Romans 14:10
10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.
The Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary reports as of 2019 that there are 45,000 Christian denominations worldwide. The Universal Church is more unified than that. The vast majority of these agree on the essential beliefs of the faith, that Jesus is the Son of God and his death and resurrection are our hope for the world. But it does reveal something about human nature. The first church in Acts had one mind and had miracles every day. The church today is splintered and has business meetings every day.
What happened? Read Romans 14 and you will see that it started early. First, there are false teachers and some doctrines are just plain wrong. But Paul noticed little skirmishes over minor issues in the church. This is good in that the church was spreading and encountering different cultures. Therefore, believers ate different food and held different days as sacred. Paul opened this chapter by telling them “not to quarrel over opinions”.
The Holy Spirit is alive and well in the Church today. All over the world, people who walked in darkness are seeing the light of Jesus Christ. There is, however, a growing tribalism in the American church. “I follow this preacher” or “I follow this theologian”. The church in Corinth had dealt with this in the 1st century and Paul hated it. In the 21st century, we will need to agree on fundamentals and work together in this Post-Christian society. Satan loves division and his favorite battleground is the church parking lot where we put each other down. We will all kneel together for eternity in worship of Jesus Christ our King.
Let’s try a dry run today.