![]() On an individual level, every true believer is one with every other true believer due to shared life in Christ (1 Cor. The subject of unity is further complicated by the fact that there are different levels of unity. But today there are often dozens of churches in every city in the world. ![]() Probably in larger cities, these churches gathered in numerous house churches, since churches did not construct buildings for worship until the fourth century. All who believed in Jesus were a part of the church in the city where they lived. In the New Testament, the local church was primarily defined by the city: the church in Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Rome, or wherever. ![]() I say “thankfully,” because they teach that everyone is predestined to be either good seed or bad seed and therefore mission activity is both unbiblical and useless! May their tribe decrease! Among the Baptists alone, there are dozens of different groups, including the Southern Baptists, American Baptists, Conservative Baptists, Calvinistic Baptists, Free Will Baptists, General Baptists, Landmark Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Old Regular Baptists, Old Time Missionary Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, and Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists! Thankfully, in 2002 there were only about five congregations of the latter group left (). While the statistics vary widely, there are thousands of Protestant denominations in the world, plus many groups of Catholic and Orthodox Christians. Others require that you agree with their views of prophecy, abstaining from all use of alcohol and tobacco, women not using makeup or wearing pants, or other debatable matters. For example, some will fellowship only with those who use the 1611 King James Bible. ![]() On the other side of the spectrum, in an attempt to preserve the purity of the church, some Christians divide from everyone who does not agree with them on even minor issues. Let’s focus on where we agree and set aside the areas where we disagree.” So sound doctrine gets jettisoned in favor of everyone joining hands and singing, “We are One in the Spirit.” But the resulting “unity” is not true biblical unity. It is frequently misapplied when people say, “They will know that we are Christians by our love, not by our doctrinal agreement. The unity of the church is one of the most important subjects in the New Testament, but it’s also one of the most difficult to apply in a biblically faithful manner. ![]()
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