When the world around us exploded into fake news and increasing polarization did we think the solution was to dig further into our own tribes? And when we were tempted with ungodly leaders—that we’d call our Cyrus—to defeat our godless enemies, did we not think we’d be planting in the soils of division? What crop did we think we’d harvest?

Division within the body of Christ is ultimately a heart issue. But it’s also, in part, a culture issue. What I mean is that there are certain practices which will stoke the flames of controversy and division rather than assisting us in mortifying our hearts which are so prone to division.

Of course there are things which believers ought to be divided from. There is a false unity which is just as deadly as a bitter division. But there are also many needless divisions which arise in the body of Christ. I bemoan all the division within the church. Awhile back I wrote about the pain of feeling without a tribe—as my former tribe seems to have ugly exploded. Because of this trial I’ve been thinking a good deal about unity and division within the body of Christ—especially within the church universal.

I stumbled upon a helpful little book recently. It was originally written by Jeremiah Burroughs in the early 1600s. But it likely would have been lost to history had it not been reprinted by Francis Asbury in the 1700s and then Asbury’s copy also resurrected about a hundred years later.

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