The apostle Paul says \u201can overseer must be\u2026not quarrelsome\u201d (1\u00a0Tim.\u00a03:2\u20133). Yet in my experience, quarrelsome people often hide behind the excuse, \u201cI\u2019m just principled\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m standing up for the truth when no one else will.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a completely unreasonable point. Many people seem to confuse having an opinion with being quarrelsome, hostile, and aggressive. But that\u2019s not right.<\/p>\n
So how do you know if you\u2019re principled or just a contentious jerk?<\/p>\n
My old Webster\u2019s Dictionary defines quarrelsome as \u201capt or disposed to find fault; contentious.\u201d Paul described how to not be contentious this way: \u201cLet all bitterness<\/strong> and wrath<\/strong> and anger<\/strong> and clamor<\/strong> and slander<\/strong> be put away from you, along with all malice<\/strong>\u201d (Eph.\u00a04:31).<\/p>\n In other words, if you\u2019re prone to debate, to sow discord, or to cause strife, then you are a contentious, quarrelsome person. If you are hungry for a good online fight or more committed to winning an argument than winning over an opponent, then you are a quarrelsome person.<\/p>\n To be sure, you might principled, too. Being principled doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re exempt from the possibility of being quarrelsome. A principled person can indeed be quarrelsome in a way that disqualifies him from the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The apostle Paul says \u201can overseer must be\u2026not quarrelsome\u201d (1\u00a0Tim.\u00a03:2\u20133). Yet in my experience, quarrelsome people often hide behind the excuse, \u201cI\u2019m just principled\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m standing up for the \u2026 keep reading\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":569,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[793],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9marks","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/569"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45788"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45790,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45788\/revisions\/45790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}