Disagreement

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you.

I'm Dylan Hamilton, and with me are.

Michael Durham,.

Chris Kiesler,.

And Andrew Hudson.

We have a question that was sent in to us recently, but we're gonna modify it just a little bit so we can use it more effectively with this podcast. But the question originally reads, what are some areas where you all disagree?

How do you handle disagreements and still record episodes? Do you just avoid those topics? And as we discussed beforehand, we can't effectively answer this question because we all agree because Dave's not here tonight.

All joking aside, we decided to change the question to what do we do when we disagree with another brother or sister? How do we handle those situations? What principles guide us when we're dealing with a disagreement?

And how do we try to come to effective conclusions? Michael, do you mind starting us off?

Humility and Pride in Christian Disagreement

Sure, so there are areas in which we would disagree, but are they podcast worthy? Are they anywhere on this list? And perhaps disagreement comes from, well, we haven't all had the same approach or training or haven't thought through it in the same manner.

Perhaps we would begin with different passages in the Bible, but I have a hard time figuring out exactly where we might end up disagreeing at a level where it would be problematic to have a podcast. But I can think of a variety of situations within a local church where there would be some disagreement.

Maybe the disagreement is on the meaning of different portions of the Bible or a big idea in the Bible. Perhaps there'd be disagreement on how to approach ministry in the church or how the church ought to be governed and directed.

Perhaps how families ought to function. What about the raising of children? So on and so forth. There's a lot of different areas that brothers and sisters in Christ might disagree on in the context of a local church.

And knowing how to navigate those things, I think, is very important. I would say that humility is key. When I first came here to Sunnyside, the end of May of 2014, I preached on Sunday morning and that Sunday night there was a Q &A interview with the prospective new pastor before they decided to call me as pastor.

And there was a question about my Calvinism, because the sense was I was, you know, I drag your face in the gravel Calvinist. And the concern was, well, what about people who aren't Calvinist here? Now you could insert there and say, well, what about if somebody has a different eschatological outlook?

What if somebody has a different central hermeneutic of the Bible and so on? And my answer was, well, you know, if I'm coming here as pastor, I'm supposed to shepherd everybody and love everybody, not just the Calvinist.

But to extend that to church members, I'm not like some super special church member or I'm not a non-member. I'm actually a member of this church. I'm a brother. I'm here. I have a role to play, a way to serve, but I'm not someone super special.

So we could extend that to anybody in the church. How do I be a church member to everybody, even if we disagree? And my answer was that if you put two humble people in the trunk of a car, they're gonna be making room for each other.

Oh, are you comfortable? How can I help you? If you put two really prideful people on the night shift in a warehouse, they'll find a way to fight.

So

For sure.

So a lot of the disagreement really comes back to that. We might feel, some people use the therapeutic language of feeling insecure about what we believe. And so therefore, if there's ever a conversation about it, then there's like a bunch of emotion tied up into it.

The Bible would call it pride. If somebody has studied a lot about a certain topic in the Bible and so on, and what I hear them say just seems, I disagree with it, the humble person can say, you know, it doesn't really sound right to me, but I can't tell you why.

Sounds like I got a lot to learn, doesn't it? Thanks for bringing it up. I guess I've got some Bible study to do. That's a humble approach. And to say, look, it's not that I don't have to emotionally argue with you.

I don't have to tell you about my favorite preacher who baptized my grandfather. And he said to people like you are scum. How do I interact with you? If I'm being humble, then we're gonna have a hard time getting ourselves into a situation where there's like hurt feelings and loss of relationship simply because we disagree about something.

Usually when people are trying to defend their honor, defend their name, trying to defend their appearance, I want to look good, I want to look capable, I want to look like I've got it together. It's usually when a topic comes up that threatens that, that emotions ride high.

And that can happen in two ways. One, somebody is just honestly excited that they learned something new. It might be biblical, it might not, but they're sure excited about it and so they're gonna talk to everybody about it.

And then when you sense the idea that this person has done more study than I do and they know more things and I try to ask a couple of questions and they're already answering it like they've got it figured out, that makes me feel like I haven't studied enough.

That makes me feel like maybe I'm less of a student or less of a Christian. So that makes me mad, right? Sure. That's not the right approach. I say, well, hmm, wow, this guy's really excited about this, maybe I should look into it more because I need to know apparently the Lord has arranged this for my good that I would be stirred up to know more.

That might be the way it happens. It could happen another way if somebody is more than just a little excited that they've learned a lot of information, a lot of new things about the Bible and so on. And then what they do is they, to show and demonstrate how much of a better Christian they are than all these other people, go around and confront everybody who has not thought about these particular difficult and challenging theological questions in 40 years of following Jesus.

They've never really run through these catechism questions that come in the 80s and 90s. Not the first 20 catechism questions, we're talking about the ones that deep, deep into the bench. Well, you haven't thought about this, how long have you been a Christian?

And there's a provoking and not in a good way. And that can happen as well. Sometimes we call people in that situation kind of in the cage stage a little bit. So there can be situations where there can be a provocation.

I think with women it could happen a little bit differently. I think maybe there's a sense in which if someone ever says anything about parenting, says something about homemaking, says something about hospitality, says something about standards of dress, says so on and so forth, these things might hit home to the sisters a little bit different than us.

You know, it's like, you're questioning what I'm feeding my children? Are you questioning how I'm raising my kids? Are you questioning what homeschool curriculum I'm using? And then all of a sudden you're like, you're saying I'm a bad mom.

And no, maybe they weren't. Maybe not resting in Christ enough and you got caught out because you're kind of trying to rest in your accomplishments. Very often God uses disagreements. He uses disagreements about various topics to expose what's going on in my heart that maybe I'm being too proud.

Maybe I need to calm down a little bit. So those are some opening thoughts I think about disagreement.

Winning Your Brother, Not the Argument

Well, I disagree.

There we go. Good. Obviously. Awesome. That's good.

But so if we get more particular, let's say we're in the best possible of cases, okay? And there's some genuine disagreement between two fellow believers, a genuine disagreement, and really at this point, pride is not what is being put on the line, right?

Let's say there's some genuine concern about the differences. Let's say when you say X, Y, and Z, I'm concerned that maybe what you're saying has implications that threatens the gospel itself. And the other person is saying, well, I think because you haven't thought through these things, you don't have a clear understanding of the gospel.

And there's like some genuine concern and some full-fledged disagreement, okay? Now, this isn't the kind of podcast that focuses on that. There are some that do and really thrive in the crosstalk between various well-thought-out, entrenched differences, okay?

But how would that look in the context of a local church, right? How do we talk with one another and work with one another despite differences? Not everybody here agrees with me on my eschatology, okay?

Not everyone here agrees with me on my lack of use of systematic theology terms, okay? Not everybody here agrees with me about the way that we do our homeschooling and the approach that we take with our kids and our family.

And not everybody here agrees, you know, right, so there's gonna be some differences. We have folks in our church who are, some of them would say, I'm a Calvinist. Some people would say they're not. Some people would say, what?

Right, right? There are people here who are ready, ready for the rapture and ready for the Antichrist to kill, you know, just about everybody in the promised land and they're ready. And there are other people who are not looking at that as what's happening next, okay?

So we've got dispensationalists that are part of our church and we've got post-millennialists, we've got all mills, so on and so forth. So there's a variety. What happens when we bump into each other about those things, right?

We've got families here who have different dietary needs and different dietary plans. We have people here who have different education plans, so on and so forth. Every once in a while we have people visit who are head covering people and others are not.

Some people are family integrated, keep your kids with you, some are not. How do we get along? What's the approach?

I know I've watched you focus on the points where we have agreement all the time, like that's the first go-to for us and the understanding that Christ is preeminent in all things that we do, including our disagreements or including the areas where we're gonna have differences of opinion or what we were discussing earlier, like the adiaphora.

Christ having preeminence.

In all things.

All of those things is something that you've preached over and over again and I've been very appreciative about. But I also see it being applied by a lot of the people here. And I know that is not always or even, it may not even be common in other churches, but it's something that I've seen here quite often.

And I don't know what you guys are seeing as well, but that's just what I'm watching.

No, definitely.

I've seen that and experienced that. You get out into the weeds where you're starting to end conversations, figure out, oh, we're not the same here. And you can either double down on that and I would say many people are willing to have those conversations, but it's always, I don't wanna say guarded, but it's with the person in mind.

If we can tell that emotions are getting involved, then I'm okay with stopping the conversation. I don't have to prove my point. It's for the sake of knowing Christ, knowing his work, what he's done, elevating him, giving him glory.

And at the point where we start fighting about it, that has stopped. And so I've seen where both, where people start getting into the weeds and they can sense it and they go back to the common ground and love each other.

And I've seen where they can sense it and like, yeah, both are willing to dive in and have that conversation and it'd be edifying.

Philippians and the Mind of Christ in Disagreement

Did you guys recently go over Philippians?

Yeah.

In Philippians chapter three, there's this interesting verse. I'll start midway through the verse. And if you think differently about some issue, God will reveal this to you as well. Nevertheless, we must live up to the standard we already have attained, being of the same mind.

When you went through that study, what came about with that passage? Because I think a lot of people, I mean, I've appealed to this passage before, that in time, his spirit will reveal the truth to us.

Yeah, and just before that, I think in chapter two, at the end of chapter two, he uses like-mindedness or same-mindedness like three times in a row. So it's a very important point in Philippians about being like-minded.

And those who have the spirit, those who are born again, those who are members of the new covenant, having the mind of Christ, they, we, his people, have that mind in them to discern these things. So how much of the disagreement that we're talking about is just because we haven't reached maturity yet, just to be honest, right?

There's obviously an one true interpretation of the passages. We just may differ temporarily, temporarily.

We're talking about the preeminence of Christ coming to the same conclusion, maturing the spirit by which that we disagree. I mean, I know we have, we know that this is true, but the spirit by which we disagree is extremely important.

And having that in mind and the spirit, the Holy Spirit is the one who matures us to these points, but there should be a very easily detectable type of spirit between brothers when they're disagreeing too.

Think of the disciples. There's that one point they're talking to Jesus and he's like, let's call down fire from heaven. And Jesus says, you know not what spirit you have. Like that's not the spirit that we're doing in things.

You can discern that. And when you're talking to brothers and they're wanting to, you're a heretic because of this, and you believe this, so therefore you're not a Christian. That's a very different spirit than let's go to the word together.

Let's look at it. Are there any presuppositions that either of us are bringing to it? What are our backgrounds? What is our learning? All that different stuff for the sake of winning your brother over, not winning the argument.

And building him up too, right? Like a lot of the disagreements when we get to the point to where we're just tearing each other down and nothing's being built up and no progress is being made. We've got, I think that's another area where we're looking at a different type of spirit than one that builds up as well.

Yeah, I think that's good. We do find a lot of the irreconcilable disagreements that actually divide the relationships comes from putting something or someone at the right hand of God that doesn't belong there.

So there might be a disagreement about theology or a disagreement about the way the church should function or a disagreement about what Christian families ought to look like. But who's at the right hand?

And if the people who are in disagreement both with joy and a love for one another mutually recognize that Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the Father, meaning all the authorities with him by his light, we together read the scriptures in his finished work, we love one another and live for each other in this local church, then there's gonna be a lot of unity even if there is some sort of disagreement.

But if we have at the right hand a certain kind of spiritual experience without which there's no Christian life, or if we have at the right hand a certain confession or theological system without which no real Christianity can exist, well, get ready for irreconcilable disagreement.

And this is where how we ought to be willing to acknowledge where we've elevated something to the right hand that doesn't belong there. And I see this a lot, a lot of church splits, a lot of division, a lot of chaos when certain things get elevated far too high.

And so that's where I think that you have to, you should start where there is agreement and you ought to be able to affirm that with one another. And in the context of a local church and doing life together as a body in Christ, that can become more manifest.

So that becomes the environment in which we can have disagreement. So I think of people, when I preach and I teach or when I talk with people, I think of some, and I know it doesn't matter that I've preached here for 10 years, okay?

And they're never going to believe in the doctrines of grace, not like I do. But there are so many things about God being in charge and God being gracious that we agree about. And there are a lot of people here who are never gonna agree about the teaching and preaching I'm doing with regards to Old Covenant, New Covenant, Christ is the fulfillment of everything, including all those special promises to Israel.

They're just never gonna click with them. I'm gonna teach about it as clear as I can. After I'm done, they're gonna come up and walk up to me afterwards and talk to me about some new story about the modern state of Israel and what God may be doing there.

And it's just never gonna penetrate. But I love them and I know that for them, they have this reason behind it all. They have a love for God and a love for Christ and it's coming out in this way. And I'm going to love them and know what their concerns are and try to meet them there.

I wanna put their interests ahead of my own. So again, I think Chris, like what you said, it's like you realize it's not about winning the arguments but winning your brother. And are there some really, really important issues?

Yeah, there are some really, really important issues but how we approach that and how we lay that out, I think is important. We need to be patient with each other. My goodness, how patient was Jesus with his disciples?

Yeah.

How patient? We ought to be patient with each other.

Yeah, and I think God in his wisdom set the church up the way that he did and gives instruction in his word. Because you can talk about areas of conscience or adiaphora and then sin, something that's a sin, well, maybe someone doesn't think it's a sin and they need more instruction or maybe they're not willing to look at it.

But God gives us instruction on how to handle that. You don't call the whole church down upon them as your starting point. You go to them and you talk to them. You look at scripture. If not, then you bring someone else along and hey, let's look at this together.

They're like clear steps that you go through for the benefit of winning them over, not crushing them, not destroying them. It's restorative.

I was gonna say, when you were talking about people disagreeing with your eschatology, I disagree with myself about my eschatology. So humility has, I mean, it's it. It's gotta be it. I am answering to my master, ultimately.

If I am disagreeing with a brother, are they sinning against me? Not necessarily, is it one of those things that's like you just happen to believe something else? Well, aren't you gonna have to answer to the same master?

If you didn't sin against me, why do I have a problem with it? Maybe I need to just serve the master and move on. It could be something that simple. And if they are sinning against you, if their opinion is causing them to sin against you about something, bring that to your brother, confront them with it, tell them from the scriptures why this is so, and then go down the path if they do not.

If you're not reconciled, there are processes for all this.

You're saying that sometimes the difference of opinion leading to arguments could actually be more of a time-wasting issue than, like there's no need to even address it type of a thing because it shouldn't be bothering you because it's not a sin, right?

Like, so it's just a.

Are they sinning against me or one of my other brothers?

Right.

If the answer is no, then.

Why touch it?

What am I?

Yeah.

Right, this is that stronger brother, weaker brother stuff that we were talking about in previous episodes. It's like, Lord, help me to just serve you and serve them at the same time in a way that I can be humble and lay my life down in service at the same time as holding on to my witness with Christ.

And your opinion and convictions.

Yeah, yeah, I don't have to change my convictions. If I see in the scriptures, it says what it says, I will be corrected one day, whether it's now or in eternity, you know?

Yeah, you brought up that verse in Philippians that the Lord will correct you in this. As Dylan was saying in chapter two of Philippians, he defines what that mind is in Philippians two, starting verse one.

Therefore, if there's any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the spirit, if any affection and mercy fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, one mind, we just hear unity,.

Unity, unity.

Verse three, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also the interests of others.

And then he defines it. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it Robert to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of men.

And he just goes through all of that humility, humility, humility, humbling, yeah.

Then our elder brother just show us the way perfectly.

Amen.

Yep.

Recommended Resources on Hermeneutics, Conscience, and Defense of the Faith

Well, I think that wraps that up. Why don't we move on to our recommendations, Michael?

My recommendation is a book by Graham Goldsworthy, Christ-Centered Hermeneutics. It's more of an academic read. It's meant for somebody maybe in college or in seminary. But the whole idea is to reflect on the central role that hermeneutics plays in all of our lives.

How do we interpret everything that we encounter? Not just in the Bible, but everywhere in life. And it was a helpful read to be reminded that not only is our reading of scripture, and this pertains to why we might disagree with each other about what we're reading in the Bible, with which lens are we reading the scriptures?

We know the scripture interprets the scripture, and that's a helpful thing to remember. But to be reminded that Jesus Christ is the light of the world. So he's the light of the word. And so the lens by which we interpret the Bible should be the lens by which we interpret everything in life.

And to have Christ in his sovereignty as our shepherd and as our savior, to see all of life in the light of his glory, as well as everything in scripture. And so that was a helpful book for me.

Amen. Chris?

On this topic of disagreeing with brothers, there's a book called Conscience, What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ. And I found that book extremely beneficial because there's a time where I don't know how to handle these disagreements.

I think they're very important things and I want to tell you about them, and you're not seeing them, or I'm not explaining them well, or we're not getting past, we're not going to be on the same page.

So how do I love you in this? I needed some training. And the conscience, the Bible talks about the conscience being something that does need to be trained. And that's why you have weaker and stronger brothers.

And then assuming who's the weaker or the stronger brother, the Bible helps with all of that, what attitude we're supposed to have. And so training our consciences, that book was very helpful.

Did you have the author on that?

Yeah, it was... Let me get that pulled up again. Andrew David Nacelli and J .D. Crowley.

Okay. Andrew, what about you?

I was reflecting upon always being ready to give a defense or an account for the hope you have within you. There are people who are perishing outside of Christ. If you're not actively going out to witness to people as an evangelist, that's understandable.

But when people ask you, why do you believe what you believe? You have been commanded by one of the apostles of Christ, the so-called command of Christ, to be ready to deliver the reason so be in the word, practice.

Practice with people that you know actually believe. Talk to them about what you believe and why you believe it. Talk to them about the scriptures that come to your mind and be increased in your faith.

Maybe this brother or sister, if you're a lady, might give you, have you thought about this passage? When you were talking about this, do you remember this passage? And so things like that. So just be ready, be ready to give an answer.

Make that defense for Christ.

Amen.

My recommendation this week is Out of Left Field as it usually is. I'm recommending The Code of the Woosters by P .G. Woodhouse. It's another one of his fun adventures with Jeeves and Bertie Wooster. It is probably about an eight hour listen or read and the language is fun.

The plot is all over the place, but it's definitely something that is enjoyable and can be one of those in-between books between all the recommendations from the other guys that you read to take a little bit of a break from all the heaviness.

So Code of the Woosters by P .G. Woodhouse. Michael, what do you think before this week?

Gratitude for Family, Controversy, Wisdom, and Marriage

I am thankful for my children. I was talking to a friend of mine back from Tennessee. He let me know that they have another baby on the way, so we were rejoicing in that. I was telling him my favorite shirt that I'm wearing today is dad with the superscript six, dad with the sixth power, my favorite shirt.

Is that how many times your kids have to say your name to get your attention?

Yeah, exactly. Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad. Hearing loss, all that. But it's been a good day. I took my fourth born and fifth born out to the land today and was teaching gun safety to Emeth and Toby. Here's how you do everything and do it rightly and practice shooting with Emeth so that he could get more comfortable because he wants to go hunting.

And that was good. And then Abigail came home after spending the night with a friend. And so she's very glad to be home and we're glad to have her and then took Sophie to her art lessons. And of course, when Ben gets home after school and work, little Jackson erupts with joy to see his big brother home.

And I'm just thankful for the whole scope and the joys of being a father. So I'm thankful for these children, each one of them a gift from the Lord.

Chris?

I am thankful for the part that controversy has played in my life. You were mentioning this in another episode, we talked about controversy. And I've heard a lot of people say, there's no use in arguing.

You're not going to change anyone's mind. Obviously, it's the Lord who changes hearts and moves things, but he uses means. And I found in my life, it's often been through arguments. It's been through controversy.

And sometimes it's not comfortable, but on important things where you want to know what is true, it's worth talking about. And then it might take a while for you to get there. But then when you get there and you see it, and they've won you over because the Lord's working in your life, you're like, man, I am grateful for that.

That was a weird thing that I used to think or used to believe, used to do. And I don't do that anymore because of this controversy, this period that I just thought not a fun time, but it was for my good.

And so controversy can be for good. It's not pointless, particularly if you have God's sovereignty in mind, you're trusting him, and you're doing it in the right spirit.

Amen. Andrew?

I'm thankful that we can ask our Father.

For wisdom,.

And he won't give us so-called wisdom. He won't give snakes and scorpions, stones to those who need the food from him. How many times in our lives as the man of the household, are we needing wisdom to know which path to go?

So we read his word, we study it. We also pray and ask for wisdom. And not being double-minded, we know that he will give us good things. So we can rest in that. I'm thankful. I'm thankful for that, that I'm not alone, and I can ask for help.

Amen.

I am thankful for my bride who is at home with now our four children, and our third is dealing with a double earache, possibly a double ear infection. And he's a miserable little man. And he's a lot of miserable little man.

So she has to carry him around wherever she goes, and he's heavy. But she has done extremely well today to do all that she's had to do to prepare for all of her responsibilities and just basically get by on the day.

And sometimes that's what it's going to take. And that's what I have to remind her of. You know, we may not get to all of the school lesson. We may not get to all the cleaning, but are my boys and girl fed and clothed?

Yes, they are.

Are they alive when I get home?

Yes, they are.

And that's the thing that we have to remind ourselves of is there's a hierarchy to a lot of these things within the household. And I'll guarantee you that the public schools aren't doing any of those things.

So you're out doing all of that, wife. But for more than those reasons, I adore that woman. And I'm so very thankful that the Lord gifted her to me because that's exactly the way I view her. She is a gift in my life.

And I'm so thankful that he made us one flesh.

And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read?