Sep 23, 2026 · 41 min · 9 segments
Conflict is inevitable, even conflict in the church. But not all conflict is bad. On Sunday 20th September we continued our series in the book of 2 Corinthians, reading 2 Corinthians 1:12-2:17 and we…
But I want to start by telling you a little bit of a true story about a pastor that I knew well.
And once in church that this pastor was leaving, he faced a situation where a man in his congregation left his wife.
There was no adultery, there was no abuse, there was no kind of biblical grounds for separation, if you like.
He just had enough of the situation, left his wife and his kids, but stayed in the church.
And so this pastor gently challenged the man saying, kind of wrote a letter, offered a conversation, challenging his behaviour.
not physically, but in every other way, but stayed in the church and then spread discontent, shared his aggression and abuse with others.
So they sort of didn't really do anything about it, which left this pastor in a really difficult situation.
Their authority was being undermined and the health of the church that they were part of was sort of collapsing around them.
But it has many similarities to what was going on in Corinth that was forming the basis of this letter.
And I tell you that little story today because the focus today is going to be on conflict in the church.
A lot of this morning is going to be stuff that I hope you can apply and make sense in your real situations.
But before we get into it, I just want to remind you a little bit about the problem in Corinth that I spoke about a couple of weeks ago.
So a couple of weeks ago, what we saw is this church in Corinth that Paul had planted, they'd become Christians.
but a lot of the ways that they were living and their worldview hadn't yet been converted to Christianity, that they were still living kind of out of their old habits and norms and the way of life of the culture around them, even though they had genuinely made a decision to follow Jesus.
But I want to start by telling you a little bit of a true story about a pastor that I knew well.
And once in church that this pastor was leaving, he faced a situation where a man in his congregation left his wife.
There was no adultery, there was no abuse, there was no kind of biblical grounds for separation, if you like.
He just had enough of the situation, left his wife and his kids, but stayed in the church.
And so this pastor gently challenged the man saying, kind of wrote a letter, offered a conversation, challenging his behaviour.
not physically, but in every other way, but stayed in the church and then spread discontent, shared his aggression and abuse with others.
So they sort of didn't really do anything about it, which left this pastor in a really difficult situation.
Their authority was being undermined and the health of the church that they were part of was sort of collapsing around them.
But it has many similarities to what was going on in Corinth that was forming the basis of this letter.
And I tell you that little story today because the focus today is going to be on conflict in the church.
A lot of this morning is going to be stuff that I hope you can apply and make sense in your real situations.
But before we get into it, I just want to remind you a little bit about the problem in Corinth that I spoke about a couple of weeks ago.
So a couple of weeks ago, what we saw is this church in Corinth that Paul had planted, they'd become Christians.
but a lot of the ways that they were living and their worldview hadn't yet been converted to Christianity, that they were still living kind of out of their old habits and norms and the way of life of the culture around them, even though they had genuinely made a decision to follow Jesus.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.