Title: God’s Dream Team: a Call to Unity
Author: Tommy Tinney
Sku: SKU1040646
ISBN: 9780830723843 / 0830723846
Topic: Christian Theology / Ecclesiology
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A Book on Church Unity
Stinking Christians and Dying Babies
Just as God uses Church unity to draw people to Himself, the enemy uses disunity and division in the Church to turn people away from it and from God. Division has caused more Christians to leave the Lord than any other reason within the Church itself. Temptation and sin work hard to lead us away from faith and holy living, but even sin and temptation pale in comparison to the hellish destructive power of division directed against the Church.
Now, take all the sins listed in Satan’s catalog of damnation and throw them all into a pile. Take all those who fell away from Christ because of adultery, murder, lust, pride, and hypocrisy—and throw them into the pile, too. Add to it all the other fallen, guilty of every sin you can think of—be sure not to forget anything or anyone… Now let’s start a new pile—specifically for those who fell away from God as a result of division and civil strife in the Church. And let’s compare… Personal sins formed a small hill. But the sin of division—a mountain as huge as Everest!
Victims of Division
How often do we Christians gather in church and, behind the guise of animated discussions about love and virtue, conceal the clash of individual wills, the unkind words, gossip, and rumors just waiting to be uttered, as well as our mistrust of one another, our suspicions of every mortal sin. And it doesn’t matter why someone suddenly begins expressing their irritation or pushing their problem onto everyone as the most pressing issue of the day (even though, in reality, these problems are often trivial). In reality, it’s all just a means of control, a struggle for supremacy, the result of the exaltation of an inflated, self-righteous ego. And all of this destroys the foundation of the Church and leads to the formation of fissures in the Body of Christ.
It’s not today that it was said, “It all comes down to a question of power and control.” But I’ll tell you this: there are no problems at all. A problem is always just a means of control. Unity will be born when we submit our human wills to the Father and grant Him complete authority over our hearts, our lives, and our gatherings. Division flourishes where human wills reign supreme. The struggle for power and control destroys any hope of unity.
Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee among Pharisees, rode his horse with great confidence until one day God cast him to the ground. On that day, as he was marching toward Damascus, Jesus asked him a simple question: “Why do you persecute Me?” (Acts 9:4). And with that simple question, He clearly expressed a crucial thought: if you persecute the Church, you persecute Christ.
