Materials
Conflict and Community in the 1st and 21st Century
To Guide Our Feet Into The Path Of Peace
Luke 1:67-79, Luke 2:8-20
by Dale Pauls and R. Todd Bouldin
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Discussion format to class – Participate!
B. True or False: The church of the first century experienced relatively little conflict.
C. Reason for topic – to normalize conflict in our church. Every church has conflict. Unmanaged or wrongly managed conflict is the biggest hindrance to growth. The biggest hindrance to properly managing conflict is to see conflict as bad or a plague that only exists in our church – there will be conflict – it is a matter of how we love each other and manage conflict when it comes that will determine whether we are able to grow as a church and ultimately whether we all present a united community to our world.
D. Prayer
II. CONFLICTS IN THE FIRST CHURCH
A. Name some of the conflicts in the early church:
Judaizing (admission of non-Jews—on what terms?; food offered to idols)
Paul vs Corinth
The complaints of Hellenistic Jews (Acts 6)
Lawsuits against Christians
Gnosticism
Personalities (Euodia and Synteche)
Cliques
B. Far from pristine purity and unanimity in the first church, the NT presupposes conflict and tension on every page. These documents of the New Testament largely rose out of conflict – they address the gap between how the church was and how the church was it could be.
C. Still for all its disputes and problems, the first century church never lost its sense of being one.
III. TO GUIDE OUR FEET IN THE PATH OF PEACE
A. Luke 1:67-79; Luke 2:13-14
B. When you first head this passage, what did you think the angelic message meant?
C. From the beginning, the message of Jesus was peace. (John 20:26 –“Peace be with you.” Ephesians 2:17-18)
D. Luke 1:79 – “to guide our feet into the path of peace”
E. Luke 2:14 - “on earth peace to those whom he favors”
F. Peace was always the Messianic agenda –
1. Isaiah 2:1-4
2. Isaiah 9:6-7
3. Isaiah 11:6-9
4. Isaiah 52:7
5. Luke 19:41 –
6. Acts 10:36
Have we missed something? Has there been an emphasis on peace in our message about Jesus?
G. The fact that Jesus promised peace on earth but that there has been so little of it, even in the church, has presented one of the greatest barriers to non-Christians in their hearing of the gospel. The church, particularly since the Middle Ages, has generally favored its own versions of Truth over peace, and conflict and even bloodshed has resulted.
H. What do you think Zechariah was thinking as he prophesies that the Messiah would guide our feet into the path of peace?
1. An end to foreign oppression – v. 71.
2. Was it just an internal peace -- peace of the heart, peace of the soul? Is this a cop-out?
3. So what did the angels mean?
I. So putting ourselves back into Zechariah’s age, and there listening to the angels in the shepherd fields. . . what would we expect of the Messiah movement, of those who would follow the Prince of Peace?
1. Passion for unity/harmony (John 17:23)
2. Focus on forgiveness (Mathew. 6:15)
3. Repudiation of violence/vengeance (Romans 12:18-19)
4. Some latitude – not uniformity; live peacefully with difference
5. A force for peace—peace must be sought and made (Matthew 5:9)
Why has this not been achieved? In Christianity? In our churches? How can we restore peace to being the mission of the church?
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