Ideas about the Kingdom of the Heavens around us and the unity of believers in Christ within it
Titus 3:10 instructs whenever a divisive person approaches ME and tries to start an argument, I am to warn them twice about their behavior and then excuse myself. Thereafter I should ignore them, until they repent of their argumentativeness. It is a simple instruction by which I can avoid being influenced by divisiveness. It is not an instruction to the Church or the State to burn heretics.
In Galatians 5:17-23, “heresies” are one of the works of the flesh–something we do, not something we believe. These works are opposed by the fruit of the Spirit.
Factions, “hereseis,” as used in 1 Corinthians 11:19, clearly does not refer to divisions caused by false teachers. Instead, in that context, it refers to divisions caused by neglect and humiliation of poor believers and by the formation of personality cults.
The words “heretic” and “heresy” in English New Testament translations are actually transliterations of Greek words that primarily denote division or divisiveness. They are used with those primary meanings in Acts. They did not come to secondarily connote teaching,teachers or doctrines disapproved by a church organization until the late second century. Tha authors of the New Testament did not know of this later technical meaning.
Heresy is properly defined as divisiveness, not merely believing a false doctrine. Heretics are divisive people. Those who state doctrines with which I disagree, but do so without insisting on division because of my belief, are not heretics. Thus calls for mutual understanding and patience.
Between the end of the First Century CE and the end of the Sixth Century, Christianity grew but also deteriorated in a number of ways. The deterioration arose mainly from the infiltration of Greek philosophy, a change in emphasis to mass evangelism and the politicization of Christianity, followed by the questionable conversion of Constantine. These changes set up many of the specific parts of Christianity that Islam either adopted, or reacted strongly against. They also set up mucj of later European history.
A God who Speaks, Church purpose versus church growth, Compulsory Christianity, God Acts by Speaking, God Never Stopped Speaking, God Speaks to Us, God's Voice, Heresy, Historical Background, Injustice and Lawsuits, Islam and Christianity, Jesus the Son, Other Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Our Oneness in Christ book revision, Peril of Seeking Numbers, Peril of Seeking Power, Peril of Seeking Respectability, Religious violence and persecution, Replacing Relationship with Morality, Social control and statecraft, Son of Man, The Bible, Through the church, Trinity, Unity, Wars as consequences, What Islam borrowed from Christianity
Our disunity also leaves us vulnerable to exploitation by false teachers and their distorted religious teachings, with which they seek to win a personal following for their own gratification or profit. proper recognition of the oneness of the Body, and of the importance of living in oneness, protects against divisive people.
Christianity lost its true influence in the world when it pursued the power it could gain as a mass movement, stopped loving, and started fighting. One of the overlooked consequences of this was the rise of Islam.
Church purpose versus church growth, Divisions in the Church, Heresy, Islam and Christianity, Islam as a Consequence, Leaving Our First Love, Our Oneness in Christ book revision, Peril of Seeking Numbers, Peril of Seeking Power, Religious violence and persecution, Wars as consequences, What Islam borrowed from Christianity
God is a complex unity–Three in One by nature–and is also one with us who believe, by adoption. He is not an absolutely simple unity, as is often taught. This false teaching comes from early efforts to make the Gospel more acceptable to the upper classes of Roman society by introducing Neoplatonist philosophy into it. But it instead destroys the Gospel by making God incapable of having any real unity with his children.
Jesus is fully human. When he was born as a man, that man was in every way like us, except that he was without sin… The fact of Jesus’ full humanity is important because without it we have NOTHING–no life, no forgiveness, no peace with God, no promise of God’s kindness or guidance, no power, no resurrection, no hope.