INTRODUCTION
Some years ago, a minister named Chuck Thomas was invited to preach at a church in Oklahoma. This is the story I read.
Thomas noticed that the church was split down the middle, with each side having its own communion table and elders who prayed and served their respective halves of the congregation. This division greatly surprised Thomas and his wife. After the service, a family at the church invited Thomas and his wife back for lunch. Thomas asked about the division. He was told that many years earlier, the church decided to install new carpet. Half of the congregation wanted blue carpet, but the other half wanted rose carpet. They couldn’t agree, so they laid blue carpet in one half of the church building and rose carpet in the other half. But this didn’t end the dispute. Families stayed on their bits of carpet. But the story had a happy ending. Thomas later went back to the church and pleaded with the people there to forgive each other. Eventually, they did.
Today, we’re going to think about disagreements and conflicts.
Peter read Philippians 4:2-9 for us. I initially thought I’d be able to look at the whole passage. But I’ve decided to focus on just verses 2 and 3. In these verses, Paul acts to resolve a disagreement between two women, Euodia and Syntyche. These two verses will give us plenty to think about on the subject of dealing with disagreement.
I’m first going to look at some examples of disagreements that happen in church. Then I’ll talk briefly about why unity is SO important. Finally, I’ll look at how Paul addressed the disagreement between Euodia and Syntyche and see what we can learn from his example.
DISAGREEMENTS BETWEEN BELIEVERS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
There were quite a few disagreements between Christians in the New Testament. Paul and Barnabas disagreed about whether to take John Mark with them on their missionary journey, as Paul felt John Mark had abandoned them earlier. Paul and Peter disagreed because Peter had stopped eating with Gentiles. And there were many other disagreements among Christians, for example, about what they could eat, whether they should observe special days, and so on.
DISAGREEMENTS BETWEEN BELIEVERS IN CHURCHES TODAY
Sadly, we see many disagreements in the church today.
Somebody did a survey on Twitter to find out about things which had caused conflicts at church. Some of the things people mentioned were really trivial.
In one church there was a disagreement over whether it was OK for the worship leader to have his shoes off during the service.
In another church, a church member hid the vacuum cleaner. It led to a church split.
In a third church, there was a disagreement over whether to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ when it was someone’s birthday.
Can we imagine people here disagreeing over things like this?!
A minister of a church in the United States called Liz Boulton wrote about her experience of disagreement. Boulton was leading her first church after finishing seminary. She found there was a group of people at the church who would not communicate with her directly but met together to discuss their grievances. Eventually, they presented her with a letter. They wanted a meeting, and they wanted someone higher up in the church hierarchy to officiate. But at the meeting, the people who weren’t happy only had trivial complaints. Boulton wrote, ‘what they … said were things like, “We didn't know you were going out of town on vacation,” and “We don’t have enough input into what goes in the newsletter.”’ At the end of her account, Boulton commented, ‘I’ve now lost count of the number of colleagues in ministry I’ve met who have similar stories.’
Let me give a personal story. Before Priscilla and I came down to Bournemouth we were members of a church in Somerset. But a few months after we joined the church, the minister left due to a conflict within the church. A church member objected to the minister’s teaching about creation and the deacons didn’t handle the situation well. The minister didn’t feel supported – and left.
I found a statistic that in the United States, 34 percent of pastors serve in congregations that had forced their previous pastors to resign due to conflict. That is shocking.
Some disagreements are over trivial things. But some disagreements are over things which are genuinely serious. Right now, the worldwide church is going through one of the biggest splits in its history. Liberal and Evangelical Christians are divided, and the main cause of the division is the matter of same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ inclusion. This is a very serious matter.
So, there were disagreements in the early church and there are disagreements in the church today. Does it matter?
THE NEED FOR UNITY
If I had to pick one passage on the subject of Christian unity, it would be John 17. John 17 is a prayer Jesus prayed the day before he was crucified. He first prayed for his disciples. He prayed, ‘that they may be one, even as we are one’ [v.11]. Then he prayed for people who would believe in him later on – for us, in other words. He prayed for us, ‘that they may be one even as we are one’ [v.22].
Unity is one of the central themes of Jesus’ prayer in John 17. That means that unity is VERY IMPORTANT. If it’s so important to Jesus, then it should be really important to us. We also see that Jesus wants us to be united to an almost unimaginable degree. He wants us to be as united as he and God the Father are! There is no greater degree of unity in the universe! That is a VERY high bar!
Now follow my thinking.
If unity is that important to Jesus then, if we have disagreements, we MUST resolve them.
If we MUST resolve disagreements, then we MUST know how to!
We could take safeguarding as an analogy. Those of us who are leaders in the church, or work with children, have to do safeguarding training. We’re committed to keeping children and vulnerable adults safe, so we have to learn how to. In the same way, we need to learn how to handle disagreements effectively.
Our two verses in Philippians 4 don’t say everything that could be said. But they certainly give us lots to think about.
PAUL’S EXAMPLE IN DEALING WITH A DISAGREEMENT.
Let me read our two verses again. Paul writes:
I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have laboured side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
That is just 51 words! You’re probably thinking, we can’t get much out of 51 words! But there is a surprising amount we can learn. I have eight quick thoughts. I don’t expect that you’ll find them all helpful. But I hope that at least some of them will be helpful and you can take them away with you.
(1) There was a disagreement in the church in Philippi. Let’s remember that disagreements happen in church. It’s the nature of things. We don’t need to have a panic attack when there’s a disagreement!
(2) Paul wrote, ‘I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.’ Paul was addressing the problem! Do you remember the statistic about the number of pastors who leave churches as a result of a disagreement? But Paul didn’t throw his arms in the air and run away! Neither should we.
(3) Paul wanted Euodia and Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Paul has already taught about unity in this letter. Do you remember Philippians 2 from two weeks ago? Paul talked about unity, and the basis for unity, humility. In that passage, Paul didn’t mention anyone by name. But now, he does. ‘Euodia, I’m talking to you. Syntyche, I’m talking to you.’ Paul makes his teaching in Philippians 2 practical. A preacher could preach about unity in general, as Paul did. But if he knows of disagreements between members of the congregation, then he must act in a concrete way, as Paul does here. That applies to all of us. There will be times when we should step in to help people who are having a disagreement.
(4) Paul appeals to Euodia and Syntyche. But he makes his appeal to them in a letter to the whole church! That looks wrong, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t Paul deal with Euodia and Syntyche privately? One reason why Paul might do this is to say to the Philippian church, ‘This isn’t just an issue for Euodia and Syntyche. It affects all of you.’ Paul doesn’t ask the Philippian church to do anything. But I suspect that when they read Paul’s letter they would think about how to help Euodia and Syntyche.
(5) Paul wrote, ‘I ENTREAT Euodia and I ENTREAT Syntyche to agree in the Lord.’ Paul could have simply written, ‘I ENTREAT Euodia and Syntyche to agree in the Lord.’ Why does Paul repeat ‘I entreat’? We don’t know! But we can imagine some reasons.
• When Paul entreats Euodia and he entreats Syntyche it’s as if he is speaking to each woman individually. He wants each woman to feel personally and directly responsible for reconciliation. That’s a great example for us. When there’s a disagreement, there are two sides to it. If we are in the role of a helper or mediator we appeal to both sides.
• There is absolutely no difference in the way Paul addresses the two women. He is treating them in exactly the same way. He’s showing no bias. That’s also a great example for us. If we are in the role of a helper or mediator we cannot show any favouritism.
(6) Then Paul writes, ‘Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women…’ Paul wants someone to help Euodia and Syntyche. Paul isn’t asking this person to be a judge. He isn’t asking this person to say, ‘Euodia is right and Syntyche is wrong.’ Paul wants the person to HELP Euodia and Syntyche to resolve their disagreement. There’s an important point here. A third party can help! Have you got a disagreement that you can’t fix? In that case, look for someone to help!
(7) Then Paul continues, ‘who have laboured side by side with me in the gospel’. Paul is being very complimentary about Euodia and Syntyche! When there’s a disagreement, there’s a real danger that we will see the other person in a bad way. We will think they are beyond the pail and fail to remember the positive things they’ve done and say positive things about them. Paul doesn’t fall into that trap – and nor should we.
(8) Paul continues, ‘together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.’ Different Christian traditions have different views on how the book of life works. But all mainline traditions believe that if your name is in the book of life, it means you have salvation. Why is that important? When we’re having a disagreement with someone, it’s very tempting to think that the other person isn’t even a Christian. Paul doesn’t think that. We shouldn’t either.
Let me draw this to a conclusion.
The first big point was that disagreements happen. Sadly, they aren’t uncommon at all! Disagreements happened in the early church and disagreements happen today. Disagreements can be over trivial things, and disagreements can be over genuinely serious things. But disagreements happen
The second point is that Jesus really, really wants us as his people to be united, and he wants us to be united to an almost unimaginable degree. That means that we must address disagreements, and we must know how to.
Third, we looked at lessons we can draw from Paul’s example.
(1) Disagreements happen. Don’t have a panic attack when they do!
(2) Don’t throw your arms in the air and run away!
(3) If you’re a church leader, where people have a disagreement, speak to them.
(4) It can be a good thing to tell the whole church.
(5) Appeal to both sides equally and treat each side with absolute impartiality.
(6) Look for someone to help.
(7) Keep a positive view of both parties to the disagreement.
(8) Don’t be in a rush to suppose that one or other of the people involved is not a Christian!
Those are the lessons I drew from these two verses. As I said earlier, the Bible has much more to say about dealing with disagreements. But through these verses, Paul has provided us with a great example of how to approach and resolve disagreements within the church. Let’s now put them into practice!
TALK GIVEN AT ROSEBERY PARK BAPTIST CHURCH, BOURNEMOUTH, UK, 1ST FEBRUARY 2026
