THINGS WE AGREE REGARDING DISAGREEMENT

"Let no unwholesome word proceed from your
 mouth, but only such a word as is good for
 edification according to the need of the moment,
 that it may give grace to those who hear."

                                                     Ephesians 4:29 

That it may give grace to those who hear. "Offer a bit of corrective advice to such people. What a goal! What an incentive to clean up our critical attitudes and speak the truth in love!

     One of the mark of maturity is the ability to disagree without becoming disagreeable. And that takes grace. In fact, handling disagreements with tact is one of the crowning achievements of grace.

     Unfortunately, it seems that the older we get the more stingly wpe become in giving grace to others. This is especially true of those of us in the evangelical community. You would think that the church would be the one place a person could find tolerance, tact, open-mindedness, and plenty of room for disagreement. But it's not. The doors are most often closed to differing points of view. And more often than not these diffferences give rise to dissension. There are wonderful exceptions, of course; but when most Christians disagree, they do so in acblunt and tackless way, sometimes even in an accusatory and sarcastic way. Read (Acts 15:36-34; Ephesians 4:29-32).

     Even if we do pursue peace, and even if we are as positive and as tactful as we can be, disagreements will still arise. The following are four things most of us would agree on regarding disagreements.

1. Disagreement are inevitable. Pick any subject and you will find people perched on either side of the fence. Animal rights. Capital punishment. The enviroment. If you're for it, you can bet someone else is against it. Because we are so diverse, differences are bound to arise. But that's what freedom is all about respecting other poeple's differences, whether those differences are racial, political, or ideological. That's what religious freedom is all about. And even though our theological persuasion may not bend, our involvement with other must. There must be "wobble room" that allows for differences.

2. Even the godly will sometimes disagree. For some, it's difficult to understand how two people who passionately love the Lord and His Word could stand diametrically opposed on certain issues. But they can. Consider the confrontation between Paul and Basnabas in Acts 15:36-41, which we will be studying in more detail in our lesson today. Fortunately, when get to heaven, we will be a renewed body of believers living in perfect harmony with each other. But until then, we will disagree on occasion even the most godly of us.

3. In every disagreement there will be the same twi ingredients: an issueand various viewpoints. The issue involves principles and is usually objective. The viewpoints involves personalities and are usually subjective. Therein lies the source of most every clash a disagreement on an issue because of opposing points of view. Understanding these two simple ingredienrs will help you keep calm and collected in a conflict with others Why? The next fact will explain.

4. In many disagreements each side is valid. Differing viewpoints are not so much an "I am right and you are wrong" matter as they are an "I see it from this perspective, and you see it from that perspective" matter. Both sides of most disagreements have strengths and weakness, which means neither side is airtight in its logic or ironclad in its conclusions. Nevertheless, any disagreement can lead to division; any conflict can create a rift in a relationship.