Topical Studies
Factions
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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What is a way? A way is "a course traveled from one place to another." It is also "a manner of doing," "a method of accomplishing," or "a course of life." All of those are taken from a common English dictionary—Webster's. Synonyms include custom, practice, behavior, direction, method, manner, procedure, passage, or route, depending on the context. The word way can be substituted for any one of those words; and, in many contexts, those words can be substituted for the word way. In short, a way is a course, a route. A way leads from—beginning at—one place, and it ends at another place. This means there is a specific direction in which the way leads a person.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace and Law (Part 2)
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1 Corinthians 11:17-19 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The phrase "must also be" has the sense of "it being necessary." Paul understands factions as God-ordained because he could see the pattern of them from Old Testament times, as well as the benefits derived from them. The Corinthian congregation was a troubled group divided into factions by heresies (I Corinthians 1:10-13). This circumstance was not helping the already-calamitous situation, but Paul says that the calamity would eventually produce a good result. The true sons of God would be revealed by their reactions to the false teaching. They would not accept it, and thus would be witnesses to the weaker for the truth of God.
John W. Ritenbaugh
God's Sovereignty and the Church's Condition (Part Two)
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2 Peter 2:1 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Alarming as II Peter 2:1-3 is, Peter neither tells us what heresy is in general, nor indicates what the future heresies will be. Besides these, he does not identify the real source of heresy either. Heresy is the translation of the Greek hairesis—meaning literally "choice" or "selection"—which has an interesting secular as well as biblical history. Until its biblical use, it had no evil connotation. Even in the Bible, it is mostly used to refer to a party or a philosophy with which a person had chosen to identify or ally himself. Thus, hairesis is frequently translated "sect." In Acts, Luke applies it to the Sadducees (Luke 5:17) and the Pharisees (Luke 15:5; 26:5). Outsiders also used hairesis in Acts 24:5, 14 and Acts 28:22 to identify the Christian church. However, when Paul and Peter's writings began circulating, hairesis meant a destructive element within the church that creates division through consciously formed opinions and ideas in disagreement with the orthodox teachings of the apostles. Paul condemns it in Galatians 5:20 as one of "the works of the flesh." Sometimes it is translated "factions" or "party spirit," but regardless of its translation, Paul says that people who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God (verse 21)! In the ordinary course of secular life, heresy was of little consequence; one person's opinion or choice about most things in life is just as good as another's. A person can be given any number of alternatives, any one of which he may be perfectly free to believe. However, in Christianity we are dealing with revelation, with God-given truth, with absolutes. When God's truth comes to men, we either have to accept or reject it. Thus, a heretic is a man who believes what he wishes to believe instead of accepting the truth of God that he ought to believe.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Damnable Heresies
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