Have you ever thought that we too strongly identify ourselves by our denominations?
Is identifying yourself as a Lutheran or a Methodist like following Martin Luther or John Wesley over following Christ? This almost seems to be a modern day equivalent of when Paul says,
"I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers,
some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow
Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?" (1 Corinthians 1:10-13)
Now, before we get too worked up into this, I want to say that I am not speaking out against any denominations in particular, or as a whole. Rather, the Lord has revealed a little bit of His heart to me in order to let me see how much He hurts from the divisions of the church.
Why is it that we, as the collective church body, separate ourselves from our brothers and sister based on these identifiers?
Why do we endlessly debate about theology to the point that we no longer feel akin to each other?
As addressed in Titus, does it not say, "But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law because these are unprofitable and useless." (Titus 3:9)
Why do churches or denominations even make jokes about each other? How does this allow the body to love itself? The Father hurts at this. He is pained by how groups of His followers fight against each other ideologically and based on traditions.
The Lord has shown me the vastness of His being, and that His glory is entirely too large for one person or people group to experience alone. This is why He reveals different parts of Himself to different people and churches.
It is also why He chooses to give us different giftings and talents. In his Paul's letter to the Romans, he says, "So in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us." (Romans 12:5-6)
Peter agrees with this when he says, "Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms." (1 Peter 4:10)
So why then do we surround ourselves with others who experience God in the near exact way that we do? Taken too far, there can be detrimental harm to the fruitfulness of the church in this. It can cause a limitation of how we experience Him, confining God into a box. From this, a doctrine can develop that embraces an image of God that is created by us, rather than God himself.
Paul warns about this when he tells Timothy, "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." (2 Timothy 4:3-4)
God wants to be revealed to us, and He intends to do that in such a way that His followers function as this body, all having a testimony of the different ways that God's glory has been revealed to us, and in a collective pooling of knowledge, wisdom, and serving each other and the community in the fullness of God's giftings.
All I know is that I want more of God. I want to know more of His glory. As this is shown through other people, I want to be around others that experience Him diversely, have distinct doctrinal opinions, and different
giftings than I do.
God didn't design His churches to be full of only elbows, or of only eyes. He didn't make his church to be full of single body parts. He made His church to be the body, as a whole. Now, IF churches agreed, for the
necessity of uplifting its members, that it needed to be identified as a body part, THEN there would need to be a community of churches of different denominations, supporting each other that as a larger picture, would be the body. BUT THIS ISN'T HAPPENING (in a lot of America).
God desires there to be a reminder that each microcosm of this grand picture of humanity as the church would be comprised of different body parts because He made HIS BRIDE to be COMPLETE as the body.
