (Rom. 16:18). We need to be wary of those in the church who claim to love Christ and yet at the same time are conforming to the world's standards instead of God's standards. Such people may be believers who are deceived or they may be wolves in sheep’s clothing. In either case, we must always protect the body of Christ from the bad fruits of self-love.
Unity in the church grows when we grow in our love for upholding the truth of God's word, our love for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and our love for the purity of Christ's church.
This article is adapted from “Staying the Course” in BCL's October 2021 Newsletter.
