AVOID DIVISIVENESS

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful; they are self-condemned.

Titus 3:9-11

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

When you read the scriptures regarding what the Lord expects the Christian church to be, here’s one thing that is undeniable.

The Lord expects the church to be united in Christ, the Head.

Now, with this, ask yourself this:

How well is the church meeting the Lord’s expectation?

Frankly, we’re failing badly.

It’s not that we are so divided denominationally with schisms happening even within denominations. It’s that we aren’t even uniting ecumenically between churches.

Indeed, the Christian church which is to have one shared identity and common mission mandated by Jesus has become segmented into over 100 denominations and non-denominational congregations who seem to develop polity in order to justify their uniqueness and identity from others. Much of this polity has skewed toward accepting and adopting the world’s way of living to such an extent that the Christian church in many places looks the same as the world does.

Further, Christian church congregations rarely join in fellowship together. The body of Christ has become a collection of disjointed parts, each of which behaving as not needing the others. This is contrary to the scriptures and what they say the church is supposed to look like. Consider these words from 1 Corinthians, chapter 12:

...the body is not made up of one part but of many.

Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. Vv. 14-27

Just as a body wouldn’t function without all parts carrying out the responsibilities set forth by their Creator, so too will the Christian church fail miserably in its Gospel mission if it attempts to try and operate while divided.

What’s the old saying?

“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

As a church universal, all Christians need to confess the failure of divisiveness in the body and start tearing down barriers to come together for the cause of Christ and the Great Commission. If that would happen, if the church would truly be ONE body, it would be a Christian revival unlike anything witnessed in human history and people would want to join it just from the mere power found within.

Now, this is a macro look at the church and divisiveness but as we look at our passage for today, we find Paul addressing the issue in a more micro fashion, addressing possible issues within the Cretan church head on. Look at his words to Titus and the other Christian believers on the island with him:

But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful; they are self-condemned. Titus 3:9-11

As we saw earlier in this letter, there was a threat within the Cretan Christian church from false teaching. Here’s what he wrote in chapter 1:

For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain.

Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth. To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good. Vv. 10-11, 13-16

The bottom line was that these false teachings were a threat to the unity of the Cretan church. The focus was to be on the pure, true Gospel as it had been established and anyone who participated in efforts to change it or add additional doctrine had to be squelched.

These false teachings included “meaningless talk and deception” which included attempts to add circumcision as a prerequisite to salvation as well as foolish controversies, genealogies, arguments, and quarrels about the Mosaic Law. Engaging in any of these things too much would be “unprofitable and useless”.

Satan often distracts the Christian church but bogging believers down in debate and infighting over polity that is non-scriptural. These prolonged battles take attention away from the Gospel and are counterproductive in regard to the Great Commission work the church is supposed to be engaged in, the work to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20).

This is why we find God’s word providing set guidance on confronting those who try and bring forth nonsense that subtracts or adds or distorts the very inerrant, God-breathed nature of the Holy Scriptures.

When a person tries to be divisive and holds to falsehood, warn them twice and if they refuse to change their view, “have nothing” more to do with them. After all, they are accountable to the Lord first and foremost and He will judge their warped, sinful spiritual attitudes. They are self-condemned before Him.

In the end translation, there’s way too much at stake for the church to allow itself to become distracted from the Great Commission mission at hand. As in the church universal, any one single body only functions the way the Lord intends when all parts are in sync and healthy, functioning in a productive way.

The call from the scriptures today is to avoid divisiveness and we have a lot of work to do in this regard as the Christian church to be the one body we are called to be.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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