Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Do We Get Too Wrapped Up in Denominations? | Questions You're Asking | Romans 14-15

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Right now, we're answering questions that you're asking. A lot of these are coming from our Facebook page. So if you follow 10-minute Bible Talks on Facebook, you can ask questions that you want us to answer or vote on questions that other people are asking. Today's question is a fun one. Do we get too wrapped up in the nominations?

Starting point is 00:00:33 A fun question, but I don't think you're going to like my answer because it's the answer no one likes. And that is, well, it depends. Some people do and some people don't. Some people are really anti-denominational. In other words, they think denominations are bad for the church. They've seen denominational abuse or they've seen people who are more loyal to their denomination than they are to Jesus. And so they've come to the conclusion that denominations are wrong. wrong. But on the other hand, you have people who have seen the denomination they've been a part of

Starting point is 00:01:09 do a lot of good things. Now, the temptation there is to make the denomination more important than following Jesus. So you become more loyal to advancing the denomination you're in, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Catholic, whatever, than you are to Christ. And there's a loyalty there that can get out of whack. Instead of being loyal to Jesus, we become more. loyal to a particular denomination that we're a part of. So can denominations be good? Absolutely, and we'll talk about that. But can denominations pose an obstacle to our faith? Sure, if we let them. When the crossing started back in 2000, we were started in part by a church out of St. Louis that was part of the evangelical Presbyterian church. And theologically and relationally,

Starting point is 00:01:58 and just the way the denomination is set up, we felt very comfortable. joining that group. Now, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church is a pretty small denomination. Good chance you've never heard of it. In fact, even if you went to our church, the crossing in Columbia, there's a good chance that you wouldn't even know we were a part of that denomination. In other words, not something we talk about very often. It's something you learn a little bit about if you go through our new members class. But I remember back in the very early days of the crossing, we had evangelical Presbyterian Church printed on a lot of our material. things like business cards, stuff like that. And what we came to the conclusion was is that that was

Starting point is 00:02:38 really dumb. We began to see that denominations have baggage. And then when people read evangelical Presbyterian Church, they didn't know what that was or what that meant. And therefore, we realized that it was becoming an obstacle to people coming to try out this new church in town. So what we did, I still remember it very vividly, as Dave and I went back to our little makeshift office after we'd had this conversation realizing that this wasn't a wise direction. And we threw away everything in our office that had evangelical Presbyterian Church written on it. We didn't have much money back then, and so it was a costly decision on our part to reprint everything. But we knew it was worth it.

Starting point is 00:03:25 From then on, we've said, sure, we're present. Presbyterians, but we're Presbyterians with a small P. In other words, we're about Jesus, not about Presbyterianism. I didn't even grow up in a Christian home, much less a Presbyterian home, so that's not my cause at all. And yet, I think denominations can have a really good role to play inside the church. But let's start here. Is there anything that makes us think that denominations are biblical? And I think the answer is yes. It's not that the Bible gives us a blueprint for denominations as they're structured today. Not at all. But we do see in Acts 15 that leadership of the church gathered, leaders from different parts of the church, they gathered and they

Starting point is 00:04:11 made decisions that were binding on all the churches. They made theological decisions. They made decisions about emphases. And those were binding on all the churches. And so we see that there's a paradigm in the New Testament of churches working together and consulting one another and even making decisions that the whole church followed. Now, the reality is that there are thousands of denominations in the United States alone. How did all those denominations come about? Well, it would be hard to answer that specifically for every denomination, but we can at least have some broad categories. Some, I'm sure, came about because of disagreements, selfish disagreements, arguments, factions, people who didn't get along with one another.

Starting point is 00:05:01 The reality is that this side of heaven, God's church, is always made up of sinners, and therefore you're going to find debates and divisions that are wrong and sinful. But there are other more legitimate reasons for denominations. For example, sometimes Christians have disagreed. about secondary areas of belief or practice, things that are not essential to the Christian faith. For example, what does baptism mean and who should get baptized? Christians disagree on that. How should local churches be structured?

Starting point is 00:05:37 Who should fill leadership roles? How often should communion be practiced? There are a lot of issues that are not clear in the Bible that people have disagreements on, and denominations are formed so that people are. can work with those who are like-minded to themselves. In Romans 14 and 15, it gives Christians permission to come to their own conclusions on what we might call gray areas or secondary issues in the faith. Sometimes denominations are formed around certain worship styles. Some people prefer more tradition in their worship service, some more spontaneity. Some churches are going to

Starting point is 00:06:19 be different and have different approaches just because of where they're located. Maybe they're in a big city or maybe they're in a rural area. Some churches are going to have different emphasis. They might minister to different kinds of people. And I think that's okay. We shouldn't expect for every church to be exactly the same. And therefore, there's nothing wrong with a church wanting to work with other Christians who have the same perspective, the same theological beliefs, the same mission, and a similar style that they have. So denominations have formed, at least historically speaking, for all kinds of reasons. Some better than others, but it is what it is. There are thousands of denominations in our own country. Can anything good come from them? Sure. One good thing that comes from belonging to a

Starting point is 00:07:12 denomination is that you can work with other churches to accomplish projects that you couldn't do on your own. So, for example, a bunch of churches together can have a bigger mission program than they could if they just acted by themselves. They pool money, wisdom, resources, facilities, and they can send missionaries overseas or in their own local community. Another benefit of denominations is accountability. It's good for us to to be accountable for our behavior or our theological beliefs to other churches. And so, for example, when a person becomes a pastor at our church, they aren't just appointed a pastor by our local individual church, but there are other churches in our denomination who examine the character

Starting point is 00:08:01 and theological beliefs of the pastoral candidate, and those other churches have to agree that this person is called, gifted, and qualified to be a pastor. If a pastor or a church begins to go off the rails and do things that are inappropriate or sinful or go against the theological distinctives of the church, then other churches in the denomination can call them on it and hold them accountable to what they say they believe, to hold them accountable to following Jesus. Churches that are completely independent are more susceptible to be led astray by personalities or, by certain powerful people, or they might just fall into the trap of having theology that is changed by the culture that they live in. In other words, there's nothing to hold themselves accountable to. They haven't agreed upon anything that they're willing to stand by. And so there's a lot of danger in being a completely independent church. Am I saying it's for sure wrong? No. Just like there

Starting point is 00:09:09 are some dangers to be a part of a denomination, so there are dangers to being independent. But, of course, denominations do go wrong when they become more about factions or self-righteousness or looking down on others, when they become more about advancing their cause than the cause of Christ. We've probably all met people who are more committed to their denomination than they are to Jesus. In John 17, Jesus prays for unity among the people. the church. He prays that we as Christians will be one, just as he and the father are one. Now, what kind of unity is he referring to there? I think he's referring to relational unity, not organizational unity. I think he wants all of us as Christians to love one another, to care

Starting point is 00:09:58 for one another, to learn from one another, to respect one another, to pray for one another, to encourage one another, to weep and grieve with one another, to hold one another account, to following Jesus. I don't think he's talking about organizational unity, that we all have to be a part of churches that are exactly the same. Can we have relational unity while being a part of different denominations? Of course. I've been a part of groups of pastors who are a part of a wide variety of denominations that have gotten together and prayed for the city, that have gotten together to work on behalf of the city, to show the community that although there are some things that we disagree on, what we agree on in Christ is far greater. We are not organizationally connected to these churches, but we are connected because we follow the same Christ, the same Savior. We call Jesus King. So Christians must have relational unity, even when they don't have organizational unity. So are denominations good? Well, they can be. They can offer a lot of help and encouragement, but they can also be an obstacle

Starting point is 00:11:13 when our loyalty to them becomes greater than our loyalty to Jesus. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Do We Get Too Wrapped Up in Denominations? | Questions You're Asking | Romans 14-15

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