Real Unity, Biblical Unity, Which Is Required, Versus Fake Unity, The Overwhelmingly Most Common Today -- pt. 2

Like a lot of other biblical words or concepts or doctrines, unity is changed, perverted, morphed, or dumbed down to something it isn't.  What I see is that people in general are completely fine with that. They think it is a good trend.  Thumbs up to having unity mean what they want.

Love is another word that is twisted to something a long ways away from what it actually is.  If you say someone's "love" isn't love, that is a worse violation then corrupting love itself.  Ironically, it is unloving to say someone's love isn't love.  I know this to be true. God, however, is still going to judge us for love based on what He says it is -- the same with unity.

A few years ago, I was asked to preach at a church, which was without a pastor, for all day Sunday and then Wednesday, about four or so times.  The church was far from unified.  It had at least two or three factions in it, that had got along because the church had settled on something less than unity.  To get along, not unify, the former leadership had obviously tolerated the differences, treated them like they were allowable.  He probably said, "For unity's sake," which in fact was "for division's sake." Men don't want to lose anybody, even if the people aren't believing or doing right.  Losing people is the worst thing for them and for varied reasons, I'm going to continue discussing.  The former pastor just kept kicking that can down the road until he either got tired or decided not to put up with it anymore.  Let someone else deal with it.

Anyway, my first sermon was an exposition of 1 Corinthians 1:10 on biblical unity in a church.  That church was frozen in utter amazement on just going word by word through that verse in its context. The church was not, never, no way, going to do that.  It's like the Bible at that point was a book for a different species, a different planet, or a different dimension of space and time.  Some people hearing the sermon were all in -- that was obvious.  They wanted it.  Others wanted their present form, where they got to keep believing like and doing like they wanted, just disobeying that verse and all other verses in the Bible that taught the same thing.  They would never have a pastor come, who would promise to enforce such a verse.  Any pastor, who wanted that job, would not and could not mention that he believed that, which is very often how pastors get new pastorates -- by not stepping on that kind of land mine.  Someone might call it more of an art than a science.

To believe 1 Corinthians 1:10 at the church where I preached on unity would have required a split.  A split doesn't sound like unity, but to get to unity, often a split must take place.  Some think the split is worse than not having unity, so they put up with false doctrine and practice.

In part one of this, I started talking about why churches don't get the unity the Bible teaches, reaching only the first of the list I gave.  I move to the second one with this post.

• It requires biblical and doctrinal clarity, which takes preparation, study, and effort, and people aren't sure or they have too many doubts about the Bible.

I want to say just a little more there.  Liberty issues are non-scriptural issues.  The doubtful disputations are concerning issues that the Bible is silent about, or has at least judged to be a liberty issue, like the dietary examples given in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8.  Doctrinal issues are becoming liberty issues now for the sake of getting along.  There is only one teaching in scripture, but churches allow for more than one teaching on various doctrines and practices.  If you don't do that in a church, now you are considered to be violating some definition of love, which is closer to toleration.

So-called "unity" today is often guided by giving liberty to believe and practice differently within the same assembly.  Men are doing that by making doctrinal and practical issues now issues of liberty.  That is a historic change.  In evangelicalism, this means in the same church, premillennial or amillennial, or in other words, 30% different in doctrine right off the bat is unity.  It isn't, but this is by making that a liberty issue.  It isn't, but it is treated as such.

• It requires a lot of work and conflict, because you have to deal with people who don't want to unify and will cause division.

This number two I mentioned in my introduction above.  You have people challenge unity.  They don't like a particular doctrine or practice and they will challenge it through the various steps of church discipline to have their way.  This is where the Titus 3:9-11 section comes in.  The "heretic" is a factious person, who won't unify with the body, which is based upon the truth, agreed upon, believed by, and practiced by the whole rest of the church.  It might be that he just doesn't like submitting to authority.  There are  many of those out there, and you don't help them by allowing them to continue this way.

Very often pastors will defer to a faction.  The whole church sees it one way except for a small faction, and the small faction gets its way.  There are some who think this is some type of humility, to do this.  Humility isn't giving in to a faction, who is wrong.  Humility is dealing with the faction and requiring that it come along with the other church, or be gone.  We humble ourselves before God, not before factions.

Our church takes divisive people to church discipline (see Romans 16:17).  Story.  We had a man in our church, who believed that he was the window czar.  No one could open or close windows on his watch.  He was a self-appointed usher.  We didn't have an office of usher, but he gave himself that label.  He was also mentally slow in a disabled kind of way.  He could function in society, but anyone would know he was slow.

We had another man who really liked to open windows whenever he wanted.  Personally, I didn't mind if he opened a window, when he needed air.  It's not a separating issue (hopefully you smile). He opened a window. The window czar closed.  He opened.  Czar closed.  He opened.  Fight ensues. Neither side gives in.  Several times I sat down with both factions, and a few times with 2 or 3 witnesses.  Each time they resolved, something similar to having second graders shake hands after a fight at recess.

I would lecture the man, who was not intellectually challenged, that he could easily solve it by understanding the mental disability of the one he dealt with.  Perhaps he was socially challenged, which I don't think is a separate category in reality.  However, in the end the window czar wouldn't forgive and we finally disciplined him out of the church.  Both men died at a pretty early age not long after that.  It's hard not to see it as related to what I'm writing about here.

Churches don't have biblical unity, because they are unwilling to do what it takes to have it.  They don't work at it or face the conflict necessary.  Instead, they settle for something that isn't unity, and yet they call it unity.  Whatever isn't biblical unity still isn't unity.  Churches settle for the placebo, when God wants the real thing.

• It requires accepting biblical unity and not a fake kind.
• It might shrink the size of the assembly or, put another way, restrict numerical growth, which is considered to be a primary indicator of success and other future desired opportunities.
• It brings attack from those who accept and practice fake unity and treat it like it is biblical, when it is not.