By Pascal Ntaganda
One of the weapons that the devil uses against the body of Christ is divisions among the brethren.
The splitting up, sometimes occurs when an individual, or a certain group of people within a Christian community rebels against the anointed authority.
Opposition happens in different ways. It might range from not obeying the simple instructions put in place by the church administration, to failure to abide with the major doctrine by the church planter.
In the book of Acts, we see Paul and Barnabas confronting each other concerning taking John, also called Mark, for their missionary trips.
David faced a tough rebellion from his son Absalom in the book of Samuel, when he waged a coup by slowly stealing people’s hearts from their favourite king.
Lack of love for one another leads to church rebellion as well.
Remember the Good Book (the Bible) tells of how love covers a multitude of sin (1 Peter 4:8).
In this article, The Gospel Times looks at insights shared by Simon Kibe, the Head of the Men Biblical Fellowship (BSF), during an interview he had on Radio Umucyo, during the Christian Way Program broadcast.
He says when rebellion is taking place; people start to think they are equal with everyone, which takes away spiritual veracity.
“Those who lose trust in the church leadership then start to speak ill of leaders among the congregants which gives rise to the opposition,” he says.
Also, church leadership might as well discipline people who go away from the foundation doctrine, then those who are rebuked might decide to oppose.
Ndayisaba John who is a believer with the Adventist Kabeza branch “points on the fact that some of the leaders do not walk their talk which contradicts their preaching hence being opposed.”
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Ntaganda Pascal thoughts
Some of other things that may cause resistance is the failure to recognize the rise of new gifts within the Christian community by the leadership,
On another hand Paul argues Christians in the book of 1Corinthians 1:10:12 to live with one another in unity and put to rest any division by having a common vision with shared values.