Friday, March 5, 2010

How to Handle Conflict

Below is the is the daily Bible reading I am doing for the West Side Church Please feel free to follow along.

No matter where you are there is in-evidently going to be conflict. Conflict is part of human nature. It stems from each of us thinking we are right. If you watch the news you should get enough conflict for your weekly appetite in just 5 minutes. Even in the church we find conflict between well meaning Christians.

We see that arise in today’ reading (Acts 18) and how it was dealt with. Apollos is a Jew from Alexandria (Egypt) who is very knowledgeable. He has been teaching and preaching about Jesus very accurately. Priscilla and Aquila, a husband wife team who had spent time with Paul, recognize that Apollos teaching is lacking one thing. That is the baptism of Jesus. Apollo only knew John’s baptism.

So how do Priscilla and Aquila deal with this? Do you they stand up in the middle of one of his teaching moments and call him out? No. They quietly pull him aside, invite him to their home and imparted their fuller understanding upon Apollos. Friends we have a very wonderful example of how we too should handle conflict whenever it arises. Conflict should not be made public, except for a last straw measure. Teaching and rebuking should be done so as to encourage the brother or sister.

So how do you deal at handling conflict?

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