Subject: Why is the Christian Church so divided? |
Bible Note: Hi, Krowland... Welcome to the forum! It depends on what you are talking about when you use the term church. Remember that Paul was speaking to a specific congregation, at a particular moment in history. If we were going to generalize more broadly, we would need to do so on the basis of the principles we derive from this particular instance, plus all that Scripture has to say about unity in local congregations. Also, remember that there is the institutions and organizations that we can see visibly that we refer to as churches. We see that in this example -- the church in Corinth -- as well as the church we regularly attend. However, there is another sense in which the church is something much larger and unseen by our physical eyes. Remember how the Apostles Creed states, "One holy catholic church?" This speaks to a unity, sanctity, and universality of the called-out ones. This is the Temple made without hands, built upon the teaching of the apostles and the prophets, of which Christ is the cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20-22), of which all individual believers are living stones (1 Peter 2:3-10). Consequently, how God perceives each of these -- though we call them both churches -- will be quite different. The former cover a wide range of purity, while the latter is perfect and complete. In Him, Doc |