Church Leadership

Disagreements? In Church? By Coty Pinckney [This devotion is based on a talk given October 14 at the Treasuring Christ Together 2020 retreat. An earlier version of the paraphrase of Romans 14 is in this blog post. These two sermons from 2018 (first, second) provide more of the biblical foundation for the principles discussed here.] Christians are one in Christ. God makes us one. But although we are one, we differ. We disagree on trivial matters – should the Dodgers or the Rays win the World Series? But we also disagree about deeply held convictions: On political matters – should Christians vote Republican, Democrat, or neither? On education – should Christians send their children to public school, private school, or home school? On Christian behavior – how should we dress? What should we consume? On LGBT issues – how should we interact with family members who come out? Furthermore, we not only disagree about such issues. We even disagree on whether such disagreements are important! What does Scripture tell us about such disagreements? The most helpful passage is Romans 14:1-15:7. Let’s draw five principles for how we handle disagreements from this great text.