Christians disagree. Well, that should come as no surprise to any of you. We are not clones nor do we all think alike on most subjects. Disagreements are inevitable and are a part of life. The trick is to discover how to “disagree without being disagreeable.” Disagreements need not turn into “cut offs” where we cease all contact with someone. Disagreements can be productive causing us to see things from a different perspective. They may cause us to change our minds or at least rethink our position on a matter.
Would it surprise you to learn that the apostles disagreed? Yep. They did. The prime example of this is recorded in Acts 15:36-40. The disagreement features two pillars of the faith, Paul and Barnabas. Realize the closeness of the relationship between the two. It was Barnabas who stuck his neck out for Paul shortly after Paul had been converted on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-19). Paul tried in vain to acquaint himself with the other apostles but they were afraid of him until Barnabas vouched for him (Acts 9:27). The Holy Spirit paired Paul and Barnabas to spearhead the first missionary journey (Acts 13:1-3). The two were inseparable until they weren’t.
In Acts 15 we see, what appears on the surface, to be a rather innocuous request from Paul. He says to Barnabas, “Let’s retrace our journey and check in on the churches to see how they’re doing.” Sounds pretty sensible since both men “fathered” the churches. Here comes the rub. Barnabas wanted to bring John Mark with them. This is the same John Mark who had deserted them in Perga and returned to Jerusalem (Acts 13:13). Why did he desert them? No one knows. We could speculate that he didn’t count on the physical persecution they’d be subjected to. Perhaps he was homesick. Perhaps he was afraid. Perhaps he realized he wasn’t called to serve as a missionary. We just don’t know. In any case, Paul was not having it. “Take John Mark who had deserted them? No way.” In Paul’s mind, John Mark was unfaithful and untrustable. Paul’s response leads to a sharp disagreement between him and Barnabas. The Greek word for “sharp disagreement” gives us the English word “paroxysm” meaning “a sudden attack, violent expression of a particular emotion or activity.” Did they yell at each other? Yes. This is an explosive emotion between two good friends and fellow servants of Christ Jesus!
From Barnabas’ perspective, John Mark is his near relative and deserves a second chance. To some degree both men were in the right! The upshot is that Paul chose Silas to accompany him and Barnabas took John Mark with him and the two teams went their separate ways. Did God use even this disagreement to build His church? Yes. Now there were two powerful teams going out proclaiming the gospel.
How about you and me? How do we handle disagreements? Here are three take-aways from this biblical account:
- To disagree with someone need not be a sin. As Christian brothers, we can speculate that Paul and Barnabas chose not to sin against one another by cursing one another, cutting off one another, or disparaging one another.
- To disagree with someone can cause us to consider what we had not until the other person made their case.
- To disagree with someone may lead to a positive outcome that wouldn’t have happened without the disagreement.
Disagreements need not be sinful or destructive,
Irv