Letter to a Divided Church

Christian brothers and sisters co-existing in broken community will never regain the true spirit of kinship until they begin to mutually and personally come to terms with the present shadow of sin in their very own hearts. The very nature of pride is a short-sighted perspective, a sort of spiritual myopia that clings to what should be let go and bears down on what should be forgiven. And, though this sort of condition of the heart prevails in society, in culture, and in men and women across every possible line of demarcation, this condition, a condition sometimes burdening the very heart of a church, should never be ignored or seen as trivial; in fact, it is of ultimate spiritual significance.

In I Corinthians, Paul wrote about division, unity, and the spirit of reconciliation:

The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don’t need you!' On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we [should] treat with special honor…[and] there should be no division in the body, but…its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. (I Cor. 12:21-23, 25-26)

We are truly each members of the Body of Christ, the Church. And to the extent that we fail to live together in a spirit of love, the name of Christ is slandered, and to the extent that we draw unto one another in forgiveness, reconciliation, and through shared faith and hope, Christ is glorified and the world is blessed. Yes, truly, it is through us that Christ works to bring a fallen world into repentance, and it is through one another that we are sanctified; or, in the tone of our Christian Proverb, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another" (Prov. 27:17).

But what happens when our pride and sin becomes an obstacle to our love for one another? What happens when our mutual pride begins to stomp out the remaining flickers of grace and civility? The sin that so easily entangles us serves to choke out the breath of faith and the gospel of Christ from the life of our church, and there is only one hope for restoration: that He increase, and we decrease (John 3:30).