An old friend called me two days ago. He's in a pickle. The problem he and his family are facing is, ashamedly, not rare: their church is on the brink of splitting. What do you do when you've invested years into relationships and ministry? Do you stick it out or do you cut loose and start anew? 

In this particular case, the rift that has opened up in my friend's non-denominational church is between two specific groups. To use common labels, one group is conservative and one group is charismatic. My friend, who is one of the church elders, comes from the conservative end of the spectrum. He's become concerned because in the leadership prayer meetings a growing number of the church leaders are relying less upon God's written Word and more upon spontaneous prophetic utterances and visions--all allegedly from the Holy Spirit--to shape the direction of the church. 

While some of the spoken prophecies seemed harmless, "God is going to bless our church," others seemed downright ludicrous to my friend, "I'm seeing a picture of a sofa--therefore, God is telling us to stay where we are and not do anything." 

One prophecy particularly disturbed him. During one of the meetings, someone brought the prophetic word that "Many great signs and wonders will be done here (at this church) and they will divide the church." 

If you were my friend, what would you do? 

My friend and I turned to the Bible and, at one point, came to 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22: "Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil." In short: Paul's answer was not to place an outright ban on the prophetic in the Thessalonian church, but rather to have the church sort through what was spoken. The good stuff was to be kept, the bad stuff was to be thrown out. 

Was my friend's church testing the words that came out? No. But how the heck do you do something like that? You line things up with Scripture. Consider when the church in Berea had the apostle Paul teaching on their doorstep. They checked him out by Scripture to make sure his teaching was the real deal: "The Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians for . . .they . . . examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true" (Acts 17:11).

The Berean church was commended for testing his teaching. Beware of any teacher/leader or church who takes Psalm 105:15 out of context. The verse reads, "Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm." This verse, in context, is speaking of God's protection over the Jewish people in the time of the Patriarchs. It's not a carte blanche for a leader to be held above the authority of Scripture. The apostle Paul himself was held under the authority of Scripture--and those little, nameless, "insignificant" Bereans were commended for double-checking to make sure his facts lined up. 

How does that last prophetic utterance at my friend's church (about the signs/miracles and impending church split) line up with Scripture? It doesn't pass the test. 

Here's why: the problem with that prophecy is not that it predicts signs and wonders (God can do signs and wonders whenever He chooses to), but that God would be sending signs and wonders to separate believers. (I'm working under the dual assumption that (1) God is allegedly the agent of the signs and miracles that will be done, and (2) that the division to be caused is within the church between believers--not between the saved and the unsaved.) Why would the Holy Spirit deliberately work in marvelous ways to divide brothers? 

In the Bible, there are places where signs separate people. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, that miracle divided the people. Many people put their faith in Jesus (John 11:45). Others plotted to murder Him (John 11:53). But the signs from God separated believers from unbelievers--not "Class-A Super Christians" from "Class-B Lesser Christians." There is only one body of Christ (Ephesians 4:4). You're either in or out. 

Is unity in the body of Christ important to God? Yes. In Jesus' prayer for the believers just prior to his crucifixion, He prays "May they (all future believers, per verse 20) be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you love me" (John 17:23). Unity is a bit more important to God than I'm comfortable with. If I were faced with my friend's situation, I'd rather just cut and run.

But if unity is so important, how do we as a church get there? How does my friend work for unity in the very tangible situation in which he and his family stand? 

One wrong way to achieve unity is the "Burn, Baby, Burn!" approach. In this method, you come up with such a strict and overly precise statement of faith that it goes down even to the point of taking a position on whether dipping a corn dog in mustard is to be preferred over dipping it in ketchup. You'll get unity, but the problem is that no one will be left in your church to be unified with. There are a lot of minor issues of belief we are free to disagree on. "Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters" (Romans 14:1). "Burn, Baby, Burn!" excludes true believers in Christ.

A second wrong way to achieve unity is the "Love Bomb" approach (a.k.a. The Lowest Common Denominator approach).  In this method, you give up any attempt of discernment. This will bring in harmful teachings and perhaps even allow unbelievers in the position of leading God's people.

There is a dividing line between true and false doctrine. Some doctrines are so essential to our faith that we cannot abandon them, like salvation by grace alone or the authority of the Bible. There is a difference between biblical Christianity and the other world religions. Islam is not the same religion as Christianity. Mormonism is not the same religion. We need to discern the fruit of our leaders' lives (Matthew 7:15-20), and we need to test the spirits (1 John 4:1; 1 Corinthians 12:10). May God praise our generation like the church in Ephesus and say, "I know you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false" (Revelation 2:2).

(Sidenote: It's true that Jesus says in Matthew 7:1, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged." Jesus is not saying to throw away all discernment, though. In the same chapter, he tells us to discern false prophets by their fruit (v. 15-20). He is not saying to avoid correcting a brother or sister in Christ because, in verse 5, we see that Jesus does expect us to correct our brothers and sisters, after we have examined ourselves. I believe that what Jesus means in 7:1 (considering the context) is to not be hypocritical or look down on your brothers when you see something wrong in their walk. Romans 14 is a great lens to make sense of what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 7:1.)

So what's the answer? How do we achieve unity in the church? Paul gives the answer in Ephesians chapter 4. In short: recognize the unity in the body of Christ (verses 1-6), recognize that everyone has a different part to play (verses 7-13) and then "Speak the truth in love" (verse 15). In the context, speaking the truth means to hold on to biblical teaching (consider verse 14). Love means to do it in a kind and patient manner. 

We get church unity by lovingly correcting each other. That can be a hard row to hoe. It's a lot easier to run and start over. Some of us need to be more loving in how we deal with our Christian brothers and sisters. Some of us need to open up more to allowing our beliefs to be scrutinized by what the Bible actually says. We all need to be worked on, and we all have our role to play in helping our brothers and sisters. 

I don't know what my friend is going to do in his situation, but I hope he doesn't give up on the people of God. He's a godly man who knows the Bible well--they need what he's got. Though it will, no doubt, be hard to bring in loving correction, Christ's church is worth it.