error vs heresy

Just a question....would you consider a person who is divisive (by leading others away from the church leadership/philosophy of ministry) for his own agenda, purpose etc. even though he has correct doctrine? In other words with the intention (knowingly or not) of dividing the body for his own following?

 

A sect is simply a subdivision of a larger group & is by nature a group; not an individual. This would make your definition inapplicable to an individual. What church were the Pharisees splitting? They were operating under the Old Covenant. The Covenanted church had not yet been established. If they were heretical because they were a sect, then wouldn't that make IFB's, C of C's, SBC's, & other separate church groups heretical for being separate groups within the Body & family of God? Your line of reasoning cannot be carried to its logical conclusion without condemning independent churches. Divisiveness between churches can be as sinful as divisiveness within a church.

 

I've never heard of fundamentalists splitting SBC churches in this way. Care to give an example? To my knowledge, in the early years of the movement, IFB churches either came out of the SBC to become independent (Highland Park BC in Chattanooga) or started their own churches (John R. Rice planting 11 churches in TX to start the movement in that state). But granting that SBC churches are split by fundamentalists, it would not be a case of heresy unless the independents were teaching bad doctrine in the church, doctrine which produced arguing groups in the church.

Splitting a church over church polity is not what I think is heresy in the Bible. Or over personalities or over methodology. Heresy is when a person splits a church over doctrine.

I somewhat agree here. But I would cast the net wider. For example, a tongues speaker may be considered to be generally orthodox in soteriology, bibliology and all the rest. But their aberrant doctrine splits churches all the time, and I consider it to be heresy. So a heretical doctrine to me is a doctrine that by its nature produces factions in a church. Tongues certainly does that. Heretical doctrine on soteriology does too.

 

No, a person is only a heretic based on doctrine. The Bible does give examples of factions in a church based on personalities (1 Cor. 3), for example, but that is not called heresy. The Greek word there in v. 3 for "divisions" (Byzantine text, not modern texts) is dicostasia (dicostasia), "disunity, dissention, division" (Friberg's Anlex).

Splitting a church based on personality, methodology and the like, is terribly wrong, but not heresy.

 

I assume you're talking to me here, though you don't say so.

I really don't think you understand my argument. I'm simply dealing with the meaning of the words in Scripture. I didn't invent the words. I didn't define them either. I gave a definition from a widely accepted Greek lexicon.

First of all, I don't believe the Pharisees were Jewish heretics. They were a perfectly orthodox group by the standards of Judaism. Yet the same Greek word is used of them as is used of "heresy." By the nature of words, context determines meaning. Simply because the same word is used for the Pharisees as is used for heresy in a church does not make the two meanings the same. They are different. The Pharisees were an orthodox sect within Judaism.

You say,

The problem is not what I say, it is what the Scripture says. There is a word for "heretic" in the Bible (Titus 3:10), an individual with false doctrine. It is based on the same root as "heresy." Since the Bible has a word for individuals as heretics, that is what makes individuals heretics, not my opinion.

Concerning divisions between churches, I don't consider that to be heresy in the Biblical sense. The Greek word is not used in that way in the Bible. I assume you are Baptist, since you are posting here. If so, then you must know that we Baptists have a distinctive called "the autonomy of the local church." It is up to an individual church whether or not to fellowship with other churches, whether that be an SBC church deciding not to fellowship with an ABC church that ordains homosexuals, or an IFB church deciding not to fellowship with an SBC church for whatever reason. It's their right as an autonomous church, and none of my business. It is not heresy in the Biblical sense of the word.