Dirty Laundry

Galatians 2:14

When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?

A woman looked out of her window every morning and commented on the dirty laundry on her neighbor's line. One day she noticed it was sparkling clean.

"Maybe she's using a new detergent," she said.

"No," said her husband, "I got up early and cleaned our windows."

One of the things I appreciate about the Bible is that it doesn’t sugarcoat things. The Bible doesn’t hide its dirty laundry. When Paul and Peter had a disagreement about a doctrinal issue, Paul laid it all out on the table for everyone to see. He laid out what was said, what it concerned, and why he said it. All out in the open.

It is not talked about much, but if you are going to be in a church, you are going to find conflict. It is inevitable. The question is how do we handle it? Notice that in our passage today, Paul went to Peter and told him his concerns. He didn’t whisper it behind Peter’s back, he went to him.

If you find yourself in conflict with someone in your church, follow these steps:

Pray about it.

Ask God if you should do something about it.

Pray about it.

Ask God to give you words that are loving, not confrontational.

Pray about it.

If, after all that, you still feel the need to tell the other person what happened, God will give you a right spirit to do it. That’s how Christians handle dirty laundry.

Today’s Readings: Job 28,29; Galatians 1,2

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