Us.Them. Christianity: When they follow Jesus, but they don't follow us.

"John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. For the one who is not against us is for us.” (Mark 9:38-40)

Have you ever had an influential Christian tell you to “stop it,” and from that point forward, your conscience began to say “stop it,” too?

When I was a kid, we had a few guest speakers come to our church who preached about the evils of Sunday TV. I knew, from the countenances of my spiritually sensitive parents, that Sunday football was done for weeks, maybe months! Stop it.

My wife had a similar experience when families from her church attended the Basics Seminar. One of the sessions included a warning about the dangers of the youth group. Many of those families removed their teenagers from the youth group after returning home from the conference. Stop it.

I picked up my 12-year-old daughter from a week of Christian camping in New England. On the ride home, I asked her what she had learned from the preaching sessions. She replied preachily from the passenger seat, “I made a decision not to listen to any more Keith and Kristyn Getty music with you guys because the evangelist said it was 'worldly'.” Stop it.

I graduated from a Christian university internationally known for its “stop its.” Over the years as fellow alumni have begun attending the church I pastor, I’ve noticed that some of us carry baggage filled with conscience alarms that register “stop it” with issues like "all things Billy Graham" (Operation Christmas Child, Samaritan’s Purse, etc.), associations with other denominations, worship styles, lifestyle choices, Calvinism, etc. Stop it.

There's been a lot of it. A popular ministry has drawn battle lines of orthodoxy around affirming one version of cessationism versus continuationism of spiritual gifts. This year, a Biblical origins ministry platformed a woman teacher who color-codes (red, yellow, and green) other teachers and ministries as approved or disapproved. There is also a bi-annual conference that teaches that the right way to worship the Lord musically is with conservative music. Stop it.

Since Jesus' time, followers of Christian movements often become less inclusive and more insular than the founder of that movement. They tend to become cliquish and tribal.

The chosen dozen weren’t immune to this law of exclusivity. In Mark 9, we have the record of one of the sons of thunder, John, saying to Jesus, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us." (v.38)

Slip of the tongue? John said, "...we tried to stop him, because he was not following us." We would’ve expected John to have said, "because he was not following you." Here we discover the core issue. When we equate following Jesus with following us, we have a twisted view of Christian ministry.

When we equate following Jesus with following us, we have a twisted view of Christian ministry. "

Us. Them. Christianity reacts to those who follow Jesus but don't follow them with exclusion.

Who was this nameless exorcist? No details are given. Perhaps he had heard the teachings of Christ, believed in Him, and then went out to do ministry in the name of Jesus. Everything appeared blessed. That’s until the Twelve noticed the man was following Jesus, but wasn’t following them. The disciples must have known this new kingdom would have more than 12 citizens! Their misunderstanding, though, was thinking that true ministry came exclusively through the Twelve. John viewed "team apostles" as the gatekeepers for Christian ministry.

John’s exclusion of the unnamed disciple reminds us of an incident in Judges 12. The Ephraimites were in a brutal fight with their brothers, the Gileadites. When the Ephraimites sought an escape route across the Jordan, they encountered the Gileadites doing Jordan River border patrol. The Ephraimites pretended to be locals. But the Gileadites outsmarted them. The Gilead Jordan Border Security would ask each crosser, “Are you an Ephraimite?” When they said, “No,” they would demand that the crossers say a password. The word was “shibboleth.” Only the locals could say it the right way. When the Ephraimites tried to say, “shibboleth,” they invariably said, “sibboleth.” 42,000 were killed for mispronunciation!

Originally, by His grace, God had opened the Jordan River for all of the tribes of Israel to enter the promised land. Yet, when humans took charge of border crossings at the Jordan, they made demands on their brothers to say passwords correctly, under penalty of death. Password-protected Christianity stifles grace. It fosters a spirit of performance and creates modern-day shibboleths like these:

You follow Jesus, but your musical worship is different than us. Sibboleth.
You follow Jesus, but you don’t apply separation like us. Sibboleth.
You follow Jesus, but you are not as conservative as us. Sibboleth.
You follow Jesus, but you are not as complementarían as us. Sibboleth.
You follow Jesus, but your church is more attractional than us. Sibboleth.
You follow Jesus, but you don’t view modesty like us. Sibboleth.
You follow Jesus, but you are more reformed than us. Sibboleth

Password-protected Christianity stifles grace.

Us. Them. Christianity reacts to those who follow Jesus but don't follow them with suspicion.

John and the disciples were eyeing this rogue exorcist ministering in Jesus’ name with suspicion. Though he was successful, they detected something defective in his motivation and methods. The disciples see a good work, but they don’t see it as good news. John said, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him.” Jesus responds very differently. “Jesus said, 'Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.” Why are the hearts of the disciples out of sync with the heart of Jesus?

No doubt, John thought he was demonstrating spiritual discernment. And, discernment is a spiritual gift. (I Corinthians 12:10) It indicates spiritual growth. (Hebrews 5:14) And, we should pray for more of it. (Philippians 1:9-11)

We should be careful. Every legitimate gift of the Spirit for the church has a subtle counterfeit. The gift of spiritual discernment is counterfeited by unfounded suspicion. What is the difference between the two?

Spiritual discernment recognizes true evil for what it is.

Suspicion, on the other hand, imagines evil where there is none.

Suspicion can lead to heresy hunting, Googling for godlessness, and obsessive witch-hunts. Most everyone would agree that an undetected witch in the church would be really bad! But an unfounded witch-hunt is equally destructive.

The gift of spiritual discernment is counterfeited by unfounded suspicion

Us. Them. Christianity reacts to those who follow Jesus but don't follow them with opposition.

Do we view those who follow Jesus but don't follow us as the enemy or as family? For the disciples, it was an us-versus-them, zero-sum game. Notice Jesus’ words, “Do not stop him…for the one who is not against us is for us.” Jesus shows himself to be more inclusive than His disciples. The disciples saw themselves as having a corner on the ministry market. They had drawn a small circle around themselves and their movement. But Jesus draws the circle much wider! He refused to tell the nameless disciple to stop. Instead, he told the disciples to stop excluding, suspecting, and fighting with him, because this man was on team Jesus. He was not the enemy. The real war is raging between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. The true enemy is Satan. The disciples had misidentified the enemy and had drawn misplaced battlelines.

This maxim by Jesus, "for the one who is not against us is for us," makes some Christians uncomfortable. Does it set the bar too low? Couldn't a person simply say, "I love Jesus," and believe and do whatever they wanted? That would be a legitimate concern if the boundary lines of Christianity had not been clearly defined. But this miracle worker was doing ministry in Jesus’ name, which is shorthand for believing in Jesus as the Christ. Notice that “In my name”/“in your name” is mentioned three times in rapid succession.

The disciples had misidentified the enemy and had drawn misplaced battlelines.

And, the essentials of the gospel (the boundary lines) are clearer for us today than they were for the disciples. The content of the gospel has been transferred from generation to generation. (I Corinthians 15:3-4) Seven doctrinal affirmations are declared as the basic tenets of belief on which our unity of the Spirit stands. (Ephesians 4:4-6)

We also have excellent creeds, like the Apostle’s Creed, and Confessions, like the New Hampshire Baptist Confession or the Westminster Confession of Faith, that outline what a person must believe to be a Christian. Dr. Al Mohler’s theological triage has served the church well as a tool to identify the essentials compared with secondary and tertiary issues.

If everything is a fundamental, nothing is a fundamental. If everything is essential, nothing is essential. If everything is a fight, nothing is worth fighting for.

Too often, in Us. Them. Christianity, there is no distinction made between close-handed and open-handed issues, or essentials versus non-essentials. If a believer follows Jesus but doesn't follow us, we oppose them as an enemy. These things ought not to be.

“We must avoid the error of thinking all differences between Christians divide us in an essential way as well as the error of thinking that no division is important.” -R.C. Sproul

A Warning and a Plea

Jesus’ command not to stop this independent exorcist is in the present tense. This Greek imperative, kolyete (“Do not stop him"), implies that Jesus’ admonition is not limited to this one instance, but is valid for all such situations: “Do not stop such people.” Or, it could be translated, “stop stopping such people.”

If we trace the context of this passage, after answering John, Jesus gives a heart-piercing warning: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and were thrown into the sea.” (Mark 9:42)

Who are these little ones to whom Jesus refers? Jesus is responding to the disciples, excluding, suspecting, and opposing a fellow believer. When Jesus speaks about causing someone to stumble into sin (v.41, 43, 45, 47), he is referring to the creation of confusion that this rejection causes in another believer who has been rejected. The disciples were shrinking the circle of those whom they believed to be the true people of God.

Christian organizations that have historically been known for their exclusion, suspicion, and opposition to those who follow Jesus but don't follow them are perplexed at why Generation Z doesn't get it, the obsessive separation. But the truth is on their side. "God has welcomed him." (Romans 14:3b)

The disciples were shrinking the circle of those whom they believed to be the true people of God.

We should repent and resist the pride in our hearts, the roots that flower into blooms of divisive tribalism. We need to confess it and uproot it.

When the Spirit of God came on the seventy elders in the tent of meeting, two other men were not in the tent: Eldad and Medad, and they had the Spirit of God on them. Joshua, like John, much later said to Moses, "My lord Moses, stop them." But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!" (Numbers 11:26-30)

And, then there is the Apostle Paul who said, "Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill.... What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice." (Philippians 1:15-18).

May we mimic Moses, Paul, and especially Jesus by rejoicing, celebrating, and giving thanks every time and everywhere we find Jesus being loved, savored, and proclaimed.

“Here is the golden rule indeed, and one that human nature sorely needs, and has forgotten. Men of all branches of Christ’s church are apt to think that no good can come in the world unless it is done by their own party or denomination. They are so narrow-minded that they cannot conceive the possibility of working on any other pattern but that which they follow. They make an idol of their peculiar ecclesiastical machinery, and can see no merit in any other.” -J.C. Ryle