When Is It Right To Be Contentious? Series

“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”

When our children were young, we taught them a little rhyme. You may have recited it with your children, or even with your grandchildren.

HERE IS THE CHURCH,

HERE IS THE STEEPLE;

OPEN THE DOOR,

SEE ALL THE PEOPLE!

People indeed! And not only “all the people,” but all kinds of people—educated people and uneducated people, saintly people and unsavory people, very gifted people and very ordinary people, and multitudes lying between those various extremes. Many of these people have become quite visible through popular television shows—Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, T. D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Peter Popoff, John Hagee, James Robison, Franklin Graham, Charles Stanley, David Jeremiah, and a multitude of others, known and unknown. All alike claim to be part of the Church. What a variety of people claim they can be found within the Church! And what a variety of souls laid claim to belonging to the faithful throughout the ages.

The multitude of people claiming to be part of the Church appears confusing, but the confusion arises because the teachings of so many of these people is often at odds with what is written in the Word. What a confusing collection of teachings are to be found in modern Christendom! Catholic theology and Protestant theology, liberation theology, black theology, water buffalo theology, the theology of the pain of God, and the theology of hope, to name just a few. New theologies pop up on an ongoing basis. It is almost impossible for someone to keep up with the rapidly changing theological landscape.

And what about the bewildering succession of activities to be found in the churches? Of course, there are numerous accomplishments that merit the praise of everyone. But what about antiwar marches, hiding illegal aliens, providing mission monies for guerrilla warfare, ordination of homosexuals, “worship” with nude dancers, Christ portrayed as a superstar and as a clown, and… the list seems endless.

What has happened to the churches to create such confusion? You might well ask, “What in the world has gotten into the churches?” The answer is obvious— “The World!” The world has not simply gotten into the churches, churches have embraced the world—doing so eagerly!

Though we might hesitate to draw odious comparisons, the fact remains that the Church seems like a certain Pandora’s box. You may remember that, according to Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from heaven. In retaliation, Zeus sent a woman named Pandora to earth. She was given a box containing all sorts of human ills, some of which emerged each time the box was opened. Hope was also in the box—but there it remained!

Unlike Pandora’s box, the Church is in no sense mythical—it is very real. And so are the ills that all too frequently emerge from within the Church. But if the ills that plague the Church are real, so also is the hope that so often lies quiet in the Church. The challenge that confronts those of us who are followers of Christ the Lord is to make that hope more visible and more believable while labouring to cleanse the Church of the ills that plague her!

Over two thousand years ago, Jude wrote about the Church as it existed in the earliest days following the ascension of our Saviour and the descent of the Spirit of God at Pentecost. The half-brother of our Lord recognised that the Church of his day was a “mixed box,” just as the Church presents herself in this day. Jude explained that men who had no business being the Church—heretics and apostates—had “crept in unnoticed” [JUDE 4], and many of these men were even then sharing in directing the life of the churches. Unfortunately, wicked people have continued to twist and distort the mission of the Church throughout history, and many continue to do so even in this day.

Jude was exposing these deviant destroyers of all that is good and righteous, describing them in some detail so that his readers would not be duped into believing what these human cockroaches were teaching or finding their corrupt lifestyles attractive and thus dishonouring God by adopting their odious manner of life. Jude was pleading with those saints in that day that is so distant from this present day, to “contend for the faith” [JUDE 3]. The word he chose as he directed believers to contend is an exceptionally strong verb in that Greek tongue. We get our English word “agonise” from the Greek term that Jude employed. In Jude’s estimate, redeemed children of the Living God are to push back against the intrusion of evil, to fight against the evil doers if necessary. According to the Spirit of Christ speaking through Jude, Christians are to make their stand even at the risk of some personal sacrifice. In short, Jude is saying there is a time when it is right to be contentious, a time when it is right to be combative. Though the elders are to vigorously oppose the errant teachings that threaten the faithful, it is the responsibility of all Christians to resist succumbing to the insidious evil presented by error—each follower of Christ is responsible to oppose error when it is presented.