There is a common experience in ministry. A pastor or church leader reflects upon a disagreement or thread of disunity in their congregation and ponders the question,
“Why is our church experiencing this conflict?”
Many solutions are often put forward. People are in conflict because our church is made up of different personalities and perspectives. “If you have so many people from different backgrounds, lifestyles, and origins, of course conflict is inevitable.” Or people may point to external factors. “Our church is facing a hard time. There is a lot of stress in our church members’ lives. We are facing unique challenges such as budget crunches, members relocating, or the inability to fulfill basic needs within our church, such as volunteers for various meetings.”
The issue is that while the factors above can influence conflict, they only provide a partial picture of the spiritual reality behind most conflicts. Yes, stress, differences, and disagreements are often core ingredients in church fights, but we must not forget that it is not abstract ideas or circumstances that become entangled and estranged. Rather, people have conflicts. People choose to respond to disagreement or differences in a way that does not strive for peace and unity but pushes all parties involved towards war.
Ultimately, the root of conflict is something that Scripture names—the quarrelsome heart.
In the book of Proverbs, conflict has a character profile: the fool and the scoffer. These sketches, drawn from Solomon’s anecdotal reflections, reveal how Christians can discern patterns for those who find themselves perpetually embattled by disagreement and disunity. Proverbs 22:10 states, “Drive out a scoffer, and strife will go out, and quarreling and abuse will cease.” J. R. R. Tolkien memorably captures how a virtuous man approaches the contention of battle in the words of Faramir, Captain of Gondor, “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”1 Christians are called to contend for the faith (Jude 3), “wage good warfare” (1 Timothy 1:18), but not in the manner of the world (Matthew 26:52). The heart of the pastor or shepherd must be one of a peacemaker (Matthew 5:9), not quarrelsome but kind (2 Tim 2:24), hating conflict, and only entering into conflict willingly for the good of that which he is called to defend—Christ’s bride and his flock. The fool and the scoffer, on the other hand, love the fight itself and seek out the fight because their hearts are quarrelsome.
In reflecting upon biblical teaching concerning conflict among the people of God, here are three biblical profiles that can help pastors, elders, and counselors identify and diagnose a quarrelsome heart.
The Quarrelsome Heart is Immature
There is a reason why the phrase “cage-stage Calvinism” is popular. Calvinism—better known as Reformed theology—reflects glorious truths about God, the world, and salvation that ought to produce humility, gratitude, and love for God and neighbor. Sadly, those virtues are often not the immediate fruit of someone who comes to embrace the doctrines of grace, which is why it is a common joke to lock them in a cage until the early bitter buds of dogmatism and combativeness mature into the beneficial fruits of the Spirit.
But this saying also reveals that a common cause of quarrelsomeness is immaturity. The Bible recognizes both physical and spiritual age (see 1 John 2:12–14). The teenage girl making a profession of faith and the elderly man responding to the Gospel for the first time are both spiritual infants and require the same level of discipleship and guidance. In Scripture, Christians are encouraged to pursue spiritual maturity—the faith and knowledge of the Son of God (Ephesians 4:13)—because of the various pitfalls that accompany those who remain in perpetual spiritual adolescence. The spiritually immature are prone to be “tossed to and fro” by false teaching (Ephesians 4:14). They struggle to exercise discernment in distinguishing between good and evil (Hebrews 5:14). They can miss the nuances and mysteries of the Christian faith and lack the experiential knowledge of the Christian life described in Scripture. The realities of spiritual warfare can surprise them after that initial season of joy in the newness of their salvation. When, like James and John, they are quick to call down condemnations upon others, especially non-Christians, they require the gentle rebuke of a shepherd (Luke 9:51–56). Paul, for example, rebukes the spiritual “toddlers” in Corinth who were giving into jealousy, strife, and personality-driven rivalries (1 Corinthians 3:1–4).
This point reveals a disconcerting reality affecting broad swaths of the evangelical and even Reformed world. We live within an increasingly polarized society where quarrelsomeness and combativeness are valorized. But when conservative values closely align with biblical Christianity, it is entirely possible for sinners whose lives were previously defined by hatred of others to enter the church without ever being confronted to repent of their quarrelsomeness. Some churches can even encourage young Christians to move up quickly in influence and position within the church with the impression that, while their mouth and social media profiles previously were filled with profanity and filth directed toward others, now they have permission to “be mad for Jesus.”
But Scripture clearly identifies quarrelsomeness as sin. And each and every sin requires repentance and mortification. Pastors and elders must encourage young potential leaders to “flee youthful passions” (2 Timothy 2:22) and learn to avoid responding “tit-for-tat” to ungodly vitriol, but rather to respond with kindness and gentleness toward their enemies (2 Timothy 2:24–25).
The Quarrelsome Heart reveals Disordered Doctrine
Within the Pastoral Epistles, the Apostle Paul repeats a familiar refrain to two young pastors, Timothy and Titus—the connection between right doctrine and right living. According to Paul, biblical teaching is not only true but also healthy, or sound. In Titus 1:1, Paul refers to “truth that accords with godliness.” In Titus 2:1, Paul instructs Titus to “teach what accords with sound doctrine,” but then continues into areas that we may not always associate with dogmatics or theology. For the “sound doctrine” that Paul has in mind is how older men and older women, and younger men and younger women, ought to live in light of the Gospel (Titus 2:1–10). Truly, orthodoxy (right doctrine) is inseparable from orthopraxy (right living).
For this reason, the Apostle Paul holds up an unexpected test to the ideas circulating around the early church. Paul is concerned not only with whether ideas align with the rightly divided Scriptures (2 Timothy 2:15), but also with whether a certain belief produces or is associated with quarrelsomeness. Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6:3–4, “If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing.” Paul then continues to expose a common reason for conflict both in the early church and within the church today. There are people who have an “unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth” (1 Timothy 6:4–5). They are not godly but rather are using the appearance of godliness and spiritual maturity for personal gain (1 Timothy 6:5).
Biblical Christianity is zealous to defend the truth of the Scriptures, to “follow the pattern of sound words,” and “guard the good deposit” of Scripture’s testimony (2 Timothy 1:14). But conservative Christians can often overlook how liberalism is not the only ditch to be avoided within theological controversy. We must also be wary of disordered doctrine that produces a misdirected zeal for what is believed to be “biblical truth.” The Apostle Peter is clear that it is possible for “the ignorant and unstable” to “twist” Scripture to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16). Even those that may aspire to be “teachers of the law” (in modern terms, theologians, Bible scholars, professors) can find themselves “wandering away into vain discussions” (1 Timothy 1:6) and “promoting speculations” (1 Timothy 1:4). These professing believers end up “majoring in the minor” areas of Scripture and consistently fall into the pattern of basing strong assertions upon inferences from passages that are entirely novel and difficult to support exegetically. These insights sadly reveal a common phenomenon within the church: individuals convinced of ideas and positions they identify as “biblical,” but Scripture itself would identify as “irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge” (1 Timothy 6:20–21). As they set their own beliefs against the church, claiming to follow a “more faithful understanding of Scripture” (in their own words), Scripture bears witness against these individuals as having “swerved from the faith” (1 Timothy 6:21).
This reality exposes both the theological necessity and practical benefits of confessions. If Scripture itself bears witness to a “pattern of sound words” in the Bible (2 Timothy 1:13), then the creeds and confessions preserve for us a system that informs the church’s understanding of the basic structures of the Christian faith and theology. Within the church dwells the Spirit of truth (1 John 4:6). Even as there have been many seasons where the light of God’s Word has appeared dim, the Holy Spirit guides the church to discover everything within the Word of God necessary for the Christian life (1 John 2:19). Doctrinal formation and preservation are not ultimately the responsibility of scholars and social media influencers, but the church, with its members and office-bearers, as the pillar and buttress of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15).
The biblical intuition to locate the task of theology within the local church does not de facto result in some sort of “doctrine decided by committee.” At the same time, it should give significant pause to anyone who is exegeting passages and organizing theological concepts in ways that have never been done before. Anyone championing novel interpretations and applications of Scripture should be willing to hold their ideas with an open hand. When those ideas turn dogmatic, even sectarian, elevated from tertiary matters to second or first-order issues that determine Christian fellowship, the Apostle Paul would attribute this problem not ultimately to Scripture or theology, but to a quarrelsome heart.
The Quarrelsome Heart reveals Disordered Desires
Have you ever asked yourself the question, “What is the cause of so many fights and quarrels we see today?”
Thankfully, James answers this question in James 4:1. What often pushes situations from disagreements to conflicts are disordered passions and desires within the heart. “Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” (James 4:1). Conflicts are one of the main revealers of deeper issues within the heart. In James 4, the half-brother of Jesus shares his experience leading the Jerusalem church, observing that people “fight and quarrel” because of covetousness (v. 2). Murder is a possible end of unfulfilled desires (v. 2). This window into the human heart reveals that the heat and intensity of a conflict is being fueled by so much more than the thing or object being contested. Whether other personal longings for control, safety, or security, or desires that have mutated into sinful distortions of legitimate creational goods, our conflicts are very often the result of disordered desires within the quarrelsome heart.
This line of thinking has been used by biblical counselors to expose the root of conflict for several decades. In verse 4, James makes something of an unexpected pivot from conflicts and fights to spiritual adultery. But the logic is precise once one sees that, many times, we betray our ultimate allegiance to God in conflict when our disordered desires give rise to sin. We use our tongues to attack and wound when reasoned discussion does not go our way. We choose the option that benefits ourselves rather than looks out for the interest of others (Phil 2:3–4). We have too much pride or too sensitive an ego to admit that we were wrong and say that we are sorry. In these moments, we functionally confess that this predetermined outcome is more important to us than pleasing God. For this reason, Paul’s identification of “covetousness” with “idolatry” is appropriate (Colossians 3:5).
Several verses earlier, James reveals for us another insightful diagnostic test to employ in conflicts. If people are demonstrating what could be described as “disorder” and “vile practices” such as slander, lying, blackmailing, or manipulation, it is very likely that there is “jealousy” and “selfish ambition” within the heart (James 3:16). In other words, in every situation of quarrelsomeness and conflict, a desire has become disordered somewhere within the heart. Several diagnostic questions here can be quite helpful: “What about this conflict is so important to you? What are you afraid will happen if you don’t get what you want?” Questions such as these ones and more can be used by skilled pastors and counselors to draw the attention of a quarrelsome counselee and church member toward the desires and motivations fueling the present struggle.
Conclusion
There are many times when church members encounter confounding interpersonal conflicts. Sadly, we can very often overlook that the ultimate cause of conflicts is not disagreements or differences, but quarrelsome hearts. In diagnosing the quarrelsome heart as immature and disordered in doctrine and desire, pastors and elders can apply God’s Word in the cure of souls and for the restoration of peace and harmony among the people of God.
- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 50th Anniversary ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004), 656. ↩︎
