Bible Verses About Strife

For men like these are not serving our Lord the Messiah but their own belly; by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the innocent.

Nevertheless, brothers, I call on you in the name of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah to agree, all of you, in what you say, and not to let yourselves remain split into factions but be restored to having a common mind and a common purpose.

For some of Chloe’s people have made it known to me, my brothers, that there are quarrels among you.

I say this because one of you says, “I follow Sha’ul”; another says, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Kefa”; while still another says, “I follow the Messiah!”

Has the Messiah been split in pieces? Was it Sha’ul who was put to death on a stake for you? Were you immersed into the name of Sha’ul?

As for me, brothers, I couldn’t talk to you as spiritual people but as worldly people, as babies, so far as experience with the Messiah is concerned.

For you are still worldly! Isn’t it obvious from all the jealousy and quarrelling among you that you are worldly and living by merely human standards?

For when one says, “I follow Sha’ul” and another, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you being merely human?

Now in what I have said here, brothers, I have used myself and Apollos as examples to teach you not to go beyond what the Tanakh says, proudly taking the side of one leader against another.

After all, what makes you so special? What do you have that you didn’t receive as a gift? And if in fact it was a gift, why do you boast as if it weren’t?

How dare one of you with a complaint against another go to court before pagan judges and not before God’s people?

Don’t you know that God’s people are going to judge the universe? If you are going to judge the universe, are you incompetent to judge these minor matters?

Don’t you know that we will judge angels, not to mention affairs of everyday life?

So if you require judgments about matters of everyday life, why do you put them in front of men who have no standing in the Messianic Community?

I say, shame on you! Can it be that there isn’t one person among you wise enough to be able to settle a dispute between brothers?

Instead, a brother brings a lawsuit against another brother, and that before unbelievers!

Actually, if you are bringing lawsuits against each other, it is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

However, if anyone wants to argue about it, the fact remains that we have no such custom, nor do the Messianic communities of God.

But in giving you this next instruction I do not praise you, because when you meet together it does more harm than good!

For, in the first place, I hear that when you gather together as a congregation you divide up into cliques; and to a degree I believe it

(granted that there must be some divisions among you in order to show who are the ones in the right).

For I am afraid of coming and finding you not the way I want you to be, and also of not being found the way you want me to be. I am afraid of finding quarreling and jealousy, anger and rivalry, slander and gossip, arrogance and disorder.

I am confident that since you are united with the Lord, you will take no other view; and I am confident that the one who has been disturbing you, whoever he may be, will have to bear his punishment.

but if you go on snapping at each other and tearing each other to pieces, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other!

And it is perfectly evident what the old nature does. It expresses itself in sexual immorality, impurity and indecency;