Unholy Laying of Hands
Welcome back to “Sins of the World.” I’m taking a deeper dive in the words of Galatians 5:19-21 to talk about what we need to avoid and how they can lead us to the Fruits of the Spirit. In Part 6, we talked about hostility, which Paul defined as a “personal hostility or deep-seated opposition between humans or God. We walked down a path of understanding that reconciliation should always be our goal, especially working to undo the ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic hostilities that plague our world. Looking at Romans 8:7, we recognized that these hostilities are an active rebellion against God’s authority, seen through the corruption that’s existed since humanity began. I looked at three common hostilities – towards people, towards wealth, and towards – and talked about ways that we can work, as God’s hands and feet to break those hostilities down. It involves us standing up, standing out, and spread love, compassion, and justice to all people and all environments. To learn the truth of situations, recognize the faults of our current systems, and move to a place of wholeness and restoration.
In Part 7, we are looking at quarreling. Physical violence has no place in society, whether it’s a national war or a bar fight down the street. The fact that physical violence ever had to be a response to any situation shows how quick relationships and communication can disintegrate.
REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: Have you ever been in a physical fight? What was that fight about? Did you regret that fight after it was over?
Quarreling Against Egos
The Greek word that Paul used to describe quarreling is eris (eh-ris). It describes a collection of ideas that center on contentious rivalry that fractures fellowship. We’re going to land in 2 Corinthians 12:20 in a minute, where Paul’s concerns of unresolved quarreling will pause the will of God for the church, community, and the body of believers. Outside of this passage, Paul uses this word seven other times:
- Romans 1:29 – quarreling is rooted in godlessness; more than just differing personalities.
- Romans 13:13 – quarreling is a misrepresentation of our relationship with God.
- 1 Corinthians 1:11 and 3:3 – quarreling is proof of spiritual immaturity
- Philippians 1:15 – quarreling shows us that even the greatest message can be corrupted through competition.
- Titus 3:9 and 1 Timothy 6:4 – quarreling can be see in speculative teaching.
Quarreling is more than just a personality clash. It’s showing our innate fight to try and be better than each other. It’s rooted in competition and battling, instead of love and compassion. Even the best message with healthy competition can be corrupted when the focus is on the battle instead of on God.
Quarreling comes from our pride, and often Christians can be the biggest fighters because they will mask this corruption in their own theological viewpoints. It’s shown through our political viewpoints, endless arguments in-person and online, gossip, and even church’s trying to “recruit” people to join their place of worship as a member. Unfortunately, quarreling in these capacities will need to the loss of credibility and spiritual staleness. When you focus on fighting your opponent so much, you tend to lose the identity you had before. When you lose that, you lose your community, your relationships, and your purpose.
Again, our focus should be on God so that we can set aside our own personal ego and pride. We lead and communicate with peace, patience and kindness. We come with sound logic, truthful information, and a willingness to accept that our original view may have been wrong. We, especially as church leaders, can model gentle correction and lift up the gifts God has given to others to create unity, connectedness, and fellowship in the church and community.
Quarreling is more than just having a disagreement. It’s a worldly mindset that opposes God’s sacrificial love. It’s caring more about being right and being better than about our neighbor. It’s focusing more about obtaining recognition and rewards than respect. It’s a mindset we see often in business, politics, and churches. Instead of working towards a unified path forward, places will get stuck that their way is “right” and everyone else is wrong.
REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: How can we set aside our own perspectives to listen to others? How difficult can it be do to this? Why is it so difficult?
Chaotic Corinth Church
I believe our path to understand how to overcome our quarreling is found in Paul’s 2nd letter to the Corinthian church. Let’s start in 2 Corinthians 12:20.
AMP – For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you not to be as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish – that perhaps there may be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorders.
NRSVUE – For I fear that when I come I may find you not as I wish and that you may find me not as you wish; I fear that there may perhaps be quarreling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder.
VOICE – And quite honestly, I am afraid that when I come, we may both be disappointed with what we find; in my fear, my thoughts go from bad-to-worse – into a drama of frictions, rivalry, fevered tempters and fists, selfishness, slander, defamation, pride, and complete chaos.
The Corinthians church had a history of moral and theological issues. Paul, in his first letter to the church, address issues of divisions, immorality, and the misuse of spiritual gifts. Paul’s fears for the church comes from a deep hope for them to grow and repent. If the Corinth church continued to act out, Paul may come back in anger. Quarreling and jealousy were found in their divisions. Rage and rivalry would come out of their competitiveness. Slander and gossip breaks apart community trust and destroys any love that did exist. Arrogance celebrates knowledge and spiritual gifts through their ego and pride. Disorder shows us that there was no peace in that church.
REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: The Corinth church struggled with internal divisions. What divisions do you see in our world today? How can we overcome them?
Identities Lead to Divisions
Divisions have been a longstanding problem in our society. From Jews vs. Gentiles, man vs. woman, and slave vs. master to democrat vs. republican, gay vs. straight, binary vs. non-binary, and the list continues. We are always focused on things that separate us that it creates friction and strife. These things will not lead us to unity. These things do not lead us to love or justice. These things create further division, war, and injustice in the world. As the world continues to grow and understand the spectrums of realities that exist in the world, we need to grow with it and work towards paths of unity. We may not agree on everything. Actually, I believe it’s safer to say that we will not agree on everything. However, it doesn’t mean we cannot find unity. To come together to reach the common goals on all sides. Instead of restrictions on humans that don’t fit our societal mold (think male from birth, white, straight, and wealthy.), we can work on a path that allows for equal rights, healthy moral and ethical standing, and compassionate and just systems. These things are the core of what all people want, and yet there are groups of people that believe these things are too “woke” or too “leftist” or un-American. How do we overcome these divisions? (Big question, I know.) Let’s start by understanding the divisions that existed for the Corinth church.
1 Corinthians 1:11-12: For it has been made clear to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”
We learn that these divisions come from who the church is affiliating themselves too. Some claim to follow Paul, the founder of the church, which Paul discouraged. Some claim to follow Apollos, an eloquent speaker (Acts 18:24-28), who focused on his rhetoric and knowledge. Some claim to follow Cephas for his Jewish background and association with Jesus. Some claim to follow Christ, which sounds healthy, but can be people who have a superior spiritually or direct connection to Jesus.
We will spend so much time attempting to claim that to follow something or someone that isn’t what we focus on. The true message, especially for believers in Christ, is to follow Christ. Not following a democratic or republican agenda. Not following the advice of wealthy business people or corporations, but to the commands of God. We will often stay so focused on our allegiances to political parties or brands, that we forget to worry about the impact it makes on our relationships and societies on a bigger picture.
The Basics of Life
When it comes to recognizing the divisions of the world and how to attempt to find unity, I’m brought back to the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:35-40:
35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
37 Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink?
38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing?
39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’
40 And the king will answered them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it one of the least of these brothers and sisters of me, you did it to me.’
Look at what Jesus considers the basics: feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, and visiting the imprisoned and sick. All people of the world should be granted this at a bare minimum. However, we fight about how this looks like. We’re facing a national crisis is being able to survive life at this point. Groceries bills ever increasing, waters being tainted and poisoned by data centers, closing borders to those seeking safety, homelessness and an ever-increasing housing crisis, and rehabilitation and health care issues. These have been issues that are in the spotlight now, but have been built on constant, broken systems. There’s arguments between both sides on how to do this right, but no one wants to agree.
For example, regarding the rising costs of groceries, Democrats want to see action taken against corporate price gouging and better government assistance programs to help people in low- and middle-income families for the essentials.1 Republicans are wanting to cut government regulations and structure changes in legislation to lower the overall cost of living, believing that these higher process will come down in the future.2 Where’s the middle ground in this? I think there should be efforts to cut down on corporate price gouging, for it’s been shown that companies are hyper-charging consumers for products instead of making what would be a reasonable profit. I think there should be efforts to produce and promote legislation to cut down the overall cost of living. It should be just to make the average person wait for a price drop, but to create an immediate impact for us. I think there should be stronger assistance to governmental programs to help out with these price hikes. Structurally, how does this look is beyond my knowledge and beyond my scope, but that is one of the five basics that Jesus wants us to work towards.
There’s conversations that need to be had around generative AI, data centers, and the regulations that are lacking from these industries that are needed to preserve rights and qualities of life to all people. There’s conversations around border control and how we can create more of a healthier impact for those immigrating by providing more workers at the border to help with granting citizenship for people. There’s conversations around housing about stricter laws for landlords so that they don’t abuse their power and the housing market to ensure mortgage companies aren’t gouging potential home buyers. There’s conversations around healthcare with the importance of keeping the Affordable Care Act subsidies, cost and availability of general health care, the necessity and right of gender-affirming healthcare, and the price-gouging that both insurance companies and pharmaceuticals does to the general public. These are just SOME of the things that need work in our country. These are just SOME of the things that are broken for our society today. These are just SOME of the things that need to modernized in order for all people to have a quality of life.
I want to name this too: these are massive things, and not one of us is required to solve these problems. No one of us needs to bear this burden for the benefit of humanity. We need to come together. We need to work with each other, communicate the needs of our society, and unify to help ensure the right people are in place in order to make this happen on the biggest stage. When this happens, we will see things, ironically, trickle-down to where we can make an impact. Things can get to a point where we can work/volunteer for agencies that help support the things easier that Christ calls us to. We can donate our resources and finances to help support these causes. I know I normally say to start local and then work your way up. Anymore, we need to start big, and see the blessings rain down. God’s wisdom, strength, and guidance will get us to the right place. May we set aside all the quarreling and start to communicate in love, kindness, compassion, and respect to make this happen.
REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: I encourage you to this moment. Breathe. Pause. Reflect. See where God is leading you to go out and help put an end to all this quarreling in the world.
2https://abcnews.com/Politics/midterms-grocery-prices-remain-top-mind-americans/story?id=135790865
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