Over time, division in healthy churches produces unity, not division. Don’t let the good fruit of conflict silence the apostle’s clear charge: “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you.” Christians don’t aim for conflict; we aim for agreement and harmony in Christ. We can’t let the usefulness of divisions make any of us divisive.

In most cases, cruelty — not wisdom — would have told them to cut the baby in two. How many kings in history would have had the sword brought, not to draw out the true mother, but to violently end the matter? Who would have imagined that thousands of years later, we’d still hold up such a brutal scene as a beautiful model to imitate — as a masterclass in conflict resolution?
Two women came to King Solomon, like so many others, to settle a dispute. They were both prostitutes, so deciding whom to trust wouldn’t be easy. Both had recently given birth to sons, within just a few days of each other. One boy was now dead because of a horrible accident. His mother woke to find she had smothered him while the two were sleeping. Can you imagine the horror when she realized what she had done?
Desperate, she added horror to horror. She took the living son from her roommate’s breast, and laid the cold body of her carelessness there instead. She stirred the heavy storm of guilt into a hurricane. When the other woman woke up, she found the child at her side was dead. After examining the baby more closely, though, she discovered what evil had happened (like any mother would). But how could she prove it? She couldn’t; they “were alone” (1 Kings 3:18). So the two went to court, both declaring, “The living child is mine, and the dead child is yours” (1 Kings 3:22).
We know what the king does next — the jarring way he uncovers the truth. Who would have guessed he’d threaten to have the child cut in two? When Israel heard of the judgment Solomon rendered, they stood in awe of him, perceiving that the Spirit of God was in him (1 Kings 3:28). Can you explain, however, why he was wise to reach for a sword?
Needful Conflict
We might say Solomon was wise because it worked. The true mother proved herself by pleading that the boy be spared, even if that meant he would be raised by another woman (1 Kings 3:26). Likewise, the selfish response of the other woman exposed her treachery. That it worked, however, doesn’t explain why the king was wise (only that he was). Surely the same strategy would have failed in lots of other crises.
What made Solomon wise, in this case, was that he knew to lean into the conflict between them to prove who was who. He pressed on the sensitive issue at hand until each woman revealed what kind of woman she really was. The apostle Paul offers a similar piece of wisdom to the church when he writes,
When you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. (1 Corinthians 11:18–19)
There must be factions among you. In other words, some conflict is necessary for churches to remain healthy. Why? Like Solomon with the prostitutes: to prove who is who. Who’s really here to worship, obey, and enjoy King Jesus — and who’s here for some other reason?
Isn’t Division Bad?
Aren’t all divisions in the church to be avoided, though? After all, the apostle himself says (earlier in the same letter, even),
I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. (1 Corinthians 1:10)
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God provides eternal comfort to us knowing that He saves, sanctified, and guarantees glorification. God uses His control for your good. He actively participates in your life. He knows you and providentially provides for you in the midst of your crisis.

Recently in the first post of this series, we revealed that the Apostle Paul provided two vital steps to persevere in trials or crisis. The first step, in a world with false teachers, false belief systems, and false hope, the Apostle reminds us to stand firm in what we know. The second step is to hold fast the traditions which we have been taught or learned from the Word. We simply identified those steps as: (1) Remember key principles and (2) Obey practical steps to encourage our perseverance. In today’s post we embark on Principles to Remember in Crisis. Today’s principle: God is sovereign.
God Is Sovereign (MARK 4:35-41).
When we teach, “God is sovereign,” we mean, God is in control of the world around us. It is His world. Although God interacts with us in time and space individually and corporately, time and space reside in His control. He is from everlasting to everlasting. God created the world and everything in it. It functions under His control and direction. This includes your crisis or pressures.
On the same day, when evening had come, He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side.” Now when they had left the multitude, they took Him along in the boat as He was. And other little boats were also with Hi
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Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Wednesday, June 7, 2023
What we are up against is a generation transfixed by the allure of desire, the delight and satisfaction of destruction which lets loose the forces held in check by civilization. Any effort to respond in a persuasive manner must come with an appeal to the heart—one that offers to satisfy not only material needs but spiritual longings for beauty, for meaning, for devotion. Evil is not banal, so good cannot be either if it hopes to triumph. 

If the Holocaust is the 20th century’s most infamous example of evil, then perhaps the most famous reflection on the nature of evil is Hannah Arendt’s contribution to Holocaust literature, Eichmann in Jerusalem. It is a work remembered above all for its striking and influential subtitle: A Study in the Banality of Evil. Fascinated by Nazi official Adolf Eichmann’s apparent lack of moral depth, amazed at his seeming inability to understand the wickedness of the Final Solution or the role he had played in pursuing it, Arendt concluded that Eichmann and the bureaucratized evil he represented were “banal.”
In the decades since Arendt’s work was published, the idea that evil is banal has become a virtual cliché. It has been reinforced by the steady stream of news about evil that appears in the press. Reports of shooting, murders, massacres, and war crimes are regular occurrences. Clothed in a certain routine familiarity, they come to look even more banal.
And yet there are very serious grounds for rejecting Arendt’s thesis—even in Eichmann’s own case. Subsequent research has revealed that he was very much active in Nazi circles as an emigrant in Argentina. He was fully committed to a ferocious anti-Semitism, well aware—and proud—of his own role in the Final Solution. The Eichmann on trial in the glass box in Jerusalem was an act, a character he was playing for the audience, and Arendt fell for it. He may not have been an intellectual, but he was no mere manager of railway timetables either. In short, he was anything but a case study in the banality of bureaucratic evil.
But even if we were to allow for the sake of argument that Eichmann himself was as banal as Arendt thought, it is surely implausible to see this as a key to understanding Nazi evil. How and why does a mediocrity become such a monster? And moving beyond Eichmann, we have to face that other problem of evil—not the typical question of its origin, meaning and significance, but rather that of its apparent appeal. Evil is often exhilarating and exciting. And one does not need to be evil to provide evidence of this. Serial killers are truly evil. But what of those who pore over books and flock to movies based around serial killer plotlines? They are not evil, but they are nonetheless fascinated by it. True banality—as represented in the lives that most of us lead most of the time—makes for neither good television nor bestselling pulp fiction.
A Beautiful Madness
And so if the foot soldiers of the Holocaust cannot be identified with mere banality, what might help to shed light on them? Surely part of the explanation has to lie with the aesthetics of evil. Take, for example, Leni Riefenstahl’s notorious film of the 1934 Nuremberg Rally. The opening sequence begins with a statement about Germany’s wartime humiliation and then her rebirth with the election of Hitler. This is followed by a view of the medieval German city taken from Hitler’s plane. Then there is the arrival of Hitler and the Nazi elite, greeted by adoring crowds as the Führer’s motorcade drives through the streets. Then there are the speeches, the torchlight parades, the scenes of joy, and, of course, the carefully choreographed marches of the rally itself, culminating in Hitler’s ascent to the rostrum. Countless images draw upon the mythical medieval glories of the German people, and the whole production speaks of the returning significance and power that the Third Reich represents. Everything is designed to stimulate a seductive desire in the audience to belong to something that gives meaning to life.
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