Conflict

It's a fact of life that we are going to come into conflict with people, even people in the church, even in the church we attend. That's just a fact of life, we are people, and we are different and that will happen. Yes, we should avoid conflict, given most of it is over trivial matters BUT sometimes the debate is much more important and needs to happen, is there a Biblical model?

Paul tells us about a conflict he had:
When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? (Galatians 2:11-14 NIV)
An opening statement, Cephas is the same as Peter, it is the Greek for Peter. The two people involved here are absolute heavyweights of the church, Paul & Peter are virtually the building blocks of our faith (Jesus is the cornerstone) and so any conflict they have would be key to our understanding of our faith. So what's the conflict? It's about living under Jewish law, something that was a big deal in the early church, and specifically whether Gentiles (non-Jews) should be required to live under the law (See Acts 15 for more). Paul, who has just established his status as apostle to the Gentiles, says no while Peter says yes. The issue really is that Peter isn't really saying yes, he isn't living that way but rather is just saying yes because some people have come and wanted him to say yes, and so Paul calls him on that.

The other thing to notice here is what it takes for Paul to choose to have a conflict with his fellow apostle. Paul says that by the teaching he was leading many astray. It is that kind of message that forces Paul to intervene. In Galatians 1 Paul speaks about a false Gospel that is no Gospel at all, and that is what Peter is spreading and so Paul has to step in.

For us, we must remember that we shouldn't be having major conflicts over every little thing, but rather we need to pick our battles, they should be things so vital to us that we are willing to fight as hard as Paul did for his points.