Conflict is an Essential: Relational Skills from the Bible for Today
May 23, 2010. Gal. 1:11-3:5
Intro:
This spring we have been looking at “Relationship Skills from the Bible for Today”. Last week I taught about the skill of listening, and so as a bridge from last week into this week, I wonder if any of you would be willing to share a story about a time when you really felt listened to. It would be ideal if it was from this past week, but I certainly wouldn’t limit it to that! I think we need to hear from each other, we need to hear stories of things that worked, and we especially need to hear about how it feels when someone really, deeply, listens to us, because that will help motivate us to do that in our relationships with one another. Anyone?
Introducing Conflict:
The relationship skill I want to talk about today is the skill of conflict. Yesterday I was taking a short break from working on my sermon, and so went upstairs to Joanne and Thomas and said, “I think I should pick a fight with you two.” Joanne said, with some concern, “why? Did we do something bad?” I replied, with a smile, “nope! But I’m preaching on conflict tomorrow and thought if I picked a fight I’d have a good illustration for my sermon…” They just laughed at me. Then came one of the most encouraging comments a pastor can hear – my 9yr old son said, “but dad, didn’t you just preach on that a few weeks ago, about caring about other people enough to confront them when they are wrong?” And Joanne said, “yes, you did, I remember it…” They were referring to my Valentines Day message, when my main point was exactly as Thomas described – to really love people means we will have conflict sometimes. We studied Matt. 18 together, and the process Jesus commanded us to follow when situations of conflict come up.
Today I want to come back and revisit that same theme, in the context of this sermon series on skills we need to build in order for us to have healthy relationships that lead us into the life Jesus described as “to the full.”
Our Current State:
I suspect that for many of us, the most highly developed skill in regards to conflict is “conflict avoidance”. And this is not a good thing… so I decided to reflect a little bit on why that might be. My first thoughts were related to the amount of effort it takes to engage conflict – especially emotional energy – and I observe that many of us (and often myself included) simply choose not to “go there” in interactions with people because it will be too much work. Then I thought of how many times in our lives and experiences conflict has made things worse – we’ve walked away hurt, sometimes deeply, and then we often don’t deal with that hurt in positive ways, and so we decide that conflict is bad because it gets us hurt, and then we avoid it in the future. Then I went to our cultural value of “tolerance”, which basically says we should always just accept anything anyone else says or believes without challenge because to challenge it would be considered “intolerant” and, perhaps ironically, “intolerance” is not tolerated in Canadian culture in 2010.
But when I boil it all down, I come back to my belief that conflict avoidance is often an indicator of a shallowness of love. Or perhaps a warped understanding of what love actually is. Now, a little caveat here is important, I am not dismissing the idea that we should “choose our battles”. I think that is sound advice. There are many places where conflict is not necessary, and I don’t recommend conflict for the sake of conflict. But I think what can happen is we decide that “choosing our battles” means “choosing not to battle”, and we have to be careful that we don’t let that principle become an excuse to not confront places that need confrontation.
The Pendulum:
I started to think of this avoidance of conflict like a pendulum that has swung too far back. In the past, as Christians we have swung way out to a place where our perceptions of “truth” have been the only thing that mattered, so Christians would walk up to complete strangers and tell them they were going to hell unless they accept Jesus. Other times in history are even worse – same message but with a sword on a throat and a death blow coming if the “heathen” did not “convert”. Not times of which we are proud. I’d call this side of the pendulum “High Confrontation, Low Regard for Others’ Feelings”. But the pendulum can swing too far back, to a side I’ll call “Consuming Regard for Others’ Feelings, No Confrontation.” When it gets over to that side, we are so concerned we might “upset” someone, or make them feel bad, that we choose not to say anything. And then we end up pretending. We end up being fake in our relationships. We end up suppressing our own feelings and then they leak out or explode out in harmful places on often innocent bystanders. And we end up NOT in Biblical community together, but rather in a fake plastic veneer that is a massive hypocritical turn-off to a world desperate for genuine, truthful, difficult authenticity.
So What Does the Bible Say?
When you read the stories of Jesus, what do you think about confrontation? Did Jesus confront? Where would you put Jesus on my pendulum? So now, if we say we want to be like Jesus, why don’t we do confrontation more often? Why wouldn’t we want to built that skill?
Recognizing Jesus and His approach to conflict, the text I want to read today is actually from Paul. Now, I’ve chosen to read a long passage of Scripture so that we see the whole story. I’m going to read the last part of Gal. 1, all of 2, and the first part of 3. Basically, Paul is just telling his story…
Gal. 1:11-3:5
11 Dear brothers and sisters, I want you to understand that the gospel message I preach is not based on mere human reasoning. 12 I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ.
13 You know what I was like when I followed the Jewish religion—how I violently persecuted God’s church. I did my best to destroy it. 14 I was far ahead of my fellow Jews in my zeal for the traditions of my ancestors.
15 But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him 16 to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being. 17 Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went away into Arabia, and later I returned to the city of Damascus.
18 Then three years later I went to Jerusalem to get to know Peter, and I stayed with him for fifteen days. 19 The only other apostle I met at that time was James, the Lord’s brother. 20 I declare before God that what I am writing to you is not a lie. 21 After that visit I went north into the provinces of Syria and Cilicia. 22 And still the Christians in the churches in Judea didn’t know me personally. 23 All they knew was that people were saying, “The one who used to persecute us is now preaching the very faith he tried to destroy!” 24 And they praised God because of me
1 Then fourteen years later I went back to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas; and Titus came along, too. 2 I went there because God revealed to me that I should go. While I was there I met privately with those considered to be leaders of the church and shared with them the message I had been preaching to the Gentiles. I wanted to make sure that we were in agreement, for fear that all my efforts had been wasted and I was running the race for nothing. 3 And they supported me and did not even demand that my companion Titus be circumcised, though he was a Gentile.
4 Even that question came up only because of some so-called Christians there—false ones, really—who were secretly brought in. They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to enslave us and force us to follow their Jewish regulations. 5 But we refused to give in to them for a single moment. We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you.
6 And the leaders of the church had nothing to add to what I was preaching. (By the way, their reputation as great leaders made no difference to me, for God has no favorites.) 7 Instead, they saw that God had given me the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had given Peter the responsibility of preaching to the Jews. 8 For the same God who worked through Peter as the apostle to the Jews also worked through me as the apostle to the Gentiles.
9 In fact, James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers. They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles, while they continued their work with the Jews. 10 Their only suggestion was that we keep on helping the poor, which I have always been eager to do.
11 But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. 12 When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile Christians, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. 13 As a result, other Jewish Christians followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
14 When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?
15 “You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles. 16 Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”
17 But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not! 18 Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down. 19 For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. 20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.
1 Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross. 2 Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. 3 How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? 4 Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it?
5 I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ.
So What Do These 39 Verses Teach Us About Conflict?
1. Conflict needs a relational foundation (Gal. 1:11-24). I kept the first chapter in the reading because Paul describes his relationship, most notably with Peter whom he later confronts. He spent 15 days with him, enough time I believe to establish a relational foundation. And word gets back in vs. 23-24 that Paul, who used to persecute the church, is now spending his life growing the church.
2. The first confrontation: (Gal. 2:1-10). This “Jerusalem council” begins with Paul obeying the voice of God, “God revealed to me that I should go” (vs. 2). Paul displays a heart for unity and orthodoxy – he meets privately with the church leaders to check the message he has been preaching against theirs and demonstrates a willingness to listen and learn: “I wanted to make sure that we were in agreement, for fear that all my efforts had been wasted and I was running the race for nothing. 3 And they supported me…” (vs. 2-3); and he adds a little later on, “the leaders of the church had nothing to add to what I was preaching” (vs. 6). One issue comes up – basically “do gentiles have to become Jews in order to follow Jesus” – that is the heart of the circumcision discussion. And the answer was “no”, even though there was pressure from some Jewish Christians to force gentiles to convert to Judaism. Verses 4-5 describe the heart of this first confrontation and Paul’s right response. He recognized that the issue was not about pleasing one influential group, but rather about “preserving the truth”. The fight was not really about circumcision, in Acts 16:3 Paul has Timothy circumcised “in deference to the Jews of the area”, the fight was really about whether Jesus sets us free from the ancient Jewish laws and opens a new way to be in relationship with God through faith, or whether the old laws are still the most important consideration. And that conflict was worth having, and (at that point) was supported by ALL the leadership, including Peter.
3. The second confrontation: (Gal. 2:11-15). The second confrontation reveals that the influential Jewish Christians continued to exert their power after Paul left, and so we get this story about Peter coming to Antioch, first embracing the gentile Christians but then backtracking when some others arrived. As a leader, Peter’s actions carried significant influence. And so Paul confronts Peter. Notice how: directly, “to his face”, and publically, because Peter’s actions had been publically acknowledged and highly influential. It was also done with truth – Paul returns the conversation to the heart of the issue, “we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law” (vs. 16).
Applying The Teaching:
In really broad strokes, this first half of Galatians tells us three important things about confrontation: 1. do so from a relational foundation. 2. find what the issue is really about – for Paul it wasn’t about circumcision vs. non-circumcision, the issue was larger and deeper. This is generally the case for us. And 3. confront with truth, not outward emotion.
And the underlying message, all the way through, even going back to Jesus, is that we need to love enough to confront.
Conclusion:
Where should the pendulum be? It had to be closer to the middle. Our personalities (God given, redeemed) will place us at different spots near the middle, but we need to never care only about our perception of truth and not the other people (the one extreme), and we also need to stop believing that to really “love” someone means we’d never say anything that might upset them, or that “peace” means the absence of conflict. Jesus was near the middle, so was Paul, and so should we be also.
