The current leadership, in its quest to reconcile with disgruntled former members, has occasionally quoted 2 Corinthians 5:17,18 to support this goal. The complete passage reads:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (NIV)
It's obvious from this passage that the "ministry of reconciliation" isn't about mending fences with other believers. It's about evangelism. We have the ministry of reconciling unbelievers to God.
This underscores the lack of formal Scriptural training that hinders GC leaders from rightly dividing the word of truth. In this example, instead of performing
exegesis (drawing the meaning out of Scripture) the leadership has performed
eisogesis (reading meaning into Scripture).
It's not that the Bible doesn't teach love, unity, or reconciliation within the church. It does. But
not in this passage.And if you're reading this, dear brothers & sisters in Christ who are still with GC:
yes, it matters. It matters because we can't obey God's word when we try to force it to say something it doesn't actually say.
