CHAPTER 2

QUESTION: If we profess to gather on the ground of the "one body," why do we take a position of separation from all the other members of the body and not break bread with them? This seems totally inconsistent with the truth of the New Testament, which presents the Christian community as being a happy family with all walking together in love. The Bible teaches that we should walk together in happy unity with our brothers and sisters, not in separation from them.

ANSWER: The problem here is that the person who asks such a question does not take into consideration where we are in church history. Seven out of the eight New Testament writers tell us that in the last times there would be a mass abandonment of the "faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Acts 20:19-30; 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1-5; 4:3-4; Jude 3-4). That is why it is important to have an understanding of the times and of the day in which we live. We are not in Pentecostal times, nor even in times of great revival; we are in the "last days" of the history of the church on earth (2 Tim. 3:1), and the Christian testimony suffers from an irremediable ruin.