Rightly Dividing or Wrongly Fighting? (an article by Rev. Steven Warhurst – Steve is the Associate Pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Kingsport, Tennessee. He is married to Susan and is a father to seven children.)

Some things are worth arguing about. You should fight for the truth. You should defend the faith. In a world gone mad, where lies, heresies, and worldliness surround us on every side, you do not have to look far to find a foe. So much is wrong with the church and the world, the feisty warrior has much to keep him busy.

Some people, however, just like to argue, and they will argue about nothing and everything. They criticize people for what they say and for what they do not say. They pick specks out of the eyes of everyone around them, while whacking everyone in the head with the logs hanging out of their own eyeballs. Timothy was dealing with just such a crowd at Ephesus. They loved to argue about words and enter into foolish and ignorant disputes. So Paul wrote to Timothy teaching him how to deal with petty self-proclaimed preachers, persnickety parishioners, and plain false prophets (2 Tim 2:14-26). What do you do when they park their unpleasantness in the church’s pews? Continue reading →