Why Are There So Many Different Denominations?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 2:42, John 17, John 17:17, John 17:20, John 17:21

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--why-are-there-so-many-different-denominations
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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well let me give you a very broad answer and then we'll focus more narrowly and if if someone is really interested in studying this question greater detail i recommend my history series a history of christian doctrine volumes 1 2 and 3.

i narrate the 2000 years of church history and in the process i explain how different denominations are formed and different religious traditions were formed so for for if you want a detailed answer from a historical point of view uh that series and it's also available as an abridged one volume

well thank you and uh so i tried to it's not just a history of christianity it's history of doctrine so the how these various ideas evolve but to give a a simple answer they're basically three different philosophies for the christian church and when i describe them i'm not attacking anybody i'm trying to be descriptive but the first one you might call tradition and that's represented by the roman catholic church and eastern orthodoxy so the way they established doctrine is saying just to say the the church we have today is the direct successor of the apostles so we go back to church leaders in the case of the catholic church they use the pope eastern orthodox they use some of the ancient churches and they say our church is the successor of the church of the previous generation the previous generation all going all the way back to jesus christ uh to peter the first pope in the first case of the catholics of course that's false both um theologically and historically but that's the theory that the reason why we can justify our beliefs is this unbroken chain of tradition however as a matter of historical fact there is no such unbroken chain and even if there were historically you don't have to look at 2 000 years of history to see the flaw just look at the last 50 years because people change their beliefs i use an analogy let's say you wanted to cut 20 boards of equal length and so you measure the first one you cut it what if you take the first one to measure the second one the second one to measure the third one and so on to the 20th board you will find a significant variation because slight variations will will crop up in the process and by the time you get the end they will be distorted and magnified well the same thing would happen another analogy i use is a little game uh that's sometimes called gossip where uh one person thinks of a sentence and they whisper it in the ear of the second person the second person whispers the ear of the third person and so on all the way around the room let's say you had 20 people and then the last person gets up and announces the sentence and then the first person announces the real sentence and invariably there's no relation because each person hears something just a little bit different or they miss something they instinctively fill in the context so it makes sense to them but they end up distorting the message well if that's true in a simple matter of cutting boards or whispering sentences well 20 centuries of teaching doctrine can any false ideas creep in the church yes whether intentionally or not for example 50 years ago the major protestant denominations in america would have opposed fornication adultery same-sex marriage uh or even homosexual relationships transgenderism now they ordain bishops leaders of the church who practice these various sins so we can see before our eyes how the church can evolve so tradition is not a sufficient uh safeguard so then the second way of doing church is the protestant reformation so what happened in the middle ages of course martin luther in in 1517 became the catalyst that he began studying the scripture and he realized that the church of his day did not follow scripture in major ways now he focused on justification by faith and so he pronounced we've got to go back to the word of god but he did not completely go back to the beginning he took the medieval church and he reformed certain key elements that he felt were essential but other elements that he recognized were not biblical but still he left alone so that's why it's called the protestant reformation protestant meaning they protested the medieval church reformation meaning they reformed the medieval church so on a doctrine such as salvation by faith versus works luther was adamant salvation by grace through faith and so we're going to reform the church but on uh say baptism uh luther admitted that in the bible baptism is by immersion but he didn't try to reform that because he didn't think it was essential so he left it alone there's even a place in luther's writings where some people are baptizing in the name of jesus christ and so luther's probably they were inspired by luther's emphasis let's go back to the bible and some of luther's followers came to luther and said you know we need to rebuke these people they're giving us a bad name apparently they were protestants and they're denying the trinity and they're making everybody think that we're of that sort and so luther's answer was we cannot forbid them from doing this because they're only doing what the apostles did in the new testament so in essence luther admitted when you read the new testament the apostles baptized the name of jesus christ but he did not feel compelled to go back to that practice because his idea was let's just fix what is essential to be fixed we don't have to overhaul everything let's keep so he kept the merger of church and state he believed in executing the more radical reformers like the anabaptists which is not at all the practice of the new testament church so he very much kept many elements of the medieval church even when he or others realize it's not the same as original church the third way of doing a church is restoration and this is represented by the pentecostal movement trinitarians but even more consistently oneness when the early pentecostals of the 20th century received the holy ghost it wasn't based on their experience it was based on scripture so men such as charles parr and william seymour they began preaching the baptism of the holy ghost with the initial sign of speaking in tongues even though they themselves had not received this experience so it wasn't based on emotion it wasn't based on ex their experience it wasn't based on their tradition it wasn't based on their denomination it was actually contrary to all those things but it was based on the word of god so they had this concept of restoration whatever we find in the new testament we should follow that um whatever the apostles preached taught received consistently practiced we need to go back and recapture that that's what led to the baptism of the holy ghost speaking in tongues and then for the oneness people they took another step well in the early church they baptized the name of jesus christ not in the threefold titles not only that why did they do that well that led to the understanding of when jesus dwells all the fullness of the godhead bodily father son and holy spirit is revealed in jesus christ so that that complete restorationism led back to jesus name baptism in the oneness of god now as you might guess i believe that third way is the correct way and you say well why is that better than the other way in my short answer it's based on the lordship of jesus christ if you accept jesus as lord then you accept his method of starting the church notice jesus did not start any local churches he did not write any books but he commissioned the apostles initially the 12 apostles then later the apostle paul as the special apostle to the gentiles he trained them and commissioned them you you see the great commission matthew 28 19 through 20.

he said i want you to go evangelize the world preach the gospel in every nation make disciples baptize those disciples and then matthew 28 20 says teaching them to observe all things whatsoever i have commanded you now there are many other scriptures that i won't take the time to go into but basically the way jesus set up the church is that he trained he selected trained the apostles they established the church and so we are supposed to be in continuity with the original apostles as we see in the new testament in fact acts 2 42 summarizes the the early church on the day of pentecost after the initial 120 received the holy spirit 3 000 more came the church were filled with the spirit and then this is what characterized the early church and and it's a model for us today acts 2 42 they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship breaking a bread in prayers so they continued in the original experience and the original doctrine or teaching of the apostles so i say restorationism is the plan of jesus and what that simply means in practice every generation and i would say every local church should not be content just to accept tradition handed down tradition has a role it can be valuable but you cannot uncritically accept a tradition handed down to you nor can you merely be content with reforming some things you identify as erroneous or dysfunctional but every generation and every local church has to intentionally go back to the original church and compare yourself to the original just like the 20 boards if you want them to be as close as possible in length you you cut each one by the first one okay if you want like gossip if you want to make sure there's no deviation each person needs to hear the original statement by the original person there still may be some slight variation but you're much more likely to get the the accurate message and when you compare if there are any slight deviation you can easily identify that deviation because you got 19 other people who heard the very same words and so you're much more likely to get the exact original message and so that's what we need to do so my answer to your question is the reason why there's so many denominations is people have uncritically accepted tradition and then as they saw flaws they tried to fix those flaws in one area which led to another branch and then of course people interpreting scripture each has their own interpretation and if they just compare it in their own thinking or among their small group or among their friends or people with like experience then they have their own group of course as a practical matter many groups are formed by power struggles by people who want to be in leadership or cultural issues even language issues and so different groups splinter because of culture society language leadership and i'm not saying we all have to be organized into one organization but i do believe we should be have the common apostolic doctrine and i would say even though there are thousands of denominations there be maybe many people in some of those groups even though the group may not be totally accurate but people can have a genuine exciting experience with god through being born again of the water in the spirit even in some of those groups so i'm not just writing off every group and i'm not saying you have to belong to the upci i do believe you should be restored to the apostolic doctrine so to summarize i think there are many religious groups because people have followed traditions that have changed over time and then when people realized that there were flaws they tried to fix the flaws they observed which led to more groups and some of the people those groups said well you fixed a but you didn't fix b so now we're going to form a group that fixes a and b and that just keeps adding and adding adding and then when you multiply well i want to be the leader no i want to be the leader and so they both believe in a and b but they split over leadership uh and so or over cultural issues or social issues and and so then it's split split split but i think behind your question is how can we get at the truth and the answer is the one true church is the original apostolic church as revealed in the new testament and so if every one of us will go back to that and compare ourselves to that church we're much more likely to have truth and we can be united with the original church and in fact jesus prayed in john 17.

he prayed for his disciples uh he said to god and of course jesus here is a man representing us he prayed in john 17 17 of those disciples that were there the apostles sanctified them by your truth a sanctified means to set apart and then he said thy word is truth so what is supposed to separate us from the rest of the world is truth and where we find truth is in the word of god the bible and then in john 17 20 he says not only do i pray for these but i pray for all those who will believe on me through their word well that's us we've never met jesus in the flesh but we believe on jesus through the words of the apostles and their associates as recorded in the new testament that's why we believe on jesus so that's an interesting point by the way jesus prayed for us to the extent that we believe on jesus through the original apostles that prayer that blessing comes directly to us but notice as i said earlier that's the method jesus used to start the church they're supposed to all these other believers are supposed to believe on me through the words of the apostles and then he says in verse 21 that they all may be one now some have said well that means catholics and protestants and pentecostals are all joining one organization he's not talking about that he's saying i want the future believers to be joined with the apostles so they would all be one and that's where we find oneness even though we may have different organizations that's secondary that's just a matter of uh you know practicality in many cases but there should be a genuine oneness of believers around the apostolic faith and i do believe the united pentecostal church international does represent the apostolic faith although we're certainly not the only group that does and we believe that people can be saved by following the apostolic faith of the new birth even in other groups that aren't don't fully adopt it as official doctrine but the the key to reversing that dysfunction or that disunity that you see is to unite around the original apostolic faith