Nathan W. Bingham

It's not the contending that sows disunity.

Rather, it is that false teachers have come in, and false teachers are teaching something that is different from the faith, and they are the ones that are sowing disunity.

And so what Jude is saying to them is, you need to fight.

You need to contend against that for the sake of unity.

We contend for the sake of unity.

Now, that doesn't mean that we have to contend for everything.

We are always looking at, is this a first-order doctrine?

Is this a second-order doctrine?

Is this a third-order doctrine?

Is it not even something that we should be worried about?

I'm going to read to you a

Illustration I read a number of years ago, Craig Barnes, who pastored the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., wrote an article in the 90s about how he found himself in his church sidelined by a coffee table.

He said this, he said, Last spring, the hospitality committee put a little coffee stand in the narthex.

The next day, the head usher of 25 years quit in protest, saying this was sacrilege to the church sanctuary.

All the ushers quickly became upset.

Since a committee had put the coffee there, the session had to decide on the issue, so they set up a task force that met for eight weeks to listen to the ushers in the hospitality committee.

One Sunday, a bunch of ushers decided not to show up to usher because we hadn't brought back the head usher yet.

So, then the elders were ticked off at the ushers.

In the middle of that, I'm not talking about Jesus to anybody.

I'm not making hospital calls or shepherding people through grief.