Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Handling Conflict in Relationships | New Testament | 1 Corinthians 3

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

How does your view of the gospel impact how you deal with conflict? Do you expect conflict in the church or run away from it? In today's episode, Keith looks to 1 Corinthians 3 to discover how the Bible says to handle division, disagreements and conflict in the church. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 1 Corinthians 3

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. When I was on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, which is now called Crew, I heard that the number one reason missionaries leave the mission field isn't persecution or lack of results or lack of financial support or anything else you might think. The number one reason that missionaries leave the field is because they're having conflict with other missionaries. Doesn't that surprise you? Think about all that these missionaries who are serving on the same team and the same country have in common.

They are serious about following Jesus. They are willing to give years of their life to live away from home and family so that they can tell others about Jesus. And yet, they can't get along with each other. It reminds me of a joke that GQ magazine called one of the funniest jokes ever. It's funny, but I'm not sure it's that funny, but you be the judge. It's a joke from a comedian named Emo Phillips. And he used to tell his story. It goes like this.

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump and I said, don't do it. And he said, but nobody loves me. And I said, God loves you. Do you believe in God? And he said, yes. So I said to him, are you a Christian or a Jew? And he said, I'm a Christian. Well, me too.

Are you Protestant or Catholic? He said Protestant. I said me too. What franchise? He said Baptist. I said me too. Northern Baptist or a Catholic. Southern Baptist? He said, Northern Baptist. I said, me too. Northern Conservative Baptist or

Northern Liberal Baptist? He said, Northern Conservative Baptist, Great Lake region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern region? He said, Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes region. I said, me too. Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern conservative Baptist Great Lake Region Council of 1912. He said, Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lake Region Council of 1912. And I said, die heretic. And I pushed him over. It seems wrong for Christians who have so much in common to argue and fight with each other. Maybe you've been a part of a church that split or maybe you've seen Christians argue and treat each other in unchristian ways. And maybe that's turned you off to God or at least

made you a bit cynical. Did you know that Jesus says that people will have legitimate grounds to doubt whether you're a Christian if you fail to love other people, especially Christians? This is Jesus in John 13. He says, by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. We show that we are Christians when we love each other. That's how important it is to live in harmony. And yet, conflict in churches isn't a new phenomenon. There are all kinds of conflicts in the Bible. I mean, just in the New Testament, you have the conflict between Peter and Paul that caused Paul to have to rebuke Peter in front of the whole church. In Philippians 4, we read about a conflict among two women leaders in that church, Yodia and Senectody. Paul and Barnabas got into a big conflict over

Paul's nephew, John Mark, and whether he should go on a missionary trip with him. In Acts chapter 6, we see racial and ethnic tension leading to conflict in the early church. So, We need to have realistic expectations. In this world, we're always going to have conflict. Conflict is normal in the church or in any relationship. Maybe we shouldn't be more optimistic than the Bible is. Sometimes people look around and see the problems and conflicts in today's church and wish they could go back to the early church because the thought is that the early church was pure.

But that's not right. They had the same problems that we do. Every Christian and every church experiences conflict. And that takes us to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Paul starts the chapter by saying, Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the spirit, but as people who are still worldly, mere infants in Christ.

I gave you milk, not solid food, for you are not ready for it. Indeed, you're still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, I follow Paul and another I follow Apollus, are you not mere human beings?

In these verses, he calls the Christians inside this church worldly on three different occasions. And worldly means to act like mere humans. In other words, to act like they aren't Christians. They are simply conforming to the cultural values around them. And that was something that Paul had hoped they would have grown out of by this point in their faith. He'd hoped they would have matured beyond this point of having conflict and factions and divisions in the church.

but the reality is they hadn't. They are still aligning themselves with certain pastors and preachers. So what is the proof of their worldliness? What is the evidence that Paul brings forth in support of his claim that they're acting like non-Christians? Well, it might surprise you that it's jealousy and quarreling. People have ideas about how to measure true spirituality or real Christian maturity. But here, Christian maturity is described in terms of loving other people and living in peace with other people. Romans 1218 says, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you,

live at peace with everyone. In the New Testament, you'll find lists of sins, like really horrible sins, really damaging destructive sins. And on those lists, you'll find sins like quarreling, divisions, factions, hatred, envy. The Bible acknowledges that there is conflict inside of every church and inside of every relationship, and at the same time, it recognizes that that conflict is really serious. Back in 1st Corinthians 1, Paul wrote, I appeal to you brothers and sisters in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another and what you say, and there might be no divisions among you, but that you would be perfectly united in mind and thought. See, this church had a lot of problems, like major problems, problems like lawsuits,

among Christians or incest and sexual immorality. They were visiting prostitutes. There was some bizarre confusion about the church's teaching on marriage and sexuality. There was economic inequality and pride based on social and economic distinction. People are getting drunk before communion. There's conflict and spiritual pride over spiritual gifts. And yet the place that Paul starts, the thing he thinks is the most important thing to deal with first, is the conflict that exists inside this church.

It's like Paul is saying, okay, we're going to get to all that other stuff, and it's important. But the thing I've got to start with, the thing that's most important is that you can't get along with one another. Okay, back in verse Corinthians three, Paul writes, my brothers and sisters, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this. One of you says, I follow Paul, another I follow Apollus, another I follow Cephas. another says, I will follow Christ. So some church members who are identified as being a part of Chloe's household had told him about the divisions in the church. The divisions in Corinth were about which teacher that people aligned themselves with.

Today, in our churches, there are conflicts over pastors or worship leaders or worship styles or who has the most money, like conflict between rich and poor or conflict that is caused by racial divisions. but all that conflict, it's a sign of worldliness, or Paul would say we're acting like we're not Christians. Now, in 1 Corinthians 3, there are three times that Paul uses the phrase brothers and sisters. In other words, he wants them to recognize that you guys are not a business. You are a family. Churches are families and families are always messy. So instead of looking at the church as an organization that has to have everything in perfect order, we instead see it as a family and every family has crazy relatives.

Every family has elements of dysfunction. And yet, we are still committed to loving one another, even through all those difficulties and hardships, but we love one another by the power of the Holy Spirit. And that messiness that we find in our churches and in our small groups and in our families, well, that's actually part of God's plan to mature us. Those difficulties and conflict that we want to run away from or avoid are part of what God uses to confront our own selfishness or pride or hidden pockets of sin in our hearts. It's the way that God develops in us humility and patience and love. We should expect messiness in our churches.

We should expect messiness in our churches and not see that as the exception, but instead embrace it as an opportunity for us to grow in our faith. Let's stay on this subject of quarreling and conflict and arguments and factions and divisions. Let's go to James chapter four. Listen to what he says. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Now, we would probably say, well, other people are acting so immaturely or they're being so selfish or ridiculous, right? But how does James answer that question? So he asked, what causes fights and quarrels among you? And then here comes the answer. Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire, but do not have. So you kill. You covet, but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. So what James says is all those

conflicts, they're not an other person issue. They're our heart issue. It's a vertical issue, not a horizontal issue. It's between me and God, not between me and the people who disagree with me. So one of the best things I can do when I'm in a conflict is just examine my own heart and say, is there anything here that I need to apologize for? Is there anything that I said or did that hurt another person. Why am I so angry about this? Why am I so upset? Is there any way I could build a bridge to this other person? It's always our responsibility to seek out those that we have a problem with or who have a problem with us. The Bible will not allow us to avoid conflict. And of course we don't want to be the person who has a log in their own eye but notices the speck in their neighbor's eye.

So instead of attacking other people, we probably need to do more self-examination. Are you like me that you notice that you're bothered more by other people's sins than your own sins? Like, I don't just notice that tiny speck in your eye, but it really bothers me. This log in my own eye, it doesn't bother me that much. I think what God wants for us in most instances is for us to reconcile with those we have conflict with. That means asking them for forgiveness for where we have sinned against them. And it also means granting forgiveness where we have been sinned against. Remember what Jesus said?

They will know that we are his disciples, his followers, if we love one another. Amen. Hey, thanks for listening. If you want to go deeper, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talk newsletter. You'll get a short email once a week. It'll challenge you to grow in your faith. you interesting background on today's passage and a lot, lot more. Just click the link in the show notes to sign up. It'll help you deepen your journey with Jesus.