Is Christ Divided?

One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.” …

Is Christ divided? – 1 Corinthians 1:12-13a

This certainly seems to be the question these days for me.  Certain church sects want preachers who directly and purposefully violate something the Word of God unashamedly says.  Lay persons buy in and call for it, other members from other areas declare for it, and the worldly wisdom says it is right for the church.  Since you love the church and want to support it, you speak firmly in accordance to the Word of God, but rather than listen, many call you names and declare you to be out-of-touch and uncaring.

Family members participate in actions that clearly are not based on the Word of God.  So, because you love them you try to get them to realize where they are and what they are doing.  Rather than listen, you are brutalized for your “judgment” and rather than get support from other family, they too shun you for you love.

In the movie The Green Mile, John Coffey says when he is describing how a violent criminal killed two innocent little girls, “He kill them wi’ their love.  Wi’ their love fo’ each other.  That’s how it is, every day, all over the world.” 

The Thirty Years’ War was a series of wars in Europe between Protestant and Catholic states that were belonging to the Holy Roman Empire.  These wars in the 1600’s are defined by Peter Wilson in his book Europe’s Tragedy: A New History of the Thirty Years War as “one of the longest, most destructive conflicts in European history.”  He wrote this in 2010, some 65 years after WWII.  The war had as a foundation unresolved religious conflict among Lutherans, Calvinism, and Catholicism.  It grew to include many other areas as war is seen as opportunity to neighboring states to gain lands.  Overall, it is estimated that 8 million people died to include civilians.  It is estimated that this was about 14% of the population.  Imagine that if you know 8 people, one of them would have died because of these wars.

A lot of death has been caused by people trying to stand on what they believe God should be to others.  We must learn to see that God presents Himself in a unique way to everyone because everyone is unique.  He meets them where they are, not where He wants them to be.  He saves them in their trouble, not from their trouble.  If someone has not learned to walk, how can we declare they do not know God?  Do we base this by our own walking?  The hardest part of standing on what we have been shown by God is not knowing where others are spiritually.  We want them to know and see and love Who and as we do, but if they are unable to do it, we are simply setting them up for a great fall, or worse, creating contempt and division with them.

This does not apply to those who read and know but reject.  It is these people who divide by interpreting God’s Word in their own light and not the light of Jesus and therefore turn the meanings just as Satan did from the beginning with Eve.  It is these people who justify what they want yet seek for all to know how sanctified they are through exterior work and dress, while inside they are corrupt and self-seeking.  It is these people who turn your love for them against you and who gathers up a crowd to crucify you for it. 

We must know that we are Christ’s.  “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.” (1 Cor 3:21b-23)  We are not Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Calvinist, Seventh Day Adventist, or Catholic.  We are not Democrat and we are not Republican.  We are Christ’s and we are one body.  May no one have claim to us except the Son of the one true living God! 

Today, Christians are under attack.  We must pray that we be bound together and be one body lest we be torn limb from limb and fragmented across the world.  Pray today for unity in all parts of the body: the church universal, the local church, families, and marriages.  May there be Christ and may only He rule.