Articles
When They Go Out From Us
“They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us.” (1 John 2:19)
Among Christians, often a new group will pop up teaching and practicing things vastly different from the apostles’ doctrine taught in the congregation(s) from which they came. We are shocked and rightly so. But in most cases these folks were “not of us” long before “they went out from us.” It usually happens after they have failed to win enough support within the congregation(s) where they formally attended to take over. They have now shown the world where their hearts had been for sometime.
All of this demands diligence on the part of overseers and other knowledgeable Christians to be begin to deal with the problems when there are initial signs that they are “not of us” in their thinking. Instead, often the church’s leadership, instead of dealing forthrightly with it by corrective teaching and discipline, they prefer to not rock the boat, thus allowing the leaven enough time to work its way through a larger portion of the whole lump.
The Lord gives the responsibility to elders to shepherd the sheep and to watch for their souls. Instead, in too many cases, elders are mostly concerned with balancing the church’s budget and directing the church various “programs.” They have neither the time nor knowledge to spot and correctly deal with the wolves among them. They resent and/or ignore warnings from knowledgeable Christians outside their congregation who are aware of what “is going on” with some of their members. These elders and other knowledgeable men should be able to get a handle on the problem long before it becomes self-evident that they “are not OF us” when they “went out FROM us.”
