Last Sunday, we noticed Paul’s appeal to two women who had a falling out in the early church of Philippi: “I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche,” writes Paul, “to be of the same mind in the Lord” (Philippians 4:2).
It’s interesting that Paul doesn’t go into the details of the falling out. We don’t know the cause. We don’t know the severity or how long the falling out had lasted. We’re not even told much about the women or their roles in the church. Whatever the circumstances and independent of who was right or wrong, the falling out was public and detrimental to the health of the Philippian church, so it was graciously addressed by Paul, who focused on one thing and one thing only: pleading for restored unity.
Have you experienced a similar “Euodia and Syntyche” falling out with someone else recently? As you head into this week, ask the Lord to help you place matters of guilt and blame aside—who’s right and who’s wrong—so that you could take the first step as a peacemaker, just as Christ took the first step to reconcile us to himself (Matthew 5:9; 2 Corinthians 5:18).
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