FrAnthony

No new post again this week as I'm in crunch time prepping for Momentum. But in the meantime, I thought I'd repost one of my most famous blog posts ever, from back in 2012. Understanding this concept has made the biggest difference in my life and I hope it can do the same for you. And I'll still be on Periscope today at 12:30 pm EST for another ASK ME ANYTHING scope.

“Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another.” Acts 15:39

In the book of Acts, chapter 15, we have the story of one of the great disputes in church history. The great apostle Paul got into a disagreement with his fellow worker Barnabas – who just happened to be his mentor as well. The disagreement occurred as the two of them were about to set sail on a pastoral journey to visit the churches which they had already established.

The dispute was over the presence of another apostle on the trip – St. Mark, the writer of the second gospel. At the time, Mark was still young and not quite ready for some of the rigors of the mission field. He was still a work in progress at the time the story takes place.

Can two people think differently and both be right? Is that possible?

Yesterday’s post on the contention between Paul and Barnabas – or pillows and swords as I referred to them yesterday – generated a lot of good discussion. I want to expand on the idea that I started yesterday about how two people can be very different – in their thinking and their personality and their decision making process – yet neither one is necessarily wrong.

People are different. That is a fact. From our fingerprints to our personal experiences to our ways of processing information, we are each unique creations of God. We are not randomly designed, but rather “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

We think differently. We talk differently. We react differently. We are different!

So far no one will disagree with me. But here comes the hard part: JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE IS DIFFERENT DOESN’T MAKE THEM WRONG. Different doesn’t mean wrong. It just means different.

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