Humans are uniquely crafted by God.  He gives each one of us specific talents and then gifts us with certain abilities to carry out His purpose through us.  God never stops working on us as His Holy Spirit works in us from the inside out to be all He created us to be.  That’s how God works! 

The prophet Jeremiah explains this work of art and heart by God who spoke specifically to him about this miracle of life change and growth.  He told Jeremiah to go to a potter’s house and watch how the potter molds and shapes useful pots.  Jeremiah obeyed. This was Jeremiah’s response with another message from God:

“So I went down to the potter’s house and saw him working with clay at the wheel.He was making a pot from clay. But there was something wrong with the pot. So the potter used that clay to make another pot. With his hands he shaped the pot the way he wanted it to be.  Then this message from the Lord came to me: “Family of Israel, you know that I can do the same thing with you. You are like the clay in the potter’s hands, and I am the potter.” This message is from the Lord.”  Jeremiah 18:3-6, NIV

God’s chosen people, specifically those in Judah, had a difference of opinion with God!  They were disobedient to God. Being concerned with going their own way; they turned on Jeremiah when he delivered this word from God. (“Don’t kill the messenger” comes to mind!) The people suffered greatly for their disobedience and were sent off to captivity by a more powerful nation because they refused God’s power and protection. 

Later, God spoke through Jeremiah to His people again concerning their disobedience to God.  We believers often center only on verse 11 and skip the rest of this passage as we sometimes take this message out of context.  Here is the intent:

“This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”  Jeremiah 29:10-14, NIV

God’s people, created and crafted by God, no longer wanted God in their lives and disagreed wholeheartedly with God’s plan for them.  This difference of opinion with God did not go well for them.

But what happens when we disagree with each other while doing God’s work?

Acts 15, The Message

Barnabas and Paul Go Their Separate Ways

^30-33 And so off they went to Antioch. On arrival, they gathered the church and read the letter. The people were greatly relieved and pleased. Judas and Silas, good preachers both of them, strengthened their new friends with many words of courage and hope. Then it was time to go home. They were sent off by their new friends with laughter and embraces all around to report back to those who had sent them.

³⁵ Paul and Barnabas stayed on in Antioch, teaching and preaching the Word of God. But they weren’t alone. There were a number of teachers and preachers at that time in Antioch.

³⁶ After a few days of this, Paul said to Barnabas, “Let’s go back and visit all our friends in each of the towns where we preached the Word of God. Let’s see how they’re doing.”

^37-41 Barnabas wanted to take John along, the John nicknamed Mark. But Paul wouldn’t have him; he wasn’t about to take along a quitter who, as soon as the going got tough, had jumped ship on them in Pamphylia. Tempers flared, and they ended up going their separate ways: Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus; Paul chose Silas and, offered up by their friends to the grace of the Master, went to Syria and Cilicia to put grit in those congregations.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Remember—God is in control.God has the ultimate plan to accomplish His will and purpose.  God prevails even in and through the hiccups of behaviors of his imperfect humans who love and serve Him in Jesus Name.  Through His many experiences Paul writes, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28, NIV  This knowledge comes from his tenacity to please God in all Paul is and does and from experience God’s grace within him.

What does that have to do with Barnabas and Paul?  When we disagree, for whatever reason, with each other, who are uniquely created by God with different ideas and ways to obey God’s call on our lives; this is not necessarily catastrophic —only a difference of opinion. 

If our tempers rise and we sin in our anger by tearing down each other’s reputation, then that is a problem.  To demonize the one who disagrees with us is a walk on thin ice and not appropriate to pleasing God. But to have differences of opinion with each other in the pursuit of God and His plan to save the world through Jesus’s sacrifice is not.  If we agree on the bare necessities God spoke to us about yesterday, we can continue the work God has uniquely given us to be and do.

In other words, if we agree on God’s original plan given to us by the authority of Jesus to “go and make disciples, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey Him,” then a resolution like Paul and Barnabas decided upon is valid.  As tempers flared, God’s Holy Spirit seemed to calm them down and gave them a solution.  Divide and conquer. They will continue the work God gave them.  

Paul will write later, “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:3-6, NIV 

Paul uses these words of encouragement often to all the churches filled with people who love, obey, and serve God.  He writes from experience!

Occasionally God’s preachers, missionaries, and teachers will come back together again to report and praise God for all that HE, the Potter is doing in and through them throughout the book of Acts—the acts of God and His Holy Spirit demonstrated in His obedient servants filled with His love.

To sum it up: 

Don’t disagree with God and His Plan. 

Solve differences of opinions of accomplishing His Plan in loving ways that do not interrupt God and His Work to save the world through Jesus, our Savior and Lord.

Lord,

We will always need your help when we differ with each other.  We learn that our unique differences serve to expand our thinking and we see You who made us from new perspectives.  You are multi-faceted in Your ways as we seek the One and Only way to salvation.  Thank you for loving us, growing us and sustaining us the way you do. Thank you for using our imperfect beings for your glory as we point The Way for others to know, believe and obey you, too. Thank you for Life!

In Jesus Name, Amen