Dealing with Disagreements
How are we to deal with disagreements in church?
How are we to deal with disagreements in church?
There can be all kinds of disagreements.
Sometimes people say things that upset others, often without even realising they have done so. There is hurt and upset. Is one side being oversensitive or the other side being insensitive? How do we deal with such situations?
Sometimes there can be arguments over church policy. What to spend money on or not. What kind of music we should sing or not. When to put the heating on. How do we resolve such disputes? The Bible does not pronounce on these issues, but people can be quite passionate about them and sometimes fall out if they don’t get their way.
Sometimes there can be disputes about roles. Who is responsible for what. Concerns that people are not doing what they said they would. Or that someone is taking over my role. How do we deal with such situations.
Sadly, such disputes can lead to people leaving the church, upset that they haven’t been treated well or got their own way. They may then complain to others outside the church, through gossip or on social media with the hope of ‘winning’ the approval of the court of public opinion for their case, rather than trying to deal with the issue within the church.
What are we meant to do?
What’s going wrong in Corinth?
The church in Corinth give us a good case study of how not to do it!
In this letter, Paul is writing to the church and is challenging them about what is going wrong. In the reading we had this morning, he is especially upset with them:
‘Do you dare to…’ (vs. 1)
‘I say this to shame you…’ (vs. 5)
‘You have been completely defeated already…’ (vs. 7)
What is going on? There are disputes within the church, probably of a more serious nature than the ones I have listed, but still relatively small issues, that would be dealt with in what we might call a ‘small claims’ court, that rather than dealing with sensibly or in a low key way within the church, they were taking each other to the public courts.
Now Paul is not talking here about more serious cases, properly criminal cases. The church in recent years has been rightly criticised for not taking issues of child sex abuse to the police, but trying to deal with them as an internal matter. Paul is clear in his letter to the Romans, that God has put in place the rulers of this world to deal with such criminal behaviour.
No, Paul is dealing with smaller issues, perhaps people who have failed to pay a bill in full or to complete work that was promised. Those kind of small claims issues – not murder of abuse. Paul is saying, that their failure to deal with such issues within the church was an utter disaster. They seemed to be more concerned with their personal gain, getting their own way, winning their dispute, than they were with building up and maintaining the church community.
What matters more to you: Church Community or Personal Gain?
And that is a challenge to us. What matters more to us, the Church Community or our Personal Gain?
In challenging the Corinthians in their disastrous behaviour, he touches on and hints at why the church community really matters and should be more important to us than our personal gain.
- Church as holy
Firstly, he reminds them that they are the ‘holy ones’. This is the word translated, ‘saints.’ It does not refer to especially good Christians, but to all true Christians.
Paul has already reminded us in the letter, that the community of believers is God’s temple. In other words, his holy house. As such, if your actions damage the community, they are sacrilegious. Just as we might feel that if someone vandalised the church building it was in some way worse than other vandalism, because it is God’s house, so the New Testament would say that to damage the church community is an act of vandalism on God’s building. Paul puts this very bluntly in 3:16-17:
“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)
But also, to be holy is to be called to be set apart from the world, as an example of what it means to live for God. A lot of people love the fact that St. George’s lantern tower is lit up at night – a beacon of light, especially in the dark evenings of this time of year.
But the community of God’s people is meant to be a beacon of good. That is why in the previous chapter, that we looked at last week, Paul was so keen that people who persist in serious sin are put out of the church, so as not to corrupt it from its calling.
More positively, in a passage that also talks of the church as God’s temple, Peter says that the church community is called to:
“Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:12)
In this passage, Paul says something even more radical about what the holiness of the church means. He says that we are to judge the world and to judge even angels in verses 2 and 3.
What does this mean? It could mean that by living the good life of faith, we show up the unbelief and corruption of the world. That certainly fits with what I have said about being a church community as holy.
It could also refer to the fact that at the end of time, we will sit with Christ, when he comes to judge the world. This fits with some of the imagery in Revelation:
“To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.” (Revelation 3:21)
Whatever Paul means by this statement, the point Paul is making is something like this:
‘How can you go to those outside the church to judge your cases, when they will be judged by you?’
‘How can you rely on the judgement of those whose values are not in line with the values of Christ, who will one day judge them?’
‘How can you rely on the judgement of those outside the church, when you are called to live by a totally different set of values in order to show up the unbelief and corruption of the world?’
‘Don’t you realise the church is set apart, holy and distinct from the world? How can you allow the unholy to judge the holy?’
Do you value the church community above your personal gain, because you have come to see it as God’s holy temple, which is to be built up and not vandalised?
- Church as family
But secondly, we also need to remember that the church is our spiritual family. Sadly, this point is a bit lost in translation. The Greek uses the word, ‘brothers’ in verses 5,6 and 8, but for some reason the NRSV mostly translated it ‘believers.’ The NIV does a better job at using the word, ‘brother.’
By putting their behaviour as one brother taking another to court in verse 6 and the idea of defrauding your brothers in verse 8 brings home the seriousness of what is going wrong.
It is wrong to exploit strangers and to fall into disputes with strangers, but it becomes even more wrong to do that to family. But when you do it to other members of the church community you are doing it to family.
Do you value the church community above your personal gain, because you have come to see it as family?
- Church founded on the cross
Thirdly, we need to see the church and our behaviour as shaped by the cross.
In the first few chapters, as Paul wrote to encourage unity in the church, he focussed on the wisdom of the cross. Their church was founded on the message of the cross, that Paul brought to them:
“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2)
The message of the cross does not fit with the thinking of the world, especially a world focussed on personal gain:
“For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:25)
The point is this. On the cross Jesus utterly gave up all personal gain for the sake of others. He gave up all his rights, in order to win a place in God’s eternal home for all who believed in him. He paid the price, that we sinners may gain the reward.
If that is the basis of our faith, the cornerstone of the church, then surely as Paul says in verse 7, we should be willing to be wronged and cheated rather than allow disputes that threaten to destroy or undermine the work of Christ.
And how can we preach Christ crucified to those outside the church, if we come before them arguing for our personal gain at the expense of our brothers and sisters in Christ?
Do you value the church community above your personal gain, because you have truly understood the church as founded on the cross of Christ?
Dealing with disputes:
So, with a clearer understanding of the church as holy, as family and as founded on the cross, we can come to the question of how to deal with disputes. Remember we are talking about disputes not crimes. Actual crimes need to be reported to the police and safeguarding concerns to the safeguarding officer or me or straight to the Diocesan safeguarding officers.
When it comes to other disputes, however, I want to suggest as Christians that there are four levels to dealing with disputes. We should consider the lowest levels first and only move to the next level if it is really necessary.
- Let it go? – vs. 7
The first level is to ask ourselves: Should I just let it go?
Yes, I may have been hurt, I may have lost out, but as Paul suggests in verse 7, in the interests of harmony and peace and following the example of Christ, is it best not to worry about this dispute and let the other person win, without even complaining?
This is probably the best way to act in many occasions, especially for smaller issues and one off problems. Let grace abound!
However, for more serious issues, or a recurring problem, which may suggest that there is a sin in the other that needs addressing or in order to protect the wider church, there are cases where you need to deal with the dispute.
- Resolve one to one – vs. 7; Mt. 18:15-17
So, the second level is to seek to resolve the dispute privately on a one to one basis. If you can do this, then you will avoid the defeat of having lawsuits that need to be judged, as Paul puts it in verse 7.
Jesus makes this point in Matthew 18:15-17:
“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.” (Matthew 18:15)
Of course it may be that as you talk to them with an open mind, you discover that you also are at fault or you have misunderstood the situation and things can be happily resolved. It may be that they accept what has gone wrong, apologise appropriately and commit to doing better in the future. These are the kind of resolutions you long for!!
To tackle someone in this way and to reach a positive resolution really helps to build the church up – it encourages holy behaviour and deepens relationships.
If, however, they do not listen to you and you still feel you are in the right and that is serious enough to justify involving others then you may need to go to the next level.
- Resolve a few to one – vs. 7
This is still just about avoiding the kind of situation Paul calls a defeat in verse 7, but now others are being involved as Jesus suggests for the next step:
“But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that `every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'” (Matthew 18:16)
Again in taking others along, you may find that they make you realise that you are partly or wholly in the wrong and not the other person! But that could be a good thing!!
Assuming you are right and the other person is wrong, however, then in bringing more people to testify to them, the hope is that they will see the error of their ways and change without having to make the issue any more public.
If, however, they refuse to accept there is a problem, and the issue is serious enough, then you may need to take it to the fourth level.
- Submit to church’s judgement – vs. 4; Mt. 18:15-17
The fourth level is the kind of tribunal Paul is talking about. For things to come to this is a kind of defeat, a failure of the earlier stages to resolve the situation, but on occasions it will be necessary.
Jesus says:
“If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” (Matthew 18:17)
Here, Jesus encourages the dispute to be resolved within the church, as Paul argues for in 1 Corinthians 6. The vision in 1 Corinthians 6 is that the church would appoint someone they consider wise enough to make a judgement in such matters to decide disputes. It could be that as Jesus implies, there may be more than one person involved in making the decision.
But the point is that whatever decision is made, needs to be respected by all parties. It could be in bringing a dispute to this level, even if you have found others to agree with you that the final conclusion goes against you or doesn’t completely give you what you want. The important thing, however, as Jesus and Paul suggest is to submit to the ruling and accept the result.
Ultimately, as Jesus warns and as Paul has also hinted at at the end of chapter 5, those who continue to sin, despite the warnings of the church need to be put out of the church for the sake of the wider community. That is never the aim of this process, but it may sadly become the ultimate result.
Dealing with Disputes
The church community is special. Founded on the cross of Christ, it is holy, it is family. We need to value it above our own personal gain.
There will be disputes that arise within church communities. Some of these will be unimportant and others more important. We need to deal with them wisely, always seeking the right resolution, being willing to humbly accept we might be in the wrong and not rushing to escalate the dispute, but dealing with necessary issues, in the hope of real reconciliation and spiritual growth for all involved.
St. George's Church Ramsgate 