The benefits of conflict

We don’t (generally) like conflict.

Typically, conflict is painful.

We’ve been hurt by conflict.  And we’ve hurt others in conflict.

So it’s hard to affirm a statement like, “there are benefits to conflict.”

Yet, when conflict is handled well, there are benefits to it.  And Acts 15 demonstrates some of those benefits.

This chapter recounts two kinds of conflict — conflict over a theological position and interpersonal conflict as a result of personal preference.

The first conflict was whether Gentile believers in Christ also needed to be circumcised as a part of their demonstration of faith (v. 1).  Since there was “great dissension” between Paul and Barnabas and some leaders in the Judean church, it was decided that they would go to the elders of the church in Jerusalem to resolve the question (vv. 2, 4ff).  Because the debate never became personal, the elders, Paul and Barnabas, and the other leaders were able to discuss the meaning of the biblical texts and come to a clear resolution (vv. 22-30).

And there is one of the benefits of conflict — when it relates to a moral or biblical issue, and when the parties involved are teachable and approach the Scriptures with integrity, it encourages the truth to be understood with greater clarity and articulated with greater precision.  This debate was the very vehicle of God to move the church to a precise and carefully thought-out position concerning the relationship between faith and works.  How important was that discussion!

[Aside:  there is also much to be learned from this interaction about how to approach a theological debate.  Three points are readily apparent:  come to the debate with a teachable spirit (be willing to be corrected), never let the theological debate become a personal attack (invest all your energy in resolving the question, not in attacking the participants in the discussion), and let the Scriptures be authoritative.  Clint Archer’s post from this morning, “Pistols at Dawn,” articulates some similar ideas.]

The second source of conflict was not theological but personal.  It was not a moral decision but a personal preference.  And it arose between two of the most dominant men in the early church — Paul and Barnabas (vv. 36-41).  While they had been together in the debate about circumcision, they were across the table from each other and opposed to each other in the debate about John Mark’s fitness to go on the second missionary journey, since he had deserted them on the first journey (Acts 13:13).  Barnabas wanted to give John Mark a second chance and Paul disagreed.  Verse 39 says that it was a “sharp disagreement.”  The word is the one from which we derive our word, “paroxysm” — a sudden convulsion or outburst.  In other words, this wasn’t a quiet, subdued conflict.  This was an intense, heated, and likely loud disagreement.  In our terms, “the neighbors heard it.”

And they didn’t resolve it.  Paul took Silas and went one direction while Barnabas took John Mark and went another way.

So where’s the benefit in that?

There are at least two benefits to be seen.  First, through the disagreement, the capable team of Paul and Barnabas was split and multiplied into two effective and able teams so that the cause of the gospel spread further and more rapidly.  That is not to say that we advocate division in the church and conflict so that the gospel will spread more rapidly.  But it is to say that the redemptive work of Christ means that God will take the things that Satan designs for the destruction of the church and individual believers, and use it to further His divine purposes.

Ultimately, however, that advance of the gospel is dependent on reconciliation taking place, which leads us to another benefit of conflict — it provides for opportunities of reconciliation.  While it is not evidenced in Acts 15, reconciliation between Paul and Barnabas and John Mark evidently did take place.  We know that because at the end of his ministry, when everyone else had departed for other ministries or deserted him for worldly causes, Paul wrote to Timothy and said, “Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service” (2 Tim. 4:11).  The one who was the source of the disagreement between Paul and Barnabas is now considered by Paul to be useful.  John Mark had evidently demonstrated his fitness for ministry in the years after the incident in Jerusalem and he and Paul were reconciled to one another.

And therein is another benefit of conflict.  How will we know the extent of grace and the power of forgiveness apart from the intrusion of sin and conflict?  Again, we don’t intentionally sin against each other or God for opportunities to be reconciled, but when we inevitably do sin against each other and when we find ourselves in conflict, we can be assured that there may be a benefit coming through the process of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

Are you in conflict?  Watch (and work) for the benefits of that conflict!