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Teaching - the NT fellowship breaker

As has been commented recently in EN, there are ‘a whole cluster of fault lines which run through broad evangelicalism’, not to mention the wider church scene.

Evangelical Christians are finding themselves ever more stretched in having to accommodate views and pronouncements at odds with historically held evangelical doctrines. However, the New Testament suggests that such stretching needs to have a limit — there comes a stage when a breaking point must be faced.

No decisive actions

Our church culture, however, leans strongly away from taking decisive actions when it comes to doctrinal matters. We are heavily influenced by the wider culture of relativism and worry that to assert one set of views over another will be regarded as arrogant — the ultimate taboo! The result is that even very significant deviations from historic evangelical beliefs rarely result in any concrete sanctions or lead to any consequence beyond expressions of gentle disapproval. Certainly the notion of breaking fellowship with the proponents of such views is increasingly regarded as the kind of decision we can no longer be confident in making.

Breaking fellowship

Yet the New Testament writers clearly regard such actions as the necessary responsibility of church leaders. On what basis then does Paul, for example, break fellowship with others in church life? Well, he breaks fellowship in situations where an individual is continuing unrepentantly in sin — e.g. 1 Corinthians 5, when a church member is ‘put out of fellowship’ until such a time that he repents and changes his ways. Most evangelicals today would recognise the need for such action in the face of such blatant sinfulness.

However, Paul also breaks fellowship over teaching — that is, in situations where individuals are promoting beliefs contrary to apostolic teaching. In this category would come Hymenaeus and Alexander (1 Timothy 1.20). These two individuals were clearly causing problems in the early church by disseminating misleading doctrine. Hymaneus was responsible, at least, for misleading Christians about the resurrection (2 Timothy 2.17ff).

Life and doctrine

Paul, it seems, was as concerned about the purity of doctrine (teaching) as he was about the purity of lifestyles — notice that he uses the same ‘handing over’ language in both cases of moral and doctrinal sin (1 Corinthians 5.5 & 1 Timothy 1.20). In contrast, the world of 21st-century evangelicalism has a much less consistent approach. So, church members caught with ‘their hand in the till’ can expect sanctions — whereas those peddling unorthodox views on the atonement or Scripture, for example, will generally be left unchecked — certainly at any formal level. The irony being that, in turning a blind eye to doctrinal error, we stoke up the likelihood of moral error among Christians — if you think that’s a bit strong then read 2 Peter 2 and Jude.

‘Nice guy’ syndrome

Part of our propensity to fudge taking clear action against unbiblical teaching is the ‘nice guy’ syndrome. We have an attitude in our churches today that says: ‘Well, I know the Bible talks about there being false teachers arising from the flock — but whoever those people might be they won’t be any of my friends’. The thinking being that ‘so and so’ is a really nice person who does a lot of good stuff — therefore his views should be tolerated (even if we regard those views as significantly departing from scriptural revelation).

But let’s go back to Hymaneus and Alexander — Paul breaks fellowship with them not because....

a) they aren’t nice guys who don’t do anything commendable — actually if they weren’t then other Christians would probably be much less likely to be influenced by them;

b) they aren’t Christians — Paul doesn’t say they aren’t genuine Christians — in fact, his words in 1 Timothy 1.20 imply restoration rather than conversion. We are not expected to make decisions about who we keep fellowship with on the basis of subjective opinions — e.g. I think ‘so and so’ is a genuine Christian — only God ultimately has that knowledge: ‘The Lord knows those who are his’ (2 Timothy 2.19).

Objective basis

Rather, Paul breaks fellowship with them on a much more objective basis — the basis of what they are teaching, the same basis on which he rejected the legalists and the mystics elsewhere. It is the ‘teaching’ of people that is the ‘deal-breaker’ — because without truth there is no basis for salvation or holiness. So, New Testament Christianity says, you may be a fine person in many respects, you may even be a genuine Christian, but, if you persist in unbiblical teaching, then we cannot work and worship together as brothers in arms.

Andy Hunter