Denominational Unity
God in His wisdom has made the Bible so that a sincere person who reads it while seeking Him will understand it. Many times a Christian will read the Bible for years, maybe decades, and have a nice sincere understanding of the simple pure Gospel because they’ve read it with common sense and without denominational bias. They will know to love and serve God and people with the wisdom that comes from God, in practical helpful ways, and abhor all kinds of evil (sins) and ills (e.g. bad manners). The Bible is very clear on all the important matters, called “weightier matters” in Matthew 23:23, 24. They are clearly defined (2 Corinthians 4:1). Here and elsewhere in the Bible we are told to put off clearly defined sins that so easily entangle: greed, immorality, coveting, slander, immodesty, lying, murder, theft, gossip, laziness, etc. And we are to grow in humility, love, faith, patience, forgiveness, etc while reaching the lost and hurting world. The whole list of these clearly defined sins is listed later at the end of this booklet. They should be admonished and strongly taught (Colossians 3:16) without the slightest compromise. If a person calls himself a Christian and refuses to repent of these sins (with a reasonable growing period), we must reluctantly separate after our best attempts to help them. The wisdom that comes from God (James 1:25-27, James 3:17-18, 2 Peter 1:5-11) is to grow in this “putting off” and “putting on” correctly. We need to carefully guard them in our doctrine and teaching since the sinful nature tends to go the opposite way. But there are many other unclear issues that are not critical and so they shouldn’t divide us, but many times they do. So this article is written to encourage us to stay focused on the weightier matters and seek unity in the church. The Christian life is all about love in action, not arguing about unclear doctrine. You’ll see this is very Biblical. Below are just a few verses; you’ll find many more interspersed thru the article.
5 The aim of our charge [the goal of the teaching] is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. 1 Timothy 1:5-7
8 This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone. 9 But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. Titus 3:8-9
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. Ephesians 4:11-15
The weightier matters are typically clear to a sincere conscience and obvious to us. The principal feature of the new covenant was prophesied to be living by our conscience (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 11:19; Ezekiel 36:26). This is also clearly taught in the New Testament in over 20 verses (Romans 2:14-15, 1 Timothy 1:5, Acts 24:16, etc). Of course bad church teaching or other circumstances can cause the conscience to be overly sensitive on some issues (see Romans 14:14), or conversely it can be dulled over time by worldly deception (1 Timothy 4:1-2), and sometimes people need time to grow in issues (Philippians 3:16). So we do have to be careful; but in general that’s the first good commonsense litmus test of a weightier matter – do we know it’s wrong in our conscience. When the long-awaited Messiah came bringing the new covenant, he summed it all up in Matthew 22:37-40 by two commandments, love God (which includes living in righteousness and abhorring evil) and love people. Every weightier matter can be traced up to these two. Then a couple chapters later, in Matthew 24:45, He gives His last message before His death, which was focused on this 2nd commandment of helping people. In this last message, He gives three strong parables about helping people: the servant faithfully giving food to the other servants in Matthew 24:36-51, using (not hiding) talents in Matthew 25:14-28, and the sheep and goats in Matthew 25:31-46. These are all about helping and reaching people and they are in context of the final judgment that we will all face when we stand before Him, so this is specifically what He said we will be judged by.
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Matthew 25:31-36
We should all have this verse memorized or posted on our wall. You’ll find this focus on righteousness and helping people throughout the Bible (James 1:27; 2:14-26; 3:13, 1 Timothy 6:1-12, 1 Timothy 6:18-21, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Titus 2, Titus 3:1–11, Hebrews 5:12-14, 1 Peter 3:13-23). It was in the Old Testament too (Proverbs 11:30, Daniel 12:3). Jesus’ whole life of ministry was characterized by constant selfless service and simple teaching on these two basic commandments, out among the people (even unlovely people). It was not the life of a deep theologian arguing fine points of obscure knowledge in meeting halls. The focus on talking about and searching for hidden truth is actually spoken against (1 Timothy 1:6, 1 Timothy 6:20-21, Titus 1:10, Hebrews 13:9, Revelation 2:24). In fact, it was the Gnostics (the Greek word “Gnosis” means “knowledge”) that had that focus of a higher and fuller secret knowledge that they were trying to use to lead people to their cult. Scholars think it was starting to make its way into the church even while the Bible was being written so they think certain verses were directly against it (Colossians 1:19 – note that “fullness” was a Gnostic term, Colossians 2:2-4, 1 Timothy 1:4, 1 Timothy 4:1-3, 1 John 2:27). Having unique knowledge and being part of an “elite” group has a certain draw to it. But if we’re going to follow Jesus’ example, life is all about practically helping and reaching people. And though all these weightier commands are fairly simple and obvious, they are against our sinful nature, so it’s difficult in that way. They will keep us plenty busy working on ourselves and exhorting others in them our whole lives. These are the things we should be focused on.
Paul and the Apostles used this same style as Jesus, but as they address specific issues that come up (often from difficult insincere people), they sometimes mention things in passing without defining them, or they leave loopholes in their teaching. This is because they were writing 2000 years ago in a mid-eastern mindset that assumed common sense, unlike our Western mindset where we are so legalistic and careful to define things without loopholes in important writing. Nowadays it’s an actual professional rule of writing to try to avoid idioms and loose language in important documents so they can’t be misunderstood, which is also helpful when translating the document into other languages. This was not the case 2000 years ago when the Bible was written, so it requires more common sense. By the way, I’m using the term “common sense” only to refer to understanding text in the common vernacular, allowing benefit of the doubt, and not being overly literal, etc. E.g. taking the term “what’s up” as a greeting and not a question of what’s above you. This term “common sense” can also mean the opposite of stupid, like “having enough common sense to come in out of the rain” I’m not at all using it like that. It’s very normal for us to have a problem with the first meaning, especially when reading something as important as the Bible. That first meaning has nothing to do with intelligence. In fact, sometimes the smartest, most-trained, people can be the worst at it because they are used to western writings and they get that mindset. When you use that first kind of common sense, with benefit of the doubt, the Bible can be understood just fine on the important issues. Because remember, God had a plan for their writings, but the writers thought they were just writing simple letters. I’m sure they would have been more careful if they’d have known the letters were destined to become part of God’s sacred book for thousands of years – the most popular and best-selling book of all time. But God knew what he was doing and made sure the important stuff was all well-defined, especially if you use common sense. To illustrate this commonsense everyday vernacular: it’s like me telling someone to go and get some bread from the store. This is how we talk all the time and it’s easily understood, but it leaves all kinds of loopholes and room for argument. The person can steal the bread and be within my direction to “get the bread”. So my statement had built in assumptions: pay for the bread! It would obviously be ridiculous to say that I think you can steel bread from the store because I didn’t specify paying for it, but that’s exactly what people are doing with Biblical statements. So the Bible requires this same commonsense mentality. I hope you get that idea if you don’t get anything else out of this article. I see all kinds of problems because people are not using this principle. Since the Bible is a sacred and extremely important book, it’s hard for us Westerners to interpret it as we would a letter from a friend. But that’s how much of it was written. And this leaves tons of opportunity for division with the Bible if we don’t interpret it this way. The article on hermeneutics gives examples of how things can be twisted – you’ll find it surprising how much scripture can be twisted. We need to look for large clear portions of scripture to make doctrine. In fact, the Bible was written and meant to be understood as whole books, so it is especially easy to lose the commonsense big picture focus when you use sentences from different books. And we should always be careful not to “go beyond what is written” and start reading things in between the lines in unclear areas. Peter warned against this in 2 Peter 3:15-18. No, we should just look for clear teaching in large portions, as it was written, in harmony with all scripture, and use common sense. Then we’ll get the weightier issues and not be so divisive on the others.
Paul even talks about “disputable issues” in Romans 14 and 15 where multiple views are perfectly fine and he clearly tells us not to argue about them. So again, God in His wisdom was sure to make the important issues very clear (with common sense) and those can keep us very busy doing important things for Him our whole lives. That’s what this article exhorts; to not “wrangle about words” and to “avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness” 2 Timothy 2:14-16. 2 Timothy 2:22-23 and Titus 3:9 has the same exhortation. Of course the reason you’re “wrangling” is either because it’s not a clear issue, or because the other person’s conscience is seared and they aren’t accepting the clear commonsense meaning. Either way you should probably just leave it alone after a quick discussion. The word used there and in 2 Timothy 2:14 is “avoid” (G4026), not “abhor” (G655) as you would do with evil (Romans 12:9). So maybe you can quickly discuss an issue, but the idea is to quickly get off of these kinds of discussions and focus more on those weightier matters. Certainly don’t argue over a lighter matter until you break unity over it.
I’ve noticed that Christians have a natural tendency to zero in on our differences over these unclear issues and discuss or sometimes argue about them. Going out into the world to win souls is hard, risky and scary. So we tend to stay within our walls, and we need something to talk about, so we often gravitate to discussions about these unclear issues. And this isn’t entirely bad. It can be done with a lot of fun and not disrupt the unity in the body of Christ, as long as it doesn’t take too much of your time and energy so it diverts you from this true calling we have to focus on the lost and hurting world. That would be the first danger. The other danger is if you notice that it is breaking unity or that a person is using these discussions to create divisions and draw people unto themselves. If we notice either of these, then we must make that conscious choice to focus on those weightier matters and a world that desperately needs us to be united and helping them. This is in line with how Paul interrupts a discussion of doctrine in 1 Corinthians 12 and 1 Corinthians 14 (tongues and gifts of the Spirit) to stop and talk about the “most excellent way”, giving us the famous love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. So when discussing an issue, be sure to always keep in mind that love and unity are very important and taught throughout the Bible (Acts 4:32, 1 Corinthians 1:10, 2 Corinthians 13:11, Ephesians 4:3, Philippians 2:1,2). Let that be an important background in any Biblical discussion. Jesus said the world would know God loves them by our unity (John 17:22, 23). I’m giving this exhortation because I’m guilty of wrangling too, so I know some of us have (or had) more of a tendency to lose sight of these big picture requirements and to argue about these unclear areas. Some churches actually encourage it. Cults are the worst of course. Cults would say the exact opposite of what I’m proposing. They think we need to dive deep into obscure details of doctrine and read between the lines of these unclear verses. And so of course they want you to attend their Bible studies or read their materials to direct you in the “true interpretations” of scripture and then go to their church. They will usually use these to promote their church over others. Some will in fact say they are the only true and redeemed church because of these unique interpretations on obscure areas of scripture. Paul predicted in Acts 20:30, 31 that people would distort the truth to draw disciples to them, not God (see also 1 Corinthians 1:10-13). It’s so much easier and safer to draw people from other churches than to try to win the lost.
So one issue is focusing on unclear issues. The other issue is focusing on less important things, “straining a gnat”, as the Pharisees did, focusing on small details instead of the “weightier matters”. Jesus of course used this very terminology of the gnat as an example of what we shouldn’t do. Often times the unclear issues are the gnats so both of these errors are related. So people who want to focus on gnats (like the cults mentioned earlier) have to use Old Testament verses or examples to justify this. Romans 10, 2 Corinthians 3:6-12 and Jeremiah 31 talk about this shift from concise legalism or “the letter” to Spirit and conscience when switching from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. That’s not to say the New Covenant is loose on sin; no as I’ve said, I find at least 30 clear sins to abhor even the hint of. The New Covenant is actually stronger on these things. e.g. don’t lust vs don’t commit adultery. The Old Covenant, with its focus on rules, gives the specific rule that you can’t mix wool into your garments (I think because it shrinks, causing it to be less modest). The New Covenant just says we should be modest. So the New Covenant is just more common-sense, good-heart, and conscience based and not as rules based. I’ve heard there are 600 rules in the Old Covenant. If the heart is right with God, the New Covenant will lead us just fine. So when someone quotes the Old Testament to condone being nit-picky, it’s just because that’s how that covenant was.
One example I’ve heard them give is about is the verse in Hebrews 8:5 that warns Moses to carefully follow every detail when building the temple. This is of course back to the Old Covenant and the details were clearly spelled out, it wasn’t an obscure doctrine, of course he should follow them exactly. Deuteronomy 28:58 is another such Old Covenant verse warning people to follow the commands exactly. I totally agree we should obey clear commands, I just think the weightier ones are conscience based and obvious now. It is interesting that the Jews went to amazing efforts to interpret and enforce the law with a staggering amount of rules and regulators, so much so that they actually made clear doctrines unclear. E.g. Exodus 16:29 says to remain in your house on the Sabbath because God supplied enough bread on Friday for both days. This makes sense and is easy to follow. My position would be to follow this clear teaching exactly, if it was part of the New Covenant (which it is not, see the list of denomination examples in the article on hermeneutics where this exact thing is discussed). It would be one of those 30 clear teachings. But various circumstances required the Jews back then to define just how far away you could get from your house. I understand they came up with 2000 cubits (5/8 of a mile). But the verse doesn’t say “house” but “place” so they argued about what “place” meant. I understand they somehow came up with a way to make that 4000 cubits. In fact I’ve heard that some Jews were so confident in the clarity of the law that they could legalistically keep the law and break the idea of the law at the same time. A guy could carry a brick from his house the allowed distance, set it down, legitimately call that brick his house, and travel a ways further. I suppose a man could carry several of these small bricks from his house and completely ignore the good common sense law God gave. Not only is he walking much further than he should, he’s carrying at least some weight – depending on how big the bricks were. So he’s not getting the rest he needs, which is the reason God made the commandment out of love. But he feels he’s obeying God perfectly because he’s figured out a way to technically obey it. So you can see what a mess even extreme legalism makes when you ignore common sense
So I’m proposing that the overall makeup of the New Testament is that if God didn’t make it clear, it’s not worth arguing about and creating division. Instead, we need to focus on these weightier matters which are clear (with common sense) and very critical, and fairly hard. That will keep us plenty busy until He comes back. e.g. witnessing to the lost is hard and we need to encourage each other (especially if someone is insulted or persecuted for it), and give each other ideas how to do it, with lots of prayer. There are many things we can talk about this way.
So here’s a practical idea. If a sincere person comes pushing a church or minister by wrangling about some unique doctrine they have, you can listen for a short time and ask a few questions maybe, and depending on how devout they are and how well you know them you might make a few quick corrective comments or a short discussion as needed, and if it’s a trivial matter that’s not worth parting over, politely ask them something like this in a friendly manner, “That’s pretty amazing. You’ve obviously done a lot of study. Let me ask you, what methods do you think are the most effective at reaching the lost?” There are plenty of sincere people that engage in these kinds of divisive discussions (unfortunately), so a sincere person will see what you’re doing and probably appreciate the reminder to focus on the weightier matters. But there are also people who really don’t have a love for God or the lost, but for some reason they love to engage in these disputable doctrines – maybe because of pride or building a “special” church or supporting a divisive ministry, etc. If they are too divisive, you will probably find that in time you need to practice Paul’s advice in Titus 3:10-11 and stay away from them. But do note that I’m saying “probably”, there’s always exceptions. And all doctrines aside, you also want to watch for a person who has their heart set on the world and not God. This is what will influence you and your family, many more times worse than someone with a difference in doctrine on one of these lighter matters. And again, there are some doctrines that do very much affect the weightier matters, things that make light of sin for example, and those are indeed worth parting over. Another article gives some examples to the difference.
The Moravians are an interesting group to study and a perfect example of what I’m saying because persecution forced them to join together as a church in spite of differences among them on unclear issues. And they became a powerful mission-minded church that focused on those two commandments, and had great fruits, to the point of accidentally becoming world-renown (which is not our goal of course). In free countries like America, we don’t have this oppression, so we have been free to start many churches, and denominations have naturally formed over the interpretations of the unclear verses. And maybe that’s not so bad, as long as we can keep our unity and focus on the weightier matters.