Unity in Gray Areas: How Christians Disagree Without Dividing the Church

Summary

Christians often disagree on “gray areas” where Scripture is silent. God grants freedom in these matters but forbids judgment, pride, or contempt. Strong and weak believers must accept one another, remembering that Christ alone is Lord and Judge. Motivation matters more than behavior. Each believer must follow conscience under Christ’s lordship, pursue unity in essentials, liberty in nonessentials, and love in all things.

Unity in Gray Areas

Scripture does not speak about many issues on which equally sincere Christians disagree. How can we maintain unity in gray areas? How can we disagree on “gray areas” where the Bible does not clearly speak and still retain unity in the church?

When the Bible is silent about an issue, we are free and responsible to choose our behavior without looking down on or judging others who choose differently. The problem is that it is sometimes easier to please God than our fellow Christians.

Growing up in my church, I was taught that Christians should not drink alcoholic beverages. A preacher in my denomination once jokingly said that Jesus turned water into wine, but we would have thought more of Him if He had turned wine into water!

One of the smartest people I have known, a lawyer, tried to prove that we should abstain from drinking alcohol based on biblical teaching. He could not do it and be fair to the scriptures.

Strong and Weak Believers

Paul describes the rule-burdened believer as weak in the faith. For example, the strong had freedom in Christ to partake of all food (Mark 7:19, 1 Timothy 4:3-4).

The weak had not yet grown to that level of spiritual maturity. They were still responding to the demands of the Jewish ceremonial law.

How must believers with different convictions in debatable areas treat one another? The strong must warmly receive the weak. They must not treat them as spiritually inferior.

That avoids spiritual pride, a temptation for the strong. In the weak, spiritual pride reveals itself, for example, in condemning the one who eats everything.

But God has accepted that individual. The weak believer must do the same.

Motivation Matters More Than Behavior

In debatable matters, motivation is more important than behavior. Judging motives is God’s department.

Every believer is God’s servant. It is inappropriate to judge the work habits of someone else’s servant.

We are free to choose our behavior in gray areas. We are not free to impose our views, look down on, or judge believers who differ.

We must personally wrestle with gray issues. We should not let spiritual leaders do all our thinking for us.

We must be fully convinced about them (Romans 14:5). Then, we must keep our convictions to ourselves.

Live Under Christ’s Lordship

We should decide what to do based on Christ’s Lordship. We are seeking His approval. We want to honor Him in what we do.

We live for Him, not ourselves. Our relationship with Him is the key to life now and hereafter.

He must be the center of this life. He will be the center of the next.

Jesus purchased the church by His blood (Acts 20:28). His resurrection verified His claim to deity, His ability to save, and His universal dominion.

He’s Lord of both the dead and the living. To Him alone, believers must give account.

The weak believer is prone to judging. The strong believer is inclined to look down on the weak.

But God is the only true and qualified judge. At the judgment seat of Christ, the Lord will judge all believers’ works and motives.

In the present, we should judge our own lives, not others. That best prepares us to give an account of ourselves to God.

Rupertus Meldenius summed it up in a tract written about 1627: “In the essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty, in all things, charity.”¹ 

1.     In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity - BibleMesh

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