This is not a litmus test for christian beliefs. What I’m about to say isn’t a test for whether someone is Christian or not. Nor is this a way for a person to test how many beliefs they must have to keep their salvation. This isn’t a math equation for figuring out if you’re in-or-out of the faith. This is an illustration that has all the weak spots of word pictures, but that I use to underscore the idea of what is central to historical Christianity and what might be more debatable.
The church today is known by her division. She’s gotten a reputation. Maybe social media makes it seem worse than it is, but that doesn’t matter.
That said, this doesn’t mean that all divisions are wrong. Paul, noting the divisions in ancient Corinth (1 Cor 11:18) pointed out that through divisions they would identify their true working Christians (1 Cor 11:19). Indeed, in Romans 16:17, Paul both warns about division and then encourages it in the same verse!
So, what should the church do? In seeking to be known by her love (John 13:35) should the church pursue unity at all costs? When, if ever, is it right to divide?
Someone was crazy enough to ask me about my position on marriage, divorce, and remarriage. I struggled because my answer was short and lacked context. Later, it made me think that we Christians need to adjust how we think about marriage. Too often we focus first on the posed situations. “When can people get divorced?” “Which marriage is recognized by God?” “Can marriage survive without love?” If we’re answering wrong, we build a list that shows what to avoid and when you’re okay. Indeed, we don’t have 613 laws for tough questions. We need to start elsewhere. (tl;dr)
There are plenty of ways to destroy a church. Vandalism aside, you can put into practice any of the age-old heresies so that the church goes into the abyss at full stride. You can stop preaching the Gospel. You can even just all stop coming. Thing is, I don’t only want to talk about how to destroy a church but rather how to destroy a distinct type of gathering of God’s people—the Open Brethren assemblies.
Open Brethren have historically been committed the centrality of Christ, the weekly declaration of the Lord’s death and resurrection, a high commitment to Scripture, commitment to missionary work, and to pursing the simplicity of worship of Christ found in the principles afforded to us within the New Testament. This last bit dovetails back into the Lord’s Supper and (what other Christians might call peculiarities, but we call) brethren distinctives. It’s why Open Brethren for years gathered outside of other denominations to proclaim the death and resurrection of Christ in obedience to his command “This do in remembrance of me.” It’s why the Open Brethren don’t even like to use that term, but rather pin “so-called” in front of it. We’re largely committed to just calling ourselves “brethren” according to the principles we see laid down in Scripture.
There’s a way to kill all of that.
In a few easy and non-ordered steps (so far numbering six, the number man), I’ll show you how one can go about murdering a ministry and a movement of a local church. It should only take a little bit of time but, if you go about it the right way, you can deeply injure the believers who have been trying to faithfully gather in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
A list of messages that cover First and Second Timothy which were preached in Bristol Bible Chapel in 2017.