For a season I came home from every deacons meeting frustrated and exhausted. I was serving as interim pastor at an international church and our deacons were functioning as elders. One of our deacons had quarreled with the previous pastor and it persisted under my leadership. I came to dread being together. Something had to change.
Eventually, we presented one of the most prominent men in our church with a letter asking him to peacefully step down. His first reaction, of course, was resistance. “God and this church made me a deacon and I’m not stepping down.” We were prepared to bring his office before the church if he refused. By God’s grace, he chose a more peaceful path.
That brings up a question: can we actually discern when a brother or sister is quarrelsome? We can. In fact, the Bible expects us to recognize quarrelsome people.
CHRISTIANS SHOULD RECOGNIZE QUARRELSOME PEOPLE
More than merely describing a debate or a disagreement itself as a quarrel, the Bible instructs the church to discern when a person is quarrelsome. Consider the qualification of elders as. An elder should not “be … quarrelsome” (1 Tim 3:3).
So Paul means you must exist in certain ways
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