As people who call Bible things by Bible names and do Bible things in Bible ways, members of the “church of Christ” (as a singular, universal institution) or “churches of Christ” (as separate assemblies of Christians congregating in specific places) search out the truth concerning life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3) by studying the scriptures to search for the truth about any matter in God’s revelation (Acts 17:11; John 17:17; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).
We only desire to live our lives in obedience to one form of doctrine (i.e. “teaching”) revealed to man (Romans 6:17-18) and today contained exclusively in the Bible. Conducting our lives and worship in this way, we become “slaves for righteousness for holiness.” (Romans 6:19)
Since we practise. teach and defend this singular body of doctrine (2 Timothy 2:2; Jude 3), we claim to be correct in obeying God’s revealed commandments because we love God and His Son (John 14:15; 1 John 5:1-3), whom we call “Lord” (Luke 6:46-49). Truth be told, because we believe that being correct by the standard of scripture is necessary, we cannot agree with error and we have no ties or fellowship with Bible-believers who evidently disagree with scriptures about anything. Because of this stand towards denominationalism, many churches of Christ are branded “exclusivist”. To be fair, we have not declared anyone wrong but only that we are correct because holy scripture says so. Of course, by inference, any one who believes something different from us is incorrect, NOT because we say they are wrong but because God’s word says they are wrong.
To the extent that what we believe and do is in agreement with what the scriptures properly handled (2 Timothy 2:15; 3:16-17) require us to believe and do, those who believe and do something else have a problem, not with us, but with God’s word which they oppose. Hence, for example, since scripture teaches that “there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism …” (Ephesians 4:5-6) and we have ascertained from scripture that our belief and practice of baptism is correct, those who disagree with the purpose (i.e. salvation) and mode of baptism (i.e. by immersion in water) we believe in cannot possibly agree with us nor have fellowship with us.
Similarly, since we must worship “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23-24) and truth is found in God’s word (John 17:17), any believer who believes, or teachers that “All life is worship” cannot possibly agree with us. for the simple reason that not everything in life fulfils the condition of being “in spirit and in truth”. “ALL of life …” necessarily includes the nonspiritual and the untruthful in life. It would be the height of presumption to offer everything and anything one can think of (which is encompassed by the adjective or qualifier “all”) in worship of the God who long ago declared, “It is better to obey than to sacrifice …” (1 Samuel 15:22).
Christians have no business identifying any individual as one of themselves in faith and conduct except by the standard of God’s word properly handled (2 Timothy 2:15). And we cannot walk along, and together, with anyone we do not agree with for scriptural reasons (Amos 3:3). Even individuals who claim to be members of the church of Christ must be marked or identified as teachers of error and avoided by the faithful if their teaching or conduct causes divisions and offences among God’s people (Romans 16:17-20; John 2:7-11).
Such divisions on grounds of Bible interpretation are unavoidable for God’s people. As the apostle Paul instructs us in 1 Corinthians 11:18-19, “… when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you.” Ideally, no individual or group desires to be wrong or incomplete about knowledge which pertain to life, godliness and eternal salvation of our soul. We are commanded to handle God’s word aright (2 Timothy 2:15) and not “deceitfully” (2 Corinthians 4:2). We are excluvist concerning fellowship simply because proclaiming the “truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) requires that we be able to tell the difference between the saved and the lost,- and preach the gospel to the lost while keeping the saved saved.
Ephesians 4:15 15but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—