How, then, shall we disagree? We start by welcoming one another, and when we look to the clear light of Scripture we stand fully convinced on that solid ground. In other words, we disagree like Christians, like those who have been welcomed by the God of goodness and truth. And if Paul’s instructions don’t seem to relieve the tension you still feel between Scripture’s clarity and our fallibility, then number your days and ask for a heart of wisdom (Ps 90:12). We disagree because our dim little minds obscure even the purest light of heaven. The light is still shining and shining bright. May we learn to live in the light of God’s clear truth as he dispels our darkness and disagreement until one day we “know fully, even as [we] have been fully known” (1 Cor 13:12).

One of the most common objections I hear from non-believers about Scripture is: “How do you know that you’re right about the Bible when so many other Christians disagree with you?” Usually, the mere existence of Christian denominations (a kind of crystallized disagreement) provides enough of an excuse for a scoffer to throw up his hands and walk away. And I know some in the church who have struggled with this reality as well. “If the Bible is as clear as you say, shouldn’t we all interpret it the same?”
My answer: The clarity of Scripture doesn’t erase Christian disagreements, but it does help us disagree like Christians.
We’ve already seen the Bible’s own case for its clarity and the undergirding of that clarity in the character of God. Beyond that, we’ve considered the natural blindness of mankind to biblical truth and the Scripture’s own demand for obedience to grant understanding. So, Christians should expect to disagree with non-Christians about the Bible – we’re starting from a different premise, so we’ll naturally reach different conclusions. We also saw that we can only be enabled to rightly read the Scriptures when Christ illumines our spiritual eyes to see the clear truth in his light.
So, if all Christians have the same Holy Spirit helping them read the same, clear text, why all the disagreement? Why do some baptize babies and others don’t? Why do some teach sovereign election and others don’t? Why do some believe in a pre-tribulational rapture, some mid-trib, some post-trib, and some the pre-wrath mid-trib double-check discount rapture? Shouldn’t a clear text with the clear light of Christ lead to clear, universal agreement among earnest Bible readers?
Christians can and do still disagree in their interpretations of the clear Scriptures for three reasons, none of which negate the clarity of Scripture itself. Christians disagree because of sin (we may still reject a clear text because of a hard heart), finitude (we are limited beings who can only know so much), and distance (we’re removed from the authors of Scripture by thousands of years, a language barrier, and differing cultural values that need to be grasped before rightly interpreting the text). A combination of these factors can pour mud into the crystal-clear waters of Scripture and make it hard for us to see the bottom. The consequence, then, is that Christians still disagree on the right interpretation of a clear text of Scripture.
So, it’s obvious that we disagree, and it’s apparent why we disagree. The question is how, then, shall we disagree?
The apostle Paul gives us a roadmap to Christian disagreement in Romans 14:1-12. Without plumbing the depths of this text, I just want to help us see Paul’s two chief commands for disagreeing with Christians like Christians. First, “welcome one another.” Second, “be fully convinced.”
Welcome One Another
In writing from the church at Corinth (known for its division), the apostle Paul assumes that the Roman church (whom he has not visited) needs to be prepared for disagreements among the brethren. In fact, Paul seems to assume in his letter to the Roman Christians that they will disagree. This is the same apostle Paul who assumes that Timothy can “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15). This is the same apostle Paul who “reasoned from the Scriptures” (Acts 17:2) and told his protégé to devote himself to “the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim 4:13). Paul certainly believes the Scriptures are understandable, or else his whole ministry would be forfeit! And yet, Paul also anticipates that Christians who approach the same texts of Scripture will arrive at different conclusions regarding eating meat and esteeming certain days. Paul assumes Christians will disagree.
We should also notice that in this passage Paul believes that when Christians disagree, someone is right and someone is wrong. “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself” (Rom 14:14). The mere presence of a disagreement doesn’t kneecap the truth. Paul’s no post-modern life coach spewing relativist nonsense about “your truth,” “all truths,” and “the truthiness of truth.” No, Paul knows that there is a right way to understand and apply the New Covenant to the lives of believers (the “strong” position), and there are “weak” brothers who need to mature spiritually into that right understanding.
And yet, even though Paul knows there will be disagreements and truly believes that one side is right and another wrong, his first word to his fellow Christians is not a resolution to the debate! More than simply landing the plane for them, Paul wants them to learn how to land it in one piece. In Christian disagreements, Paul wants to first turn their attention to how they love each other in the midst of their difference.
Paul says, “As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions” (Rom 14:1). Meaning that before you try to correct another Christian with whom you disagree, you ought to warmly, richly, hospitably embrace him as your brother first. And why should you do that? “For God has welcomed him” (Rom 14:3). If God was willing to bring you close, make peace with you by the blood of his Son, and bring you into the family home, then who are you to begrudge that same welcome to another?
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The Lord Jesus Christ came to the world and kept the whole law for a wayward people. He bore the wrath of God for us sinners and died on the cross. Perhaps for a righteous man one would die but Jesus died for unrighteous men. Who has ever shown such mercy like that? Not Mary, nor Elisha, Paul, or Peter. 

And when these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they went into one tent and ate and drank, and carried from it silver and gold and clothing, and went and hid them; then they came back and entered another tent, and carried some from there also, and went and hid it.
II Kings 7:8 NKJV
Who is as merciful as the Lord?
When Vatican II wrapped up in 1965, Mariology was brought to a new official level in the Roman Catholic Church. The catechism gave her the title, “mediatrix” (RCC #969). Numerous Popes prior to Vatican II and afterwards titled her “co-redeemer” (Benedict, 1918, John Paul II, 1980). Popes and Priests of Rome regularly refer to Mary as the “Spouse of the Holy Spirit,” “Queen of the Apostles,” “the Ark of the New Covenant,” and of course the 9th part of the Rosary begins “Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our Life… most gracious advocate.”
When witnessing to Roman Catholics they often ask me, “would you rather go to the mother for help and mercy or to the son?” Pope John Paul II said it this way, “who will better communicate to you the truth about him (Jesus) than his Mother? (John Paul II’s Book of Mary, p. 23). The question is meant to come across as sound reason – surely we would go to the mother of the Lord for mercy rather than to the Lord because who could be more merciful than a mother? After all, she is the mother of mercy and most gracious advocate…right?
These ideas about Mary have many presuppositions including: that Jesus Christ could be less merciful than some other; that Mary is more merciful than Jesus Christ; that Mary can hear all people; that she is omniscient; and that Mary has power to show mercy to all who call upon her.
When looking at Scripture we see something quite different from Rome’s arguments.
But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion and gracious, long suffering and abundant in mercy and truth.
Psalm 86:15
Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.
I Chronicles 16:34
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Satan rages against God and against God’s people and plans.  We need to be aware of that.  God is good, but sometimes he allows Satan to strike with all his evil intent within the limitations God places on him, though God will use it for his glory and our good even if we never know what that is.  We need to learn to live by what has been revealed to us not what we can see or work out.  God is sovereign even when we suffer.  And he is more powerful than we can possibly imagine.

What God does next in Job comes as a bit of a surprise.  It’s like God is writing the script for a horror film as he unveils two terrifying beasts and describes in detail their power and menace.
Before we get into the descriptions there are two different ways people interpret these descriptions, some suggest that they’re descriptions of the hippo and the crocodile or of dinosaurs.  But as we read through we’ll see why that doesn’t fit.  Firstly the descriptions don’t quite work, but secondly the emphasis on both is that they were uncatchable by man and yet ancient civilisations did catch and kill the hippo and the crocodile – so what God says, the questions he asks in v1-7 would have no punch, in fact they would fall totally flat!  Thirdly, given that God has just used his creation to move Job to withdraw one protest, how would yet more descriptions of yet more animals move Job to repent?  Fourthly most who go down that path place great emphasis on that fact God created these, but God also created the angels and cherubim and seraphim, being created doesn’t limit them to being animals.  And finally how would a crocodile or hippo or dinosaur challenge Job’s discrediting of God’s justice, how would they help Job understand evil and God’s sovereignty?  It wouldn’t.
Instead I think both these terrifying beasts are representations of evil and chaos at work in the world.  God is teaching Job that there are more forces at work in the world that just what we can see and God.  He hasn’t struck Job these malignant forces have, though God is sovereign over them.  So lets look at these terrifying monsters so we see God in his even greater glory and sovereignty.
Behemoth is described(40v15-24) , he’s a created being, he feeds on grass, but has phenomenal strength(16-18) one of God’s greatest creations, yet God can approach it with his sword.  Nothing scares it, nothing can stop it, it lurks hidden and menacing, and no one can capture it or trap it or tame it.
This is beast so formidable that only God can bring his sword against it.  Only God can defeat it.  And the name is significant.  Whereas in chapter 39 God named the beasts, the lion, raven, ostrich and so on, here it’s a give a plural name, behemoth doesn’t mean ‘a beast’, it means ‘beasts’ or ‘superbeast’.  It’s behemoth not as one animal but as a symbolic terrifying lurking untameable threat.  A supernatural symbol of evil, maybe even of death itself as humans are often described as being like grass.
Even more is said in describing the second beast, menacing descriptions pile up in describing Leviathan.  As Job pictures this creature it would be terrifying.  (41v1-11)Leviathan is uncatchable, untameable, and wild.  Harpoons and spears are useless against it, if you fought it you would never do it again(8), there’s no hope of ever subduing it(9), just looking at it is enough to terrify.  No one is fierce enough, strong enough, powerful enough to rouse it.
(10-11)If no one can stand against this beasts, which belongs to God as everything does because he made it, then how much more can we not take on our, and its, creator?
But God isn’t done with his description.  Leviathan (12-24)is designed for war, it’s strong and moves gracefully, thickly covered with impenetrable armour all over, it has no weaknesses.  And it is equipped to destroy, it’s mouth is ringed with fearsome teeth(14), it shoots fire from its mouth(18-20), when it rises even the mighty are terrified(25).  The sword, sword, spear, dart and javelin are like straw or rotten wood.  Arrows, slingstones, clubs and lance just make it laugh because they can’t touch it, it’s as if it just tickles it(26-29).  It doesn’t have a soft underbelly you can strike at; it is utterly invulnerable and invincible.  The greatest weapons man has made don’t even leave a mark.
And it lives in the chaos of the surging seas, the seas that are so proud and powerful in ch 38, are its home, it stirs them up and makes them seethe churning up a wake behind him.
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