Greetings to all of the readers of this little column. Today, we will be looking at Romans 1:812. Paul writes to the Christians at Rome: “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers, making request if, by some means, now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established— that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”
We find out a lot in these few verses. Notice, Paul talks about the mutual faith they shared. If any of you have studied church history, you know that the Christendom we have today is nothing like they had in the first century. At that time, they all followed the same doctrine. Since all of the individual churches taught the same doctrine, they as a group made up the one universal church. Things are not that way today. Failure to follow the same doctrine has resulted in the formation of hundreds of divisions.
Satan has divided God’s church by getting us to accept the lie that doctrine doesn’t matter. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:10, “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” Folks, can’t we do what Paul begged the Corinthian brothers to do? God bless all of you.