As I study this morning I am going over four major views/ denominational views if you will. As I study these views the Holy Spirit is revealing something to me. It is amazing really. God has given me the vision of church unity for the last 3 years. I'm still not sure what he wants me to do with that vision. Anyway, He is showing me that all denominations for the most part are right and yet wrong at the same time! How can this be you say. The main argument for at least the four I am studying are all biblically true. However, they each insist that their way is the only way. How can this be? If each main view is biblical how can only one be right? God never intended for denominations. God intended for a unified Church. Jesus prayed for a unified Church in John 17. The problem comes when we take our view and rest on that view thus taking scripture out of context and not looking at what The Bible is really saying, in turn not allowing Gods Word to work. They all argue with Bible versus, this seems silly to me. If you all use Bible versus, and you say the other is wrong, are you not in essence saying the Bible is wrong? Or are you so egotistical that you actually think that you have the one and only full understanding of Gods Word? Gods word was meant to be used together. Not individual sections used for your own personal belief system that matches the kind of life you want to live or think other should live.
Why don't we take the truths of the Bible and use them how they were meant to be used...together! lets unify as the Church and stop all this petty arguing over what we think and let God speak to us through his Word.
Its not that one denomination is right or wrong. The problem is that each of them use one or two sections in the Bible, often times one or two verses and base their whole denomination on that! I don't know about you, but to me it seems that if God only wanted us to use part of the Bible he would have only given us the Bible in part.
Unity in Christ as the Church does not mean doing the same thing everyone else does. It means understanding that Christ is the only way to The Father and understanding that church A and Church B may practice things a little different. However, that does not mean they are wrong. Each denomination I am studying has its purpose and that is great! Non of them are leading people away from Christ which is also great! (some of them may be in danger of leading people to Christ without giving them the expectation/commands that God has for followers.)However, non of them are unified as the Church. Can you imagine for one minute, pastors, elders, lay leaders, ministers of the gospel, CHRISTIANS, if we would all come together for the sake of Jesus Christ. If we could all see that our view may be correct but not exclusive. That God will use our understanding for one and another understanding for someone else? Yes maintaining a biblical view is important, if there was only one view there would be no need for the Bible to talk about unity as there already would be. There would be no need to talk about the Church being one body but many members doing different things. It seems denominations think that the Church should be one body with many parts doing the same thing! This just is not possible! Come on Church, Jesus calls for unity so lets unify together to build Gods kingdom and bring other people into His kingdom through Christ.
Now don't get me wrong, I do feel that there are some major flaws in some denominations caused by the lack of understanding context and/or only using one set of scripture for their whole view of sanctification and justification. We should never just assume that all are right. However, this does not mean that their scriptural content is wrong, just misused. Their view, although different from ours must match up with the entire nature of God and context in which sanctification and justification come. It seems that these four denominational views do use scripture, however all four of them seem to have taken scripture out of context just enough to exclude other views. It would almost seem more appropriate to combine all four denominational views under the correct understanding of each other. The I feel each denomination would see that each view is correct to a degree because they are all based off of scripture, thus causing the Church to unify under the proper understanding and removing what is not biblical. The issue is we have become so pig headed about what we feel is right , that we are not even willing to consider the view point of another. In turn giving the other denomination a good reason to believe that they are right because we are proving their point for them. It is a big circle. Wont you be the one to stop the never ending circle of denominational debate? Won't you stand for what God's word teaches in whole?
This is a huge subject I know. To big to fully dig into here. It is more of book material than anything. This is just the outline of what The Holy Spirit is revealing to me. I know it is not complete and He will show the Churh more.
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