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Since the beginning, issues have divided the body of Christ into disagreeing, sometimes openly warring factions. In hindsight, some of the disputes seem to have been substantive, but many others appear to have been simple misunderstandings or arguments about interpretation.
Paul wrote to the church at Corinth partly because of an outbreak of factionalism. Christians were lining up behind their favourite teachers, Paul, Apollos and Cephas, treating them as heads of feuding warrior bands. The apostle tells them they are wrong, that the Body of Christ is one, and that the various teachers have been given to illustrate the diversity within the unity, to show us all that we must not "go beyond what is written".
Every Christian probably has a pet conviction, omitted, he supposes, from the Scriptures by the passage of time or by human malice. . . . It seems so good, so right, so necessary that it must surely be part of the divine order. First-century Judaizers thought that about the Old Covenant Law; the gnostics thought it of asceticism and secret knowledge; a large number of modern end-times teachers think it about the Rapture; teetotallers think it regarding alcoholic beverages. . . . The list is unending. To all of us, Paul says that we must not "go beyond what is written".
Imagine the trouble and quarrels that would have been unnecessary had the church been more careful to understand "what is written" and to realize that anything beyond is man's teaching--good, right, perhaps even needful in some time or place, but nevertheless not part of God's recipe for reality and faith.
This one is by Ron Carleton of Abbotsford, B.C.
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