March 26  Even Good Friends Get Into Big Arguments

And there arose a sharp contention, so that they [Paul and Barnabas] separated from each other. Acts 15:39, RSV.

They looked like the perfect evangelistic team. But problems can arise even between good Christian friends. So it was when Paul and Barnabas clashed over Mark's fitness for ministry. As a result, both went their own way in what appears to have been a huff. But God blessed in spite of the problem. He now had two evangelistic teams instead of one.

The record of that high-powered disagreement reminds me of one that threatened to tear apart the two Sabbatarian leaders in 1850. The issue was the "little paper" of the Dorchester vision. While it is true that after the vision Ellen White told her husband-perhaps personally-that he was to publish a periodical that would eventually be "like strams of light that went clear round the world," Bates had his own view of the topic.

The older man was quite certain that White's periodical was drawing off money that should go to evangelism. White, on the other hand, thought money was being squandered in other areas that could and should have been used to support the paper.

James penned that "Brother Bates wrote me a letter that threw me down as low as I ever was." "I [had] already been in a hot furnace for some time on account of the burden I felt for the little paper." But Bates' letter made it even worse-"the burden grew heavier and heavier on me" and "I gave it up forever." "I think" the paper "will die. . .I think I shall hang all up for the present."

The battle rumbled on for the better part of 1850 and threatened to destroy Sabbatarian Adventism. The devil never sleeps, my friends. After years of struggle and sacrifice, Bates and James White finally had a message to preach and had finally arrived at the gathering time, only to have the movement founder on the stubborn personalities of its two leaders. Ellen White in her role as mediator between the two men feared that they would destroy what they loved. The good news is that God helped them face themselves and work through their differences.

Things haven't changed all that much. The church in the twenty-first century is still full of opinionated, strong personalities.

And the devil is still trying to separate.
And God is still trying to heal.
And we still need to be open tothe softening impact of His Spirit.

He longs to have those who would seek after God believe in Him who is able to do all things(TFMB, 130).