Save for a direct intervention by God, Christians will likely disagree and remain divided on interpreting the Bible  (see section 2) in many matters of faith and practice until Christ returns.

THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH versus EXTERNAL UNITY

Although Christianity is the world’s largest faith, it is still a minority. Less than a third of all human beings on this planet identify as Christian, making the desire for unity before a watching world seem all the more compelling. We live between the tension of Jesus’ call to unity among His followers (John 17) and Jesus’ equal call to pursue truth passionately and divide from unbiblical error (Matthew 22:29 / Mark 12:24).

If the only thing that mattered for Christians was external organizational unity, the obvious choice would be to stop reading the Bible as the final authority and join the largest Christian group you could find, which for centuries has been Catholicism. The Christian world (sociologically, not necessarily committed, knowledgeable actual practicing Christians) at this point in the 21st century is roughly 51% Catholic, 37% Protestant and 12% Orthodox.

While the Vatican claims enormous authority, rights and privileges for itself, it is important to remember that the Vatican was unnecessary to affirm the validity of the Old Testament books as it didn’t exist at the time (which undermines its claim to be the only source capable of “deciding” and “choosing” the books of the New Testament). Because many of their beliefs and practices are nowhere to be found in Scripture, it is predictably obvious that they have long rejected the understanding that all doctrine must be justified by the clear teaching of Scripture as the final arbiter of truth.

That being said, I have had wonderful relationships with Catholics, and have been richly blessed by Catholic thinkers, especially Peter Kreeft who greatly helped me when I was younger in the faith with his compelling defense of the Resurrection. He did an especially good job showcasing the surprising weaknesses in every alternate explanation of the empty tomb. For that life-changing apologetic, I have no words to express my gratefulness.

THE HIDDEN BLESSING OF OUR DIVISIONS

Our divisions today are a sad reality, but also can be seen as a blessing in disguise. First and foremost, the simple freedom to live out one’s convictions without fear of imprisonment or death (sadly, often at the hands of other “Christians”) is a triumph of civilization over barbarism. It took centuries but we finally came to recognize, especially in the West, the higher priority of human diginity and freedom of conscience over  politically-enforced doctrinal homogeniety. We need to remember and never forget that Christians once killed other Christians over issues like baptism. If today we live in a place that has any measure of religous freedom, we should never take it for granted. Who is to say how long it will last with the rise of dark forces of secular or religous authoritarianism across the world? For the sake of the Gospel and for our children, we pray always for peace. But even in persecution, the Gospel will still triumph.

Secondly, even if a single institution were to hold all of world Christianity (possessing the potential blessing and curse of hyper-centralization), the great weakness would be that its downfall would be the downfall of the entire Christan faith on this planet rather than just a particular Christian tradition. The benefits of the modern decentralization of the Christian faith mirror the ideal of the digital blockchain (the technology behind Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, etc.): disintermediation from potentially corrupt authorites, security, individual control, trust, independence and more. The blessed redundancy in our various churches and denominations (especially in the Protestant world) means that with general unity on essential doctrines, a wide variety of secondary truths can be more fully and beautifully highlighted and expressed.

Think of how much more impoverished we would be as Christians if we never had the unique blessings and contributions of the great spirituals of the African-American church, Anglican high liturgy, Lutheran dogmatics with  a Christ-centered, Cross-focused emphasis, enthusiastic Pentecostal worship earnestly expectating the Spirit of God to  work miraculously, incense and ancient worship in some Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches, theologically serious Presbyterian worship, the radical commitment to community, non-violence and the teachings of Jesus among Anabaptists, Baptist passion for Scripture and evangelism, the profound witness of the underground church in China, along with the fearless devotion and rising leadership of the church in Africa.

Every tradition mentioned above is seeking to live out the great purpose of glorifying Christ and advancing His kingdom. It doesn’t mean that everyone is equally correct on every issue. But we need to appreciate that our theological diversity on secondary matters (and energetic disagreements on some primary doctrines) prevents any one Christian group from having the capacity to destroy or infect the entire worldwide Christian faith, a protection which is only made possible with institutional separation. Open up any history book and see how denominational and other religious minorities were treated under the “Christian unity” of European state-sponsored, imperial church structures, whether Catholic or Protestant. Nevertheless, while institutonal disunity in terms of power structures will be with us until the Eschaton (the consummation of history), we look to the day when all disagreements and separation will disappear when our Savior returns for us.

HOLY SCRIPTURE: IMPORTANT OR ULTIMATE?

The dividing line is clear. Is the Word of God our sole and highest authority (with reason, tradition and experience only as helpful guides)? Or are the holy Scriptures to be understood as simply one of many parts of a much larger holy tradition of an institutional church (in which the tradition itself is interpreted by the Catholic magisterium serving as the true and ultimate authority) leaving followers of Jesus with multiple degrees of separation from the Word of God itself?

Do we faithfully follow (or do we dismissively explain away) Paul’s admonition in one of his earliest epistles to “learn by us not to go beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6)?

THE SELF-AUTHENTICATING WORD OF GOD

Christians through the ages understood the Scriptures as having been “humbly recognized and received” as God’s self-authenticating Word. The Scriptures are not the Word of God because men said they were, thereby somehow “creating” the Scriptures.

The Scriptures are the Word of God because that’s simply what they are. Logically, any ultimate authority must always and only appeal to itself—or it is no longer an ultimate authority. As we’ve previously shown, God declares Scripture alone (not tradition, not reason, and not experience) to be “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16).

THE APOSTOLIC WITNESS TO THE NEW TESTAMENT

In the earliest years of the apostolic church, we find in 2 Peter 3:16, Peter placing Paul’s writings on an equal footing with the Hebrew Bible that Jesus declared to be flawless (Matthew 5:18). Also, in 1 Timothy 5:18, we see Timothy quoting Luke 10:7 (similar to Matthew 10:10) as Scripture directly next to Deuteronomy 25:4 (!), the final book of the ancient Torah written many centuries earlier. This strongly suggests that the apostles knew they were writing divinely inspired Scripture equal with the Old Testament.

As we read in John 16:12-15, Jesus promised beforehand what would eventually become the New Testament. He did not leave us abandoned as orphans (John 14:18) but ensured that we would have all the truth we need to live the Christian life and for eternal life—through “the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15). The entire text of Scripture was given to us by God through men pulsating with the divine power, love and wisdom of the eternal Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). It was God’s gift to mankind, not a set of texts “arbitrarily chosen and selected” by an imperial, imperfect church led by even more imperfect men.

PAUL AND THE BEREANS

Luke the Evangelist writes in the Book of Acts of Berean Jews who were judging Paul and Silas by the Word of God. Keep in mind that God would eventually use Paul to write almost half of all the New Testament books (technically, Luke wrote more words than Paul, but only two books). But Luke’s reaction to the Bereans placing the authority of Paul beneath the Scriptures was not alarm, outrage, confusion or disappointment. Instead, quite the opposite, Dr. Luke (who was also a physician) writes with enthusiastic approval and commendation:

God instructs us in the holy Scriptures to judge all things by His Word. And if the Word of God stands in judgment over every mortal human and every Christian institution no matter its antiquity, then we have a far higher allegiance than mere external unity: absolute faithfulness to the very words of God to the best of our ability knowing that we will one day have to give an account before Him.

JESUS AND TRADITION

It’s important to note that Jesus did not appeal to or place Jewish councils and traditions over Scripture to reinforce the truths he proclaimed. Multiple times throughout the Gospels, Jesus rebuked, “So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God” (Matthew 15:6).

Jesus did not mince words when he said, “you hypocrites, as it is written…in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. And he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!’” (Mark 7:6-9).

Instead, over and over He appealed directly to the Scriptures saying, “It is written…” or “Have you not read?…” Jesus explicitly tied belief in Him to belief in the Scriptures: “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (John 5:46-47). It is Jesus who declared unambiguously, “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).

THE FLAWLESS WORD IN A FALLEN WORLD

The Word of God commends or judges any and every church or individual and never the other way around. So what do we do now?

1) We can choose to miserably live with an attitude of hostility and division towards Christians with whom we we differ, which is obviously no way to live. I have witnessed Christians enraged with other Christians with whom they disagree. It isn’t pretty. But wasting time fighting over doctrinal disagreements is a luxury we cannot afford in the face of the great and growing darkness around us. We need to join hands as often as we can (while faithfully maintaining our sincerely-held theological distinctives within our various Christian traditions) in a decaying, nihilistic, God-denying culture.

2) Or we can fall for the trap of extreme ecumenism where the only goal that matters is external, institutional unity. Genuine, heartfelt differences in theological conclusions are to be suppressed for the common good of superficial unity. This is the trap of “epistemological outsourcing,” or a false unity made possible by letting others do the thinking for you through a blind submission to the pronouncements and conclusions of clerical authorities.

3) Or perhaps at last, we can learn to love one another, graciously accepting our differences on this side of eternity. Where we differ, we can engage in caring, honest and thoughtful debate wanting the best for each other. We can do this because we know that together we have a Word from another world that was given to us by the God who made us and all things.

Jesus, the Word of God, is returning in power and great glory (Matthew 24:30 / Mark 13:26 / Luke 21:27).

He has given us His written Word. He wants us to know His Word. He wants us to love His Word.

And we think one of the ways we can do both, growing in knowing and loving Him more and more, is when we sing His Word. We were designed to stand in awe, whether it’s a newborn baby, the stunning beauty of the created world, and most of all to bow before the Creator of all things. We humbly come with our hearts wide open and with everything we are, holding fast to the Word that Jesus gave us and promises will never pass away (Matthew 24:35). May each of our lives be a grateful song lifted up to the glory of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. A better world is coming.

My soul faints with longing for your salvation,
    but I have put my hope in your word.
Psalm 119:81