Harmony in The Church
By Bruce Horne, Ph.D.
On the day in Caesarea Philippi that Jesus Christ of Nazareth said He would build His church, He must have anticipated the many obstacles His ekklesia—His cadre of called out ones—would face between the formal birth of the church on the day of Pentecost in the early A.D. 30s and Jesus’ eventual return to earth to establish the Kingdom of God. Not the least of the obstacles has been a tendency toward disharmony in the Body of Christ, a condition that has manifested itself from the apostolic period to the present with little if any interruption.
The literature of the primitive church contains specific examples of conditions leading to disharmony among brethren and even among church leaders. In his farewell discourse to the elders at Ephesus, recounted in Acts 20:28-30, the Apostle Paul admonished his colleagues to monitor closely their own spiritual lives and shepherd the flock over which the Holy Spirit had given them guardianship. Paul said plainly that following his departure, predatory individuals he described as wolves would come among the brethren and not spare the flock. Paul further warned that from within the church itself individuals would emerge and twist the truth of the gospel to draw away personal followings. He writes in II Timothy 4 of “. . . men . . . [who do] not put up with sound doctrine,” preferring instead to “…gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (verse 3). Paul further notes how they “. . . turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (verse 4). One finds this same general category of apostates mentioned in many passages in the New Testament, particularly in the writings of Paul, Peter, John, and in the epistle of Jude.
A man who promoted disharmony in the early church whose name was deemed worthy of remembrance for his deeds is Diotrephes. In III John the author tells of Diotrephes who “. . . [loved] to be first” (verse 9), spurned John and his traveling companions, refused to show brotherly love toward members of the church, opposed those who wished to do so, and expelled them from the assembly (verses 9-10). Truly what is past is prologue!
Of course, not all instances of disharmony in the church involve serious doctrinal or administrative issues. What about the many mundane disagreements and wrongs, both real and imagined, with which most of us deal as part and parcel of our church experience?
Jesus said that love for one another would be the central characteristic of His followers. Indeed, it was and is the distinguishing factor that identifies true Christians to the world (John 13:34).
Unfortunately, Christians do not always show forth that love. We offend each other. We transgress against each other. How are such infractions to be handled within a scriptural paradigm?
Matthew 18:15-17 provides a methodology for resolving issues of various kinds between and among brethren at the personal level. The overall context for this scriptural process of conflict resolution is given in verses 11-14 and shows that Jesus’ ultimate goal is to save what is lost to sin. The motivation behind any resolution must be to restore.
In that light if a brother or sister “sins” against another member of the church, the one wronged must go to the offender in private and point out his or her fault. If the transgressor hears the one offended and agrees to a redress of whatever the grievance might be, the Christian bond between them can be restored. If he or she does not hear the injured party’s plea, however, the aggrieved brother or sister is to go back to the offender with one or two other brethren, “. . . so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses” (verse 16). If at this juncture the one who has sinned or has given offence refuses to hear the one wronged and his or her witnesses, the matter must be brought before the church. This step is one typically taken only in extreme circumstances. If the offender—now literally on trial before the entire assembly—still refuses to listen, he or she is to be treated as “. . . a pagan or a tax collector” (verse 17). To be thus anathematized would effectively preclude one’s future fellowship within the assembly unless or until fruits meet for repentance were presented as evidence of a regenerate state.
While personal issues of offence among brethren should not be allowed to languish lest bitterness and further discord result, cases of sin or division affecting the assembly as a whole are more serious and must be dealt with swiftly and decisively. Sometimes a person or persons must be separated from the fellowship of believers because they remain in an unrepentant state after receiving less punitive degrees of correction.
The rebellion of Korah related in Numbers 16 provides a strong example for understanding how sin can affect the collective. One recalls how Korah, a Levite, launched a mini-rebellion and recruited a kind of grievance committee to present Moses and Aaron with a list of complaints. The complaints were (1) that Moses was no better than anyone else among the people; (2) that everyone in Israel had been chosen by the Lord for service; and (3) that the people—particularly Korah and his fellow rebels—did not need to obey Moses and Aaron. It is interesting to observe from the standpoint of logic how Korah skewed the first two elements of his argument, both of which essentially were true, to reach a wrong and ultimately disastrous conclusion.
Numerous lessons are found in the story of Korah. One of the more salient is that wrong desire for what someone else in the church has, whether perceived authority, esteem, or position, often fuels one’s discontent with his or her own status or role to an incendiary point. The next steps one takes, which can include attacks on local leadership or attempts to wrest scripture into conformity with one’s personal goals and ends, conceivably could lead to a negative outcome analogous to that of Korah. Said outcome may or may not be as dramatic as the one Korah experienced, but why would one wish to test God in such manner?
In the epistle to the Ephesians Paul elaborates to his audience the blessings, manifold and wonderful, that believers in the Way have received from and through Jesus Christ. Paul metaphorically refers to the church as a body, temple, bride, and soldier, thus illustrating in his soaring, Spirit-inspired rhetoric how each member of the church is an interconnected and interdependent part of the house the Lord is building, a part that ultimately must work in harmony with all the other parts. Implicit in Paul’s language is the admonition that believers should strive to eliminate all gossip, criticism, vanity, jealously, lust, greed, anger, bitterness, competition, and backbiting from their individual and collective lives as these are hindrances to unity among brethren and invariably promote a spirit of disharmony in the Body of Christ.
Praise be to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that He foresaw the obstacles His church would have to surmount and provided, in the pages of the Bible, a blueprint for harmony in the church. That blueprint is the sure Word of God playing out in the lives of brethren in whom dwells the Holy Spirit, which in its elemental function is a Spirit of peace leading to harmony in all things.
