The Puzzle

Anyone vaguely familiar with Christianity will be aware that Christians disagree—a lot. Even if we could agree on some things, say the 10 commandments, we still disagree on sports, on politics, and yes, even on Bible theology. And, there’s a natural train of thought for the railroad followers that can make this look very strange and leads straight to a depressing conclusion. The argument looks a bit like this:

1. God wills specific things for everyone at all times
2. God shows people what he wants them to do by His Spirit
3. People disagree about the specific things God wants done
4. Therefore, one or more of those people disagreeing are not listening to the Holy Spirit

Wow, this would mean whenever Christians disagree it means one or more of them are not hearing or following God. Yikes! But believers disagree all the time! So are we all sinning all the time by not agreeing on everything? I mean, not following God is the essence of sin, so it seems the answer would be yes.

And we see people disagree not just in our own experience but also in the Bible. Consider the occasion when Paul and Barnabas split up:

Acts 15:36 And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” 37 Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. 38 But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. 39 And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. 41 And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

So were Paul and Barnabas sinning here? Some people say yes; and I have personally hear teachers state that one or both of them were in sin. Note, however, that the text doesn’t say anything negative about Paul or Barnabas either here or in the broader context (go look!). So, one would have to read sin into the text rather than out of the text – which is less than ideal.

The solution

However, if one doesn’t take the railroad view there isn’t necessarily anyone sinning when people disagree. If God doesn’t have a specific will for everything, then there might not be only one right decision. There might be multiple different wise decisions that different people prefer. Further, if God doesn’t have a specific desire for, say, choice A over choice B, then God (the Holy Spirit) can’t be telling you which one to pick. Hence if one person says let’s do A and another says B, neither are sinning, because neither are ignoring God’s will or the Spirit. You can’t be ignoring the Spirit’s leading in places where the Spirit isn’t leading.

Hence we don’t have to conclude that either Paul or Barnabas sinned. God might not have had a specific yes or no in the case, and a good argument could be made either way. It’s reasonable to not want to take someone along who abandoned you, but its also reasonable to want to give that person a second chance.

But why?

All this makes sense, but it leaves us with a different puzzle. Why doesn’t God direct us more than he does? Why wouldn’t God tell us everything we are supposed to do? It would solve so many problems! We wouldn’t have to wonder if what we are doing is right or wrong—just whether we obey or disobey. If God told Paul and Barnabas what to do there wouldn’t be disagreement and everyone would have just gotten along. Why didn’t He?

Now this is a big question, to which I’ll only give one small answer here. What if God is less worried about what you do than who you are? What if He is more interested in your attitude than your action? Maybe God is more interested in you trusting Him when you don’t know what to do, than in you knowing exactly what to do.

Maybe neither job A nor job B is all that important to Him, but your reliance on Him to take care of you—no matter the outcome—is what he really wants. Maybe people knowing the complete set of correct doctrines is less important to God than people walking humbly, and learning to find unity in diversity.

None of this entails that there is no good or bad, right or wrong, or that God doesn’t have specific tasks for us to do. However, it does reorient the way we view the world. Maybe the most important thing isn’t an action itself, but our relation to God and others.

Conclusion

The conclusion? God neither runs your life as a cosmic micromanager, nor does He merely give you ethical boundaries for you to live within. While God doesn’t direct most of the decisions you make (think of the thousands of tiny actions you make each day!), He does give specific directions, but they come in His own time, according to His own inclination. We should seek His face and will, but not be surprised if He doesn’t give us direction in the time and way we want. And maybe, just maybe, there is sometime more important for us to learn. His quiet can remind us to live in submissive hope that He is good and powerful—even when He is not obvious. As for myself (and many older than me) this is a hope I see vindicated time after time as I get older.

Further, disagreement doesn’t necessarily mean someone isn’t following the Spirit (though it could).  God could make all things obvious… but He obviously doesn’t. We can pursue wisdom with humility, one is not more important than the other. 

This sets us up for next week when start comparing and contrasting personal boundaries with political boundaries. What does God want us to do individually vs politically? What sort of agreement or disagreement should we expect?