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Is Unity In The Church Everything ?
Rev Albert Kang
I used to own eight dogs while living in Phnom Penh , Cambodia . Spotty, a white mongrel with black spots was the top dog of the pack. After Spotty disappeared without a trace (we suspected that it was eaten because our Cambodian friends told us that dogs were delicacies in Cambodia ), the pack was left without a dominant leader. There were constant fights among the seven remaining dogs. Sometimes, the fight would be so vicious that a few of them would be wounded and bleeding. The only time they stopped fighting was when I was around. They all would gather around me and wag their tails. As I looked at them, I was reminded of the time when the Disciples were fighting among themselves for dominance (Matthew 20:20 -27).
It all started with Mary, the Zebedee's mother, who like most mothers, took it upon herself to seek for a good position for her two sons, James and John (Matthew 20:20 ). Even though her faith in “King” Jesus was commendable, she had yet to fully comprehend that the first coming of Jesus was to be a Servant and Sacrifice. Jesus would not be the King until He had provided salvation for His people. Comparing to what Mark wrote in his Gospel, Mary Zebedee most probably went to Jesus upon the request of her two sons. (Mark 10:35 ). The other ten Disciples were very upset with James and John. There was great disharmony among them until Jesus intervened.
Apart from the Zebedee's saga, there were other similar occurrences in the early churches where Christians fought for dominance. Take one good example - Paul the Apostle was caught in the midst of a big argument that was threatening to split the church in Corinth to at least three different factions (1 Corinthians 1:10 – 17).
Some of the Christians claimed that they were more spiritual because they had followed the teachings of Apostle Paul. Another group rejected their claim by saying that they were even greater because they followed after Cephas (Peter) who was supposedly the Chief Apostle. Another group declared that they were greater than the first two groups because they followed Jesus the Savior solely.
Have you ever been in this kind of situation where there are much disputes about dominance? Have you experienced the frustration of fighting for turf and maneuvering for position? Many of these struggles not only hurt the organization, company or church; it also hurts the spirits of the people involved.
Paul's advice to the Corinthian Christians was: “Now, dear brothers and sisters, I appeal to you by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ to stop arguing among yourselves. Let there be real harmony so there won't be divisions in the church. I plead with you to be of one mind, united in thought and purpose”.
It is not easy for human beings to be of “one mind, united in thought and purpose”. After all the most common malady of mankind is disagreement and fighting. The Personnel Journal submitted this staggering statistic – “since the beginning of recorded history, the entire world has been at peace less than eight percent of the time. In its study, the periodical discovered that of 3530 years of recorded history, only 286 years saw peace. Moreover, in excess of 8000 peace treaties were made… and broken”.
The Bible traces the problem to our heart of pride. In our effort to feel important, we have learned to make specific distinctions so as to elevate our positions. Pride is the artificial elevation of ourselves so that we imagine that we are better than others. It is one of most infectious diseases that can affect anyone, whether in the church or outside the church.
Both James and Peter admonished us to be careful about being proud because “God resists the proud people but He gives grace to those who are humble” (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). The Lord resists the proud because He really has no choice. Those who are proud are obviously resisting the Lord. You may say, “Wait a minute, I have met some Christians who are very proud and yet they are devoted to the Lord”. According to the Bible that is not possible. The reason being that pride does not permit God to sit on the throne of the person's heart. A proud person is a god unto himself and therefore he cannot be devoted to the Lord. He is a devotee to himself. If you are the king of your life then whose kingdom does your life belong?
Lucifer said that he would exalt his throne above that of God and so he was cast down. He was the original perpetrator of pride and actually convinced about one-third of heaven's angels to take the path of pride. Instead of accepting their positions as worshippers of God, these angels wanted to be worshipped. They were all cast down with Lucifer because in heaven there could only have one God.
Lucifer is now better known as Satan and the fallen angels are wandering on earth as demons. That is the reason why when anyone places an altar under a tree or rocks, he would find demons willing to be the objects of worship. One day, the old heaven and old earth will pass away and all these disobedient spirits will be cast into eternal damnation. If the Lord did not spare the angels because of their pride, think about what God could do to us, if we continue to pursue that destructive path of self-worship.
Pride leads to prejudice and divisions. Like those Corinthian Christians who could find divisions in their allegiance to different preachers and church leaders, today's churches are divided through denominations and minor peripheral beliefs. Prejudice does not only affect our spiritual life but also those around us.
For example, even the Apostle Peter was affected by the prejudice of the Jerusalem Jewish Christians who came to visit him in Antioch . Paul said in Galatians 2:11-14: “When Peter came to Antioch , I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?”
The Jewish Christians had considered themselves to be better-qualified disciples of Christ because they were the original Jews and had gone through circumcision. They also observed the Jewish laws on eating only kosher food and therefore expected the Gentile Christians to do likewise. Paul was against that because he knew that the Gentile Christians did not need to become Jewish to be saved. Therefore they had no need to observe all the ritualistic laws of the Jews.
Before these “holier-than-thou” Christians arrived, Peter was very happy to eat all kinds of non-kosher food with the Gentile Christians. Moreover, it was God who gave Peter a vision, instructing him to kill and eat all kinds of animals, even the non-kosher ones (Acts 10:9-16). The real purpose of that vision was to instruct Peter that he no longer needed to be restricted by his Jewish background but to bring the Christian message to the Gentiles.
One should expect Peter to understand that clearly. However when the Jewish party arrived, Peter became a changed person. He avoided being seen eating with the Gentiles altogether. Those disciples, one of them was Barnabas, who were with Peter did the same thing and totally ignored the Gentile Christians' invitation to eat and fellowship together.
Paul exposed Peter's hypocrisy and also that of those who followed him. Paul saw the danger of such attitude and practice and he was not one who minced his words. Some might consider what Paul had done to be divisive because their concept of peace, unity and harmony is that no one should criticize or correct another Christian, especially an apostle.
The early Catholic Church leadership also did not tolerate any criticisms and so they banished, imprisoned or burned critics as heretics.
Martin Luther (1483 – 1546), (not to be confused with Martin Luther King, Jr.) took the risk to criticize the Catholic Church about her doctrines and also how she had sold indulgences to raise money to build St Peter's Basilica in Rome . An indulgence was a note issued by the Catholic Church as a form of penance. People were involving in all kinds of sins because they could “buy forgiveness”. Another thing that indulgence apparently could do was to reduce one's deceased loved ones from staying in purgatory for too long.
This idea of buying indulgences came from the wrong teachings taught by the Catholic Church. She told her practitioners that their original sin was ridden off during water baptism. However, after that, if they sinned again, then every sin should be countered by a good work. They were told that God was keeping a record book of all their sins. If they could not do enough good works to compensate for those sins then the safest way was to buy indulgences to avoid being punished.
Luther realized that he could never be good enough to attain the standard of good works. How good was good? He struggled with that question until he read the Book of Romans where Paul the Apostle wrote: “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17 ). He was liberated because he learned that his salvation did not depend upon his good works but rather upon his belief and faith that the Lord Jesus had died to forgive his sins once and for all. This is what we now know as “Justification by Faith”.
Luther disagreed with the Catholic Church in four basic areas: Firstly, he accepted only two out of the seven sacraments. These two were Water Baptism and The Lord's Supper. Secondly, he advocated the importance of the priesthood of all believers and thus rejected the teaching that only the ordained clergy were the only priesthood. Thirdly, Luther emphasized that the Bible and not the Church was the final authority. All the pronouncements of the popes and ecclesiastical councils were rejected if they did not abide with the Word of God. Fourthly, he believed that the Christians should serve God in whatever callings God had given them. These callings could be sacred or secular and all the Christians needed was to do their best according to the calls of God.
Luther no longer could tolerate the sales of indulgences as that distorted the idea of God's gift of grace. The mercy, grace and forgiveness of the Lord cannot be bought with any price except through the blood of Jesus Christ the Savior. This doctrine was not a minor doctrine but a very major and absolute one. Luther decided to challenge the Catholic leadership. It was true that Martin Luther brought disunity to the early Catholic Church but it was necessary. His disagreement shook the Roman Catholic Church to her core and triggered the beginning of the Reformation Movement.
Today, some Christians like Dan R. McConnell, Hank Hanagraff, Robert Bowman, Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon are speaking out against some of the very popular evangelists and preachers in USA who are preaching the health and wealth gospels. Let me clarify that by mentioning their names does not mean that I agree with everything that they say. I just want to point out that these people have seen the danger of the health and wealth doctrines and are courageous enough to speak against them.
My own professor, Dr. Gordon Fee, who is a leading New Testament scholar, wrote a famous booklet in 1985, that was entitled, “The Disease of The Health and Wealth Gospels”. In it, he revealed how the health and wealth preachers and teachers have taken the Scripture out of context. He was seeking to correct all the imbalances and biblical distortions expounded by some of these Pentecostal and Charismatic preachers. (Please take note that not all Pentecostal and Charismatic preachers are health and wealth proponents). In no way was Dr. Fee divisive, even though some people did accuse him of doing so with this booklet.
Paul had to bring correction to Peter because the latter was clearly in the wrong. The truth of God's Word must never be sacrificed for the sake of artificial unity. An example of artificial unity is found in some of the tribal Christian ministries in the Philippines . I am told that some pastors are too afraid to teach the tribal Christians to forsake the worship of “diwata”, which is a kind of spirit. By compromising, the truth is watered down and the end result will be more devastating for the church.
Paul knew that he could not be united with Peter in this matter when the latter was not operating according to the principles of Christ. One might further question that if the correction was already made, why did Paul has to write about Peter's mistake in his letter to the Galatians? We should understand that Paul's purpose was not to embarrass Peter but to teach a very crucial doctrine. If he had not done so, this error of having to conform to the law of circumcision and kosher food would have become a part of the church's practices. Paul never knew that his letters would become Scriptures for future generations but the Holy Spirit was directing his hands all the time.
To understand true unity, we have to listen to A. W. Tozer: “One hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other. They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers meeting together, each one looking to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become ‘unity' conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship”( A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God ,Christian Publications: Camp Hill Pennsylvania, 1993, Pg 90 ).
Let me conclude by saying that as Christians, we have to apply love and wisdom in handling all things. If we observed that the church is trying her best to adhere to the “ standard to which one must individually bow”, then we should make every effort to cooperate. We should be less critical even though things may not be to our expectation. Apart from praying, we should contribute by putting efforts into making the church more effective and efficient. This is the way by which we encourage the spirit of unity. Paul said, “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15:5-6).
Unity is important for our church to grow, mature and be strong. We should learn to be obedient to faithful elders and pastors who serve tirelessly and sacrificially. We should make their work a pleasure. As long as the absolute doctrines of the Church are preached and taught accurately, in no way should we major on the minor and let little unimportant matters divide the church. Paul warned, “If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.”(1 Corinthians 3:17). At all time, we should be in unity and harmony with all in God's church and serve with them for the glory of God. In this instance, unity in the church is everything.