A Rant About "Christian" Feuds

I’ve been involved in a few verbal scuffles in my life! One thing I’ve taken away from them, as a whole, is that they affect the people around us much more than we could imagine. Our spilling emotions, our withdrawal, our desire for justice, our semi-controlled frustration or anger ….. they spray the people around us, leaving them to make a choice about how to handle the aftermath!

This ‘sharing’ of our circumstance with others actually multiplies the burden of it. Each person who’s given a piece of information about the ordeal can become a feather in our cap, bringing us comfort in the fact that others see the injustice of our situation! This way of handling scuffles perpetuates the problem; more people with contributing ideas and thoughts fuel the unholy fire. After a while we’ve created a bonfire of astronomical proportions out of something that should have been briefly discussed then personally taken to God for His comfort and wisdom.

Philippians 4 records such a disagreement between 2 women in the church. Since neither of them was willing to resolve the situation, the church leaders asked Paul for his input. It’s evident that the problem had shifted from a disagreement between these two women to an ordeal which was over-shadowing church life at Philippi. This had taken the focus off of the work of God and put it onto the over-spilling emotions of their feud. But Paul didn’t take sides in it; he recognized that both of these women sincerely loved God and had a record of serving Him whole-heartedly. Here is insight for us: if we disagree with someone it doesn’t mean that God has stopped using them to advance His kingdom!

We’re not sent here to justify our personal feelings before others, but to defend the Gospel by the way we live. This takes the pressure out of having to be right about everything, thinking that others will see us as Godly if we can support our stance with the right Scriptures. Ultimately, our motives behind our thoughts and actions are more crucial than having the correct Scripture as a defense of our stance, and while others may not be able to see that motive, God does! We can point out applicable Scriptures when resolving conflicts, but without patience and tenderness we become Bible-thumping legalists who are more concerned about being right than living righteously before God and others.