February 8

Acts 15:39 (NIV)
39 They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus,

I don’t know if you think this is as crazy as I do, but I can barely believe that this is in the Biblical account. So this appears to be the first missionary organization split. Why not leave this little ugliness out? Hmmm….

Because the Spirit of God wanted us to see it, that is why it is there! If you read the end of the story you will see that there was a make-up of sorts, but the issue at hand is what do you do when you can’t agree? Advance the Kingdom! We have got to get this – Paul and Barnabas both went and preached the Word of God, and strengthened the disciples in different places. They didn’t go to the same place and compete, they went their separate ways and did the same thing, advanced the Kingdom of God.

There will certainly be disagreements within any family as there was here. The question for us is, what we will do when that happens? The one thing for sure is that we will advance the Kingdom in the way we handle it. There will be no competition for supremacy, just a willingness to be unified in our end goal. Please notice that nowhere in this passage does it say, “the Spirit said to them”, or “the Spirit sent them…”, is says that Paul and Barnabas had a sharp disagreement. This was not from the Lord and neither is it from the Lord that we in the body of Christ have such a sharp disagreement that we have to leave one another. However, because of the weakness of our flesh God graciously can use even our disagreements for His Kingdom – if we let Him.