The good fight

Few aspects of the Lord's providential care are more painful for Christians than fights and divisions in our midst. “[W]hen you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you”, says Paul. “And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized” (1 Cor 11:18-19).

According to Paul, divisions and disputes are necessary in this present evil age, where the genuine and the spurious exist side by side, even within Christian congregations.

But how much fighting and disputing is too much? And what should we be fighting about?

Even over these questions, Christians disagree! Some of us seem to be always itching for a dispute; others are so congenitally nice that they avoid conflict at all costs. And of course, just to show how good we are at messing things up, we frequently end up fighting up about silly, inconsequential things, while leaving large and weighty issues festering and unaddressed.

In this Briefing, we try to bring some clarity to the problem of Christian disagreement. In ‘Fight the good fight’, I take a look at how the Bible exhorts us both to fight and not to fight, and gives us clues about when it is time for each. Mark Thompson carries on this discussion with an excellent article about adiaphora or ‘matters of indifference’. And Ben Beilharz reviews a sharp-edged little book about the use and abuse of Christian satire.

If you disagree with some of our conclusions, please tell us about it! TP

Couldn't Help Noticing

• The ever-flowing river of language
• Preaching and pulpiteering
• Sunday school for Aussie atheists?
• Golden opportunity
• Short thoughts on death and mortality

• FallacyWatch: Gus the Greek—Tony Payne highlights the problems with deriving the meaning of a word from its origins.

Bookshelf

• The satirical Christian—Ben Beilharz considers whether Christians can use satire.

Politeness and polemics

• Fight the good fight (Part 1): A time to break down and a time to build up—Tony Payne reflects on whether Christians ought to be nasty or nice.
• Matters of indifference?—Mark Thompson looks at the criteria we should use to separate the important from the unimportant in matters where Christians disagree.

The Christian life

• The joys of drudgery—Lee Carter shows us why drudgery is one of the joys of the Christian life.

Pastor's Brief

• The importance of preaching the negative as well as the positive—Phillip Jensen tells us why preaching the negative is not only important, it is vital.
• Lessons from serving in a hard church—A pastor and self-described ‘boofhead’ shares his top five lessons from serving in a hard church.

Bible Brief

• The family—20 daily Bible readings by Ben Beilharz.

The Longing

Stuff that didn't quite make it into The Briefing:

• Here I am, talking about Jesus just the same: Larry Norman at 60—Philip Cooney looks back at Larry Norman's life and ministry.
• Look at me! I'm a princess!—Kerrie Newmarch explores our obsession with princesses and why using ‘princess’ themes can be dangerous for Christians.

The Briefing Library

Recent additions to our online archives:

• The Hard Ask: Disagreeing with your pastor—John Chapman (Briefing #269)
• How to have a godly argument—Mark Thompson (Briefing #184)
• When Christians disagree—Tony Payne and Phillip Jensen (Briefing #45)