I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. Such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Romans 16:17-20
Paul’s words to the Romans emphasize the necessity of doctrinal faithfulness. It’s crucial. And so is unity. Some people emphasize one, and some the other. The Church today seems to be made of two kinds of people: those who promote purity and those who believe unity must be at the forefront. Unity naturally emphasizes the preciousness of personal relationships, but tend to neglect an emphasis on truth. The purity advocates naturally emphasize the preciousness of truth and tend to neglect the nurturing value of personal relationships.
In fact, you could probably categorize people, churches, denominations, institutions and movements in the Church today (or even in society in general) along these lines: There are those who emphasize doctrinal purity, and there are those that emphasize relational unity.
As this year ends and the hope of 2017 looms, I hope you are feeling uncomfortable with that pat description. The right reaction might be something like this… “Do we have to choose? Can’t it be both? Can’t you love truth and love people?” In fact, it would be an even more biblical perspective if you found yourself thinking, “I don’t even think you can love people if you don’t love truth. How can you do what is ultimately good for people if you don’t have any strong convictions about what is ultimately good?”
And yet there is no escaping the reality that people and churches and denominations and schools and even whole periods in history have forced one way or the other. I think the period of history we live in is not an easy time to be a lover of truth. The most common criticism, if you stand for an important truth and imply by that stand that others should believe it, is that you are arrogant, which is the opposite of being loving (1 Corinthians 13:4), and therefore you are undermining relationships.
For many Christians today the only path to peaceful relationships in a pluralistic world is the path of no explicit truth be given any consideration by anyone. If no one claims that what he believes deserves consideration from anyone else, then we can live together in peace. Right? So peaceful pluralism and diminished truth claims go hand in hand.
Wrong. It doesn’t work like that. When there is no truth that deserves consideration, the only arbiter in our competing viewpoints is power. Where truth doesn’t define what’s right, might will always make the decision. When the universal claim of truth disappears, what you get is not peaceful pluralism or loving relationships; what you get is social unrest and eventually brutality and the emergence of all forms of bigotries.
I want all people to see what the Bible says [what God is saying to humanity] …its absolute truths and uncompromising requirements for unity among believers as the foundation for living on this planet. Its not one or the other, or one over the other… purity verses truth… its both combined, blended into the doctrines of God’s truth that bind people together in unity of belief. the importance of being a purity boy for the sake of being a unity boy. It pictures a way of thinking and living that most of our fellow Americans would consider offensive, unloving, fundamentalistic, and out of date.
As this hard year of 2016 ends with all of its bitter divisiveness, my hope is that everyone who calls themselves a “Christian” will be freed from any blindness or bondage to this truth-diminishing period of time in which we live. Don’t forget… Christ is coming back and all of this whatever you think of it, is passing away!
And I pray that, because of this liberty we have in Christ, you would know what it is to love your adversaries and that you would have fresh power from the gospel to magnify Christ in showing that love in the 365 days to come.
