Last week in Small Group I mentioned something I learned from my coursework in Romans. Someone commented it was good to see there are things in the Bible I still have to learn. Believe me I have a lot to learn!
A couple days ago I was listening on the radio to Chuck Swindoll, a world renowned Bible teacher and one of the top preachers of our time. He said although he had read and taught the passage they were studying in II Chronicles numerous times there was a verse he had never seen before. Not that it wasn’t there all along, it just hadn’t caught his attention.
That is the great thing about God’s Word, it’s always new and fresh and no matter how much you know and study it there are always new things to learn.
This happened to me as I was reading through I Corinthians 11 recently. The chapter begins with the authority and order in the church. The last part is the great presentation of importance and solemnity the Lord’s Supper or Communion.
In the middle of the chapter, as Paul transitions from one theme to the other he wrote these words;
“But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part, I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, in order that those who are approved may have become evident among you.” (verses 17-19)
Verse 19 caught my eye like it had just been added since the last time I read the chapter. “For there must also be factions among you, in order that those who are approved may have become evident among you.”
Notice how Paul words it. He doesn’t say, “there might be factions” or “there will be factions.” What he says under the inspiration and direction of the Holy Spirit is that “there must be factions.” (emphasis added)
Is he saying there must be because people are sinful and selfish and that a natural result of that is factions?
I don’t think so.
The word “must” is a very strong and powerful word. For example when Peter and the other apostles were told by the Sanhedrin to stop preaching the gospel, they replied, “We must [same word] obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). According to Dr. John MacArthur in his commentary on I Corinthians, “The word is often used in the New Testament to represent divine necessity.”
It seems Paul is saying that factions are a part of church life in order to make evident the sin and selfishness of individuals or groups in the church and the spiritual maturity of others.
But, some may say, doesn’t God hate factions? Doesn’t He only want unity?
Yes He does and if all men and women were led by the Spirit and under His control there would be peace and harmony. But people often choose to follow their own desires and seek after their own interests.
What Paul is saying is since people don’t always listen to and obey the Holy Spirit but instead pursue their personal agenda, God uses factions in the church “in order that those who are approved may have become evident.”
Now two things stand out that this verse isn’t saying.
First, it is not saying it’s okay for me to get a faction started. It is something that develops but not something I am to coordinate or initiate.
Second, this doesn’t say who are the ones who are approved, those who stay or those who go. The verse people love to use in situations like this is 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us.”
What the verse does say, and I think what I’m to learn from it, is that God uses factions as a dividing line to make evident those who are truly following Him.
And how is that evident? Not but the number of verses one side or the other can quote to prove their side is right but by their words, their actions and their attitudes.
Galatians 5:22, 23 give us insight, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
Also I Corinthians 13:4-7, “Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Factions in the church are excruciating. They can damage people, friendships and the reputation of the church in the community.
God uses them though to bring wrong and harmful directions and attitudes to light and give those who are spiritual the opportunity to evidence their true love and commitment to the Lord.
I’m not sure why but that’s what’s been on my heart this week.
Mark