The word schism comes from cutting, splitting, or splintering wood: Splitting hairs, or straw-splittings and quibbles. Schisms in the body of Christ therefore are splinter groups and sects that arise over preachers’ straw-splitting quibbles over personal opinions not written in Scripture, but are preached as Scripture itself (2 Peter 1:20). Thus resulting in personalized churches and whole organizations of personal preachers that set themselves and their followers differently apart from the rest of the body based on the false ministering of one’s own mind. Rather than the ministry of the word of God only for all the body to follow. (Acts 6:4,17:2,18:28)(Rom 15:4)(1 Cor 15:4)
Out of such squabbles over quibbles, local customs of unwritten Christian standards are formed by the preacher’s leadership as a personal christ himself, rather than ministering the Scriptures only for Jesus‘ sake. This is the meaning of Paul's statement that their are no such customs in the churches of God (1 Cor 11:16). We do not have unwritten customs made in different local churches by preachers that contentiously squabble over their private definitions of how long the hair of women ought be to cover their heads, or how short the hair of men ought be to keep the head uncovered. No local sects of local churches with local customs of local preachers who add to the Scriptures their own interpretations of when drinking is drunk or not. The ministry of the Word only is to preach and rightly divide what is written from Scripture and what is not written from men’s own minds.
Thus, schism in the church is due to preacher loyalties (1 Cor 1), which arise from preachers preaching their personal opinions, standards, and programs: the unwritten things of their own minds on Christian righteousness and service to God (Num 16:28,24:13). The divisions of separated groups of the body occur as believers line up behind such personal preaching as personal Christian proselytes, or refuse such obedience to man and remain the true Shepherd’s sheep by obeying His voice only according to the Scriptures.
Such personal preachers do not simply preach the common faith of Jesus and salvation of the Scriptures (Jude 3), but rather begin with their own things that they inserted into the preaching, and qualify it by saying 'But, that's just me'. In this way the affections of the sheep for the Shepherd begin to be misdirected to the personal affections of the preacher’s own Christian ways and ideas. A mixture of Scriptural and personal preaching occurs that defiles the written Word of God with the unwritten interpretations of man. Such mixed seed produces mixed-up believers, unknowingly trying to serve two Masters, Jesus and the 'Pastor'. Being ignorant of the Scriptures, the sheep are seduced by their own affections for the preachers, and a strife of mixed loyalties enters into the body. These fiery darts of the devil are made from the splintered wood of bad pulpits, tipped with the poison of a preacher's personal commands, rather than the good wood of the cross only.
In time, such ’Just Me-isms’ begin to transform themselves into standards of practice and service for the local church to follow. The ‘Just Me’ preaching and teachings take on the solidified forms of commandments that all true and real Christians ought to obey (Matthew 15:9). As the ‘Just Me’ preacher raises up his private interpretations of Scripture to that of Scripture itself, he thus lifts up himself higher than he ought from a private member of the body of Christ to that of Headship itself. And so false christs transform themselves out of ’Just Me’ preachers who do not stick with ’Just Jesus’ scriptures. (Matthew 17:5,8)(John 12:21)(2 Peter 1:17-19)
