Unity and the Early Church

[Guest]

Hi Steve,

I don’t think I made it back in time to read the posts you deleted so I don’t know if they were worth keeping or not. But I’m generally opposed to deleting posts because it tends to leave awkward holes in the thread and I think there is value seeing the whole progression of a discussion, warts and all.

As a comparison, I’ve never understood why judges would order the court reporter that a comment be “stricken” from there record, as if the jury could strike it from their memory.

I wish we had complete transcripts of things like the Jerusalem council, the argument of Paul and Barnabas, and the rebuking of Peter by Paul. Those things had to get heated, and at times possibly uncharitable. But I think it would be edifying and encouraging for us to be able to recognize that they were all just fallible men seeking to be led by the Spirit, but stumbling at times in the flesh. That gives hope to people like me that struggle with anger. And it also adds weight to apologies and reconciliations.

As in any family, the family of God is going have heated disagreements at times and members of the family are going to let their tempers get the best of them. But ideally, the family members see it for what it is and as a part of the maturing process, other family members step in to help bring objective mediation.

Prov 11:14
14 Where there is no counsel, the people fall;
But in the multitude of counselors there is safety.
NKJV

IMO, this is a very important, yet complex and emotional topic with many factors and implications involved that need to be worked through. I personally rank this topic as one of the most important issues facing the western church today. I would like to see the discussion continue and I hope people are not getting turned off by the emotional responses that have taken place. I think the church as a whole tends to be overly shy these days about displays of negative emotions and does everything in its power to squelch it. But I believe that it is necessary part of the whole process of maturing and unifying. When emotions get expressed, they also get pondered and dealt with and hopefully put into proper perspective. Then there can be forward movement and maturity taking place. But I don’t think most of us can get to the point of objectively sharing viewpoints without going through that process of emotionally detaching ourselves from what we hold so dearly to be true. I have had to go through this many times in my walk with the Lord before I can finally just give something over to Him and have peace about it.

So, I think my point is that there is much value in those who are witnessing such things because we can not only learn from them, but also offer assistance in the reparation.

I have much more to say about some of the statements that have been made on this thread in the last couple of days and I plan to do so as I have time. But most of my thoughts take a lot of time to process and phrase the way I want to, so I do much of it off-line a little bit at a time and paste it in later.

Anyway, I hope you will consider allowing the posts to remain in the future so long as there is not content that is inappropriate for Christian consumption.

Lord bless.

[Guest]

christopher wrote:

I think the church as a whole tends to be overly shy these days about displays of negative emotions and does everything in its power to squelch it

aint it the truth-- PC applies everywhere these days, even, unfortunately, to theological debates. i noted in a previous post up there somewhere that people tend to be very squeamish about controversial issues being discussed in polite church company. this is a shame. sometimes discussions may become heated, w/o sin being committed, although great caution is required. Jesus loves peacemakers, but i dont think he always expects us to back down from an argument. it is a fine line that requires the guiding of the HS.

TK

[Guest]

Just to show how ridiculously drastic the differences of opinion are on this topic I thought I would post this. It was posted by a brother named "MOSES" at the CRTA (reformed) website. It can be viewed in it's context HERE (post #4).

"I believe that because of denominations the Kingdom is more rapidly advancing. When you look at history it seems that anytime there were no "divisions" (per say) in the Church then things were stale. But anytime there were division and persecutions which broke people off into smaller sects, as opposed to large institutions, the kingdom advanced all the more.

Just imagine if there was only one denomination and one giant "visible" church; can you imagine how long it would take to get even the smallest things done. Heck even in a small church off 100 it takes a long time to get things approved and people in agreement and then even longer to accomplish the task at hand.

I belive that God sent the persecution in Jerusalem (at the apostles time) because the Church was getting to large and "stale" and was not accomplishing it's mandate. God sent the persecution, divided and scattered the church all over the roman empire and then the Kingdom was able to be further advanced.

It's my opinion (and opinion only) that all churches should be allowed to grow to about 100 people and then once it grows more then that it should break up into smaller churches, and when those grow to over 100 then they break up and so on and so on.

It seems to me that dividing off into so called sects or denominations advances the kingdom. The church broke off from Rome at the reformation and then sects and denominations sprung fourth from the reformation and as a result of this the preaching of the gospel is going across the entire world."