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
Stinky Christians and Dying Babies
Just as God uses the unity of the Church to draw people to Himself, the enemy uses disunity and division to turn people away from both the Church and God. Internal division has driven more Christians away from the Lord than any other issue within the Church itself. Temptation and sin strive relentlessly to lead us away from faith and a life of holiness, yet even they pale in comparison to the hellish, destructive power of division unleashed against the Body of Christ.
Imagine taking every sin listed in Satan’s catalog of condemnation and throwing them into a single pile. Toss in all those who fell away from Christ through adultery, murder, lust, pride, and hypocrisy. Add every other fallen soul guilty of any sin you can possibly imagine — make sure not to leave anyone or anything out… Now, let’s start a second pile — specifically for those who fell away from God as a result of division, chasm, and strife within the Church. If we compare the two, personal sins would form merely a small hill, while the sin of division would tower like Mount Everest!
Victims of Division
How often do we as Christians gather in church and, beneath the veneer of lively discussions about love and virtue, hide the collision of individual wills? We harbor unkind words, gossip, and rumors waiting to slip off our tongues, alongside deep mistrust and mutual suspicion. It matters little why someone suddenly begins venting their frustration or pushing their personal issue as the most urgent matter of the day (when, in truth, most of these issues are utterly trivial). In reality, it is all just a tool for control, a struggle for dominance, and the manifestation of a bloated, self-righteous ego. All of this erodes the very foundation of the Church and creates deep fissures in the Body of Christ.
It has long been said that “it all comes down to power and control.” But I submit this to you: many of these “problems” do not even exist — a problem is often just a pretext for control. True unity is birthed when we surrender our human wills to the Father and grant Him complete authority over our hearts, our lives, and our assemblies. Division, on the other hand, thrives wherever human self-will reigns supreme. The relentless struggle for power and control destroys any hope that we will ever be one.
Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee of Pharisees, rode tall in the saddle with absolute confidence — until one day God knocked him to the ground. As he journeyed toward Damascus, Jesus asked him a simple yet profound question: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4). With those few words, the Lord revealed a crucial truth: whenever you persecute or tear down the Church, you are persecuting Christ Himself.