SERIES: The Book of Romans
How to Handle Trouble in the Church
Introduction: Listen to the Word of the Lord, as found in Romans 16:17-20 and 25-27:
I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. {18} For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. {19} Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.
{20} The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.
{25} Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, {26} but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him— {27} to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.
The Church of Jesus Christ is a divine\human institution. Because it is not only divine but also human, it is imperfect. The Church is susceptible to being troubled—troubled by a number of factors, all of which originate with the people in the Church. It is to this problem the Apostle directs our attention in this last portion of the last chapter of his great Epistle to the Romans.
You will recall from last week that Paul has named a long list of his colleagues and coworkers here in chapter 16—people in Rome to whom he sends greetings, and people with Paul from whom he sends greetings. A list like this, we noted, shows that God cares about individuals and knows them by name. He keeps records on His people, noting the areas in which they have given faithful service. It also shows that people of all backgrounds, races, social status, and education are of equal importance to God and to His church. And it highlights the fact that the Church is a family and relationships are extremely important.
But as delightful as these friendships are to Paul, he acknowledges that not everyone in the Church is an asset. Probably in every family of believers there are a few troublemakers. It is to these he now directs our attention.
Perhaps it seems strange after all the profound theology and lofty exhortations that Paul should conclude on a negative note such as “trouble in the Church.” But it’s not really negative, or at least he doesn’t deal with it in a negative way. He gives some positive insight into the question of how to handle trouble when it comes, and his advice is gentle and sensible. Besides, since trouble is inevitable at some point, it makes sense to put this particular issue at the very end so the believers will remember it well. Besides, the beautiful doxology in the last three verses serves the purpose of lifting our eyes from the trouble back to the God who is able.
How is the Church supposed to handle trouble? Well, it all depends upon what the trouble is, for there are various kinds of trouble which can plague a church.
Trouble in the Church comes from many sources.
I have mentioned five of these in your sermon outline: immorality, apostasy and false teaching, heresy, personality conflicts, and a divisive spirit. Perhaps there are other kinds of trouble that seem to be conspicuous by their absence from this list. I have not mentioned, for example, “financial trouble,” because it is my view that churches never have financial problems—they only have spiritual problems that manifest themselves in people’s giving. I haven’t listed the trouble of “declining attendance” either, because once again there’s almost always a spiritual cause at the root of such problems.
Now the kind of trouble mentioned in Romans 16 is a divisive spirit with some overtones of heresy. But before digging into the passage I want to say a few words about how to handle the other kinds of trouble. It’s intriguing to me that the biblical solution is different in each case. That’s important, for if we try to deal with a personality conflict the same way we deal with apostasy, we’re going to create a lot more division in the Church.
Immorality. Instructions regarding how to handle immorality in the life of a professing Christian are found in 1 Cor. 5:9-13. There we are told that it is not to be tolerated. When a member of the church family is guilty of persistent, unrepentant immorality, the corporate body should respond with excommunication and, if necessary, even shunning. The moral offenses which qualify for discipline, however, are not just in the area of sexual promiscuity, but include such sins as idolatry, swindling, drunkenness and even covetousness (ouch!).
Now excommunication is pretty drastic action; shunning is even stronger. It means that when one has received the ultimate discipline a church can offer, no one in the church is to socialize with that person. They are not to act in a business-as-usual manner with the offender, the hope being that the isolation and loneliness that results will drive the person to repentance. Of course, if the guilty person eventually repents, he is to be restored and welcomed back into the church family as a brother or sister.
Apostasy or false teaching. Apostasy is a word which means “falling away from the faith.” It is used of one who professes faith in Christ, is well-taught in the truth, and then, for one reason or another, dumps the whole thing, denying even the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
A false teacher in the NT is essentially a teaching apostate, an apostate bent on spreading his poison. Some of the strongest denunciations in God’s Word are reserved for apostates and false teachers. Let me read just a few of these from the short but powerful book of Jude.
Certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord …. These men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them ….
These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn tress, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever. (Jude, 4, 10, 12-13)
Consider also 1 Tim. 4:1-3:
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.
And how about Paul’s great challenge at the beginning of Galatians?
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
It’s not very popular in our day (when tolerance seems to be the greatest virtue of all) for a pastor to stand up and say that the doctrines of Mormonism are from the pit of Hell, but Paul would say it. And he would say the same thing about a lot of other cults, and about New Age philosophies, and even many of the doctrines and viewpoints found in mainline churches. Apostasy and false teaching is rampant in organized religion today—Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish alike.
How does the Apostle urge us to deal with apostates and false teachers? They are to be denounced, condemned, and run out of the true Church on a rail.
Heresy. Heresy is distinguishable from apostasy or false teaching. While the apostate is one who has thoroughly tubed the faith, the heretic is one who is a believer, but part of his theology is screwed up. He doesn’t deny the fundamentals of the faith, but he may have a dangerous emphasis in one or two areas that, in turn, creates tension in the church. In 1 Tim. 1 some heretics are mentioned. Paul says to his young protégée,
Command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God’s word—which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.
Heresy is serious because, left unattended, it sometimes evolves into cultishness. But the way to handle heretics is not to denounce them or curse them or excommunicate them, as with apostates, but simply to silence them. Paul says, “Don’t let them teach.” If you discover that one of your mini-congregation teachers is espousing heresy, you quietly remove him and correct the error through the accurate teaching of God’s Word.
Personality conflicts. Last September we examined one of these in Phil. 4, where we found that Euodia and Syntyche, two women in the Philippian church, could not agree with each other in the Lord. Paul neither denounced nor disciplined them; he simply pleaded with them to find common ground and urged the church leaders to help them, because they were both faithful workers.
Paul himself got caught in a similar personality conflict with Barnabas, and while they were able to respect one another and even speak well of one another, they came to the conclusion that they couldn’t profitably work together, so they went their separate ways. Sometimes that seems to be the best way to deal with a personality conflict—find areas to serve where you’re not running into one another all the time.
A divisive spirit. This seems to be the root of the trouble Paul is addressing at Rome. While there may be a hint of immorality in verse 18 (they are serving their own appetites), that doesn’t appear to be the primary problem. They don’t seem to have thrown overboard the Christian faith, so I wouldn’t call them apostates or false teachers. I would infer from the mention of “teaching” in verse 17 that there probably is some heretical teaching being presented by these individuals, but clearly the major menace is a divisive spirit.
The particular troublemakers at Rome are a serious threat.
Four characteristics of these troublemakers are listed.
They cause divisions and create obstacles. The Church was intended by God to be a peaceful and harmonious group of believers united by a common bond and devoted to a common cause. Some people, however (and both clergy and laity are known to be guilty), refuse to acknowledge how important it is to God for believers to dwell together in unity. They begin to complain and criticize and turn one believer against another. Pretty soon minor disagreements have grown into a major problem, with one group pitted against another. Parties develop in the Church, and before long the entire witness of the Body is in jeopardy. I have seen it happen in a half-dozen key churches here in St. Louis in the last ten years.
I’ve seen it happen in our own denomination. I currently serve as Chairman of the Board of Ministerial Standing for the Evangelical Free Church of America, which is the disciplinary board for nearly 3,000 pastors. I have been on this Board for ten years now, and during that time I have witnessed some of the sorriest sagas of divisiveness you would ever want to hear—some generated by dysfunctional, deceived, or even ungodly pastors, some by laymen of similar character.
Not only do these individuals cause divisions, says Paul, they also put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. While the specific content of these obstacles is not spelled out, it is obvious that other people were in danger of being hurt. Actually, almost anything, even good things, can become obstacles to spiritual growth, if carried too far. For example, the gift of tongues is a gift of the Holy Spirit and thus is a good and beautiful thing. But sometimes individuals go to seed with this good gift, violating the restrictions the NT places upon its use, and then it becomes an obstacle to unity and spiritual maturity.
Prophecy is another area, and here I’m not speaking of the gift of prophecy but of the study of prophecy. Some people have gotten so hung up on one viewpoint of what event in the future is going to precede or follow what other event that they have ended up “causing divisions and putting obstacles” in the way of others.
Systems of theology can become divisive, especially when one holds to them more tightly than to the Scriptures. Calvinism, dispensationalism, in fact almost any “ism,” can lead to division. Even such good doctrines as election, sanctification, and baptism have become causes of divisiveness in the Church because of the way they have been presented or the extremes to which they have been taken.
Sometimes those causing division and creating obstacles may not have any theological axes to grind. They may just be malcontents who feel they’ve been slighted or are jealous of those exercising leadership. This too can result in serious division in the Body of Christ.
They are motivated by their own appetites rather than by service to Christ. This probably means they have designed their teaching to fit their lifestyle, rather than doing it the proper way—fitting their lifestyle to their teaching. I have known those who stressed the grace of God to such a degree that they abandoned responsible standards of holy living. It may also refer to their appetite for attention or their appetite for power. What they should have been doing, of course, is serving Christ by acknowledging His Lordship over every area of life.
They deceive with smooth talk and flattery. How is it that troublemakers are able to get a following in the church? Why aren’t they seen for the menace they are? The reason is the methods they use. They don’t stand up in a congregational meeting and announce, “I’m a dissident. We haven’t had any trouble in this Church for a while, so I’m going to start some.”
No, as a matter of fact, more often those who cause division come across as having a super-spiritual aura. They use smooth and flattering speech to get people on their side. They gossip but call it “sharing the concerns of their hearts.” They plant seeds of doubt by asking others to pray for so-and-so, and then, of course they have to explain why so-and-so needs prayer. But all their smooth flattery wouldn’t work if it weren’t for the fact that …
They target those who are naive. The naive may be new Christians or immature believers or just people with a tendency toward gullibility. But what is clear is that they aren’t well-grounded in doctrine and they find themselves susceptible to the subtleties of the troublemakers.
The cults major on these kinds of people. Some time ago I read statistics which showed that the Mormons get over 50% of their converts here in the U.S. from one particular evangelical Protestant denomination that is well-known for its evangelistic fervor, but where doctrine is rarely taught.
So far everything has been descriptive of the problem. But how are believers supposed to handle the problem once it arises in their local assembly?
Believers are encouraged to respond to this kind of trouble making as follows:
Be watchful. Verse 17 begins, “I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions.” The verb “watch” is a present infinitive which might well be translated, “continually watch out for.” This is a situation which needs constant watchfulness. This does not mean we are to go around on heresy hunts. Certain Christians tend to be self-appointed theological watchdogs who sniff at all the saints and bark in disappointment whenever they find one who doesn’t dot his i’s and cross his t’s as he should. This is not God’s desire. But we are to be alert. This is the primary task of the elders of the Church.
Avoid the troublemakers and their teaching. “Keep away from them.” Don’t give them the attention they are wanting. How many times have two-bit dissidents been turned into martyrs when insecure leaders overreacted to their complaints? Frankly, most of the time would-be troublemakers would see their big issues die if Paul’s instructions here were followed.
By the way, this is by no means the only NT passage which takes the “hands-off” approach to the problem of divisiveness in the church. In 2 Thes. 3:14-15 we read similar instructions in a somewhat parallel situation: “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard him as an enemy but warn him as a brother.”
In Titus 3:10 Paul’s language is stronger, but the instructions are essentially the same: “Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.”
But he doesn’t urge excommunication or public condemnation. By the way, Paul spoke further of these troublemakers at Rome in his letter to the Philippians. By now he himself is in Rome, in prison, as he writes the following words:
Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.
It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of good will. The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. (Phil. 1:12-18)
Isn’t that a rare attitude? He wasn’t going to denounce or condemn these trouble-making brothers. In fact, when they preached Christ, he actually rejoiced. But when they were causing trouble his advice in Rom. 16 still stands, “keep away from them.”
Be wise and yet naive. Look again at verse 19: “Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.” God doesn’t want us to be naive about doctrine (v.18), but He does want us to be naive about evil. What does this mean?
In our modern society one of the worst faults a person can have is to be unsophisticated. Being “in the know” about everything is a badge of belonging. But God is not impressed with sophistication, especially when it relates to sin and evil. He desires that we turn away from evil so that we do not even give it the attention necessary to know its depraving qualities. God would never accept the rather common argument that one has to read the trash the world is publishing in order to better understand the pagan mind.
A Christian couple was in a group one night when someone told a joke that was slightly off-color. When some of the people laughed, the woman whispered to her husband, “I don’t get it. What are they laughing at? I don’t see the point.” He answered back, “Thank God you don’t!” I think God smiled and was pleased.[i]
Trust God to judge the troublemakers. Verse 20 reads, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” Discord in the Church is often, perhaps almost always, the work of Satan, but if believers keep troublemakers and their teaching at a distance, God (who is the God of peace and not of discord) will give them the victory over Satan and all his works.
Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, a marvelous expositor of the Book of Romans, writes,
Years ago, a speaker made a slip of the tongue in which he spoke of battles that are won and fought. The cliche speaks of battles fought and won, but in his lapse he was closer to Christian truth. For our battles are not to be fought and won. Our battles have already been won for us by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. They are now to be fought, day by day, as we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against these principalities and powers.[ii]
Paul concludes his warning with a brief benediction: “The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” We certainly need God’s grace if we are to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is no other way it can be done.
Now having said all this, it is important for us to realize that the Apostle is not trying to squelch disagreement in the church. He’s not trying to stifle constructive criticism or legitimate questions. A church where people are afraid to express their views is not a peaceful church; it’s a prison. Rather, what he desires is that we recognize one another as brothers and sisters, give one another the benefit of the doubt, express our disagreements with respect, but consider the peace of the church more important than our own agendas.
Well, the book of Romans is not quite over. Some more personal greetings come in 21-24, which we noted briefly last Sunday, and then it’s as though Paul says to himself, “I can’t end this book this way. I must add a doxology to bring my readers back to a focus on our great God.”
A closing doxology
Listen again to Romans 16:25-27:
Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, {26} but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him— {27} to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.
Three assertions are made in this closing doxology.
God is able to establish the believer. It’s as though Paul looks at the Roman believers, sees their conflicts, knows their struggles, and falls back on God alone. Ultimately, he, Paul, can’t do anything for them, only God can. And what can God do? He can establish the believer in his faith. Ray Stedman quips, “Many people think they are established when actually they are simply stuck in the mud.”[iii] The verb “to establish” is used about ten times in the NT and refers to a settled, stable spiritual condition—both doctrinally and experientially. It includes not only a knowledge of the truth, but also a commitment of obedience to the truth.
There was a terrible earthquake in Mexico City in 1985. Thousands of buildings were demolished and tens of thousands were damaged. There is still a great deal of evidence of the quake. In fact, in downtown there are some buildings and some monuments which are higher than everything around them. They’ve had to build special terraces from these buildings to the sidewalk. The reason is that these particular structures were built on bedrock. Everything else in the city rests on an ancient lakebed. When the earthquake hit, everything sank from several feet to ten feet, except those that rested on bedrock.
The goal is for the believer to be established on spiritual bedrock. The only way that can happen is by means of the truth of the Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ (not referring to the preaching Jesus did, but the preaching about Him that the Apostles and early believers did)
Psychology can’t do it. Positive thinking can’t do it. Even trying hard can’t do it. Only the written Word and the Living Word is able to give us that foundation that will keep us from falling when the winds of false teaching and persecution and temptation begin to blow. The Bible is the only reliable rule for faith and practice. Jesus is the only answer to our every need, the only one who forgives our sin, the only source of eternal life.
God desires that all nations believe and obey Him. Do you see that at the end of verse 26? Now this universal offer of the Gospel was not understood, as it should have been, in OT times. God put plenty of hints in the writings of the prophets about the fact that the Gospel is for everyone who believes, but the Jews overlooked those hints and claimed salvation as their own personal possession. Now, Paul says, the truth has been fully uncovered. That’s what it means when he writes in verse 25-26, “according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey Him.”
That includes you, friend. Though you are a sinner and have fallen short of God’s glory and God’s standards, He sent His one and only Son to die for you, to pay the eternal penalty of your sin. He asks only that you quit relying on any other means to establish a relationship with Him, trusting only Jesus’ sacrifice. When you do that, He will declare you “Not Guilty,” and will welcome you into His eternal family. No wonder the Apostle offers as his final words, “to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.”
God deserves to be glorified. He deserves to be glorified because He is the sovereign God, He is the only true God, He is the only wise God, He is the only God deserving of honor and glory.
I have quoted from Barnhouse a number of times during this year-long study of Romans. He wrote a ten-volume commentary on Romans, consisting of 500 sermons he preached over about 13 years—just on this book. He writes in the last chapter of the last volume:
I know of almost a hundred men who have gone into the ministry as a result of these studies. I know of multitudes who have been richly blessed in their spiritual lives. Soberly and without any exaggeration we can say that several million letters have come into our radio address. But far greater than any blessing that these studies have brought to others is their effect on my own life. I know that the epistle to the Romans has become the very fabric of my life. Here I have met God so many times that it would be impossible to remember them all.[iv]
I have only scratched the surface compared to what Dr. Barnhouse, Dr. Boice, and others have done with the Book of Romans, but the effect on my life has nevertheless been powerful. I trust it has been so in yours as well. If so, “to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.”
DATE: January 28,1996
Tags:
Immorality
Apostasy
Heresy
Divisiveness
[i] Donald Grey Barnhouse, Romans, Vol. IV, Part 3, God’s Glory, 157.
[ii] Barnhouse, 168.
[iii] Ray C. Stedman, Expository Studies in Romans 9-16, From Guilt to Glory, Vol. II, 197.
[iv] Barnhouse, 188-189.