Rejection of Unity Makes Us Vulnerable to Divisive Leaders and their False Teachings

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.

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. There are three reasons for this. First, when we choose to live contrary to the truth, our tendency is to look for teachers who will reassure us that what we are doing is right—and many such teachers exist, who will, for a price, reassure us that God approves of whatever it is we are doing. See, Romans 16:17-18; 1 Timothy 6:3-5; 2 Timothy 4:3-4; 2 Peter 2:1-3, 13-19; Jude 1:4, 16-19. Second, false teachers and groups advocating false religious ideas in the Church generally attempt to create division; indeed the very word “heretic”–Greek, hairetikon anthrōpon, is used only once in the New Testament, in Titus 3:10, and translated as “heretick” in the KJV but as “factious man” or “divisive person” in most modern translations– primarily denotes a divisive person. Truly divisive teachers usually attempt to keep their followers separate from other Christians. Diotrephes, of whom John wrote in 3 John 1:9-10, is only a particularly extreme example of this—he would not receive John or his messengers and put out of his church anyone who did. For another example of this, see Galatians 2:11-14 and 4:16-17. All of this will be discussed at greater length in future posts.

The remedy the New Testament prescribes for the appearance of divisive persons in a church is that the church leaders should first warn them, and then exclude them from the church if they persist. Titus 3:9-11. It is not to fight, prosecute or kill the offending people, as has been the unfortunate habit of the organized Church, but only to exclude them from the church unless they repent. Jesus is the Truth, and is fully capable of defending himself!

However, this remedy only works properly in a united church. It does not work well if false teachers are able to simply leave and attach themselves to another, separate church organization that does not cooperate with the church that excluded them. It also does not work well if, as is usual in the church today, the leadership of the divisive person’s church is so lazy, or so fearful of offending other members, that it neglects to warn the divisive member in the first place. On the other hand, proper recognition of the oneness of the Body, and of the importance of living in oneness, protects against divisive teaching.