Looking For Unity – 11

Out-of-Balance or Out-of-Bounds – 01

In this Age of Fallenness, nearly everything is out-of-balance until it is brought to equilibrium through the redemptive power of Jesus Christ. 

Church History is too often the story of unbalanced responses to existential imbalance – an overreaction against that which does not fit our too parochial narrative of orthodoxy.  The categories of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy are Scriptural and critical; but our skill in separating that which is Out-of-Balance from that which is Out-of-Bounds may need to be refined.

Had Aquilla and Priscilla placed Apollos in the category of Out-of-Bounds because he only knew the baptism of John, they would have lost the opportunity to bring Apollos into balance by explaining the way of the Lord more perfectly (Acts 18:24-28). 

Unnecessary division would have occurred, and the Churches of Christ would have lost the enriching ministry of a man mighty in the Scriptures but still lacking balance.  As it turned out, unity prevailed, Apollos evened out and “greatly helped those who believed through grace.”  (Acts 18:27 NKJV)

In Greek, that is known as a “win-win”! ☺