"Confrontation" - A Discussion of Galatians 2:11-21

Here is the next outline in our Wednesdy study through Galatians...

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“Confrontation” Galatians 2:11-21

QUESTION: Have you ever had a time when you thought a “boss,” “leader” or even a “friend” in your life was making a serious error? What did you do? What was the outcome?



1. Everybody makes mistakes and errors in judgment. Galatians 2:11

A. Sometimes they are intentional; many times they are unintentional. Either way, we still bear responsibility.

QUESTION: What examples can we think of each kind of error? How should we respond to such errors?

QUESTION: What is the difference between having different opinions, and having to confront an error?

• Even the best of us can be guilty at times for behaving in ways that are contrary to our stated beliefs.


• What might cause otherwise “good” people to act in troubling ways?

B. Some disagreements are from sin in the hearts of people. 2 Tim. 4:10,14; Phlp 1:15-18

This includes:

• The refusal to let go of anger and bitterness or to walk in grace, mercy and forgiveness. Eph 4:29-32


• When we fear losing our image, the respect of others, or the approval of certain friends in our lithe tradition of wearing costumes on halloweenfe. Gal 2:12


• The refusal to submit earthly motivations and desires to the Lord. Philippians 2:1-5

C. Some disagreements occur because of misunderstandings. Acts 19:25-41

• This happens when we make assumptions about others, and/or hold on to past hurts & disappointments.


• This happens if we don't really listen to one another and/or when we walk in fear and mistrust instead of love.


• This happens when we allow ourselves to be swayed by gossip and slander. Proverbs 16:28

D. Some disagreements occur because we honestly see things differently than someone else. Acts 15:36-41

• Even the best of friends will run into times when they see things from opposing viewpoints.


• How we handle these moments is a test of our character and of our commitment to God and to one another.

E. As followers of Christ, we need to remember the need to lovingly lead people into truth instead of merely catering to false ways of thinking. What does this mean? Why might this be so?

2. One problem created when we err is that we can potentially lead others astray by our example. None of us are above being swayed by the missteps of others. Gal 2:13

QUESTION: How can we keep from being led into untruth, wrongful thinking, or wrongful action?



3. Once we understand the scope and impact of an error, itop amazing halloween dog costumes in 2008t’s appropriate and right to address the issue. Gal 2:14-21

A. We should state the facts and the specifics as we understand them. Gal 2:14

B. We should give Biblical reasoning why we think this represents an error, sin, mistake, etc. Gal 2:15-21

C. We should carefully, attentively, and lovingly listen to the other person as well.

QUESTION: What does Paul believe is at stake here? What is the error that he addresses?

4. NOTE: Confrontation and conflict do not have to be synonymous.

A. Confrontation is the process by which we bring an issue into the open in order to produce healing and resolution. Acts. 15:39; Hebrews 10:24

• Disagreements and hurts should be lovingly confronted so thget your pets dressed up on halloweenat division doesn’t take root in our relationships.


• Loving confrontation will work to bring support as well as correction.


• The goal of confrontation is to come to mutual resolutions that help move all of us into the flow of God's will.


• When we simply sweep things under the rug, we add fuel to the fires of future conflict.

B. Conflict is the result of allowing confrontation to disintegrate into argument and polarization.

• Conflict focuses more on "winning" than on "loving."


• Conflict focuses more on "taking sides" or "getting even" than on exploring solutions & restoring relationship.

C. When we depend on the Spirit of Christ in us, we are enabled to walk in love at all times.

• A true brother or sister in Christ will tells us what we need to hear, not just what we want to hear. Pr 27:6


• A true brother or sister in Christ will respond with thanksgiving, even when the truth hurts.

D. When others simply will not come to a place of resolution, but persist in conflict, we must learn that setting appropriate boundaries may be a necessary and loving response. Romans 12:18, 2 Timothy 3:16-4:5

Q: When we become aware of our own errors, on our own or through confrontation, how should we respond?

Atlantis? No, it Atlant-isn't.

(Cross-posted from the Lat Long Blog)

[Note: Last week we saw some interesting speculation that Atlantis had been found in Google Earth. As much as we'd love for that to be the case, there is a scientific explanation for the odd markings found on the seafloor. We've invited two of the scientists who gathered the data that appears in Google Earth to answer some questions that came up. - Ed.]

Since the launch of Ocean in Google Earth, millions of people have started to explore the ocean, and many have been surprised by their discoveries.

Near Hawaii you can see a new volcanic island in the making called the Loihi Seamount.


You can also clearly see the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an underwater mountain range in the Atlantic Ocean where two tectonic plates are moving away from one another. If you look closely, you can see this ridge connects with others around the globe, forming a nearly continuous mountain range that is over 60,000 kilometers long.


But so far nothing has sparked quite as much interest as this funny looking pattern off the west coast of Africa:


Patterns like this can actually be seen over much of the ocean floor in Google Earth. What is it? Is it real? Why does it look like this?

Some have speculated that these are the plow marks of seafloor farming by aliens. If there really are little green men hiding somewhere, the ocean's not a bad place to do it. Mars, Venus, the moon, and even some asteroids are mapped at far higher resolution than our own oceans (the global map of Mars is about 250 times as accurate as the global map of our own ocean).

One theory that's gained more traction is that these marks might be thetop amazing halloween dog costumes in 2008 ruins of the lost city of Atlantis. If that were the case, some of the city blocks would have to be over eight miles long - that's about fifty times the size of a city block in New York City (if you zoom in and use the measurement tool in Google Earth, you can do this comparison yourself).

So what is it? The scientific explanation is a bit less exotic, but we think it's still pretty interesting: these marks are what we call "ship tracks." You see, it's actually quite hard to measure the depth of the ocean. Sunlight, lasers, and other electromagnetic radiation can travel less than 100 feet below the surface, yet the typical depth in the ocean is more than two and a half miles. Sound waves are more effective. By measuring the time it takes for sound to travel from a ship to the sea floor and back, you can get an idea of how far away the sea floor is. Since this process — known as echosounding — only maps a strip of the sea floor under the ship, the maps it produces often show the path the ship took, hence the "ship tracks." In this case, the soundings produced by a ship are also about 1% deeper than the data we have in surrounding areas — likely an error — making the tracks stand out more. You can see all of the soundings that produced this particular pattern with this KMZ file.


Echosounding with sonar is currently the best method for collecting this kind of data, but it's not perfect. One challenge is that it's quite slow. It has to be done from ships or underwater vehicles, and they can't go very fast or they'll spoil the measurement. As a result, not much of the ocean has been mapped this way, and huge gaps remain all over the ocean. In fact, the typical hole between tracks is about 20,000 square kilometers, or about the size of the state of New Jersey.

Now you're probably wondering where the rest of the depth data comes from if there are such big gaps from echosounding. We do our best to predict what the sea floor looks like based on what we can measure much more easily: the water surface. Above large underwater mountains (seamounts), the surface of the ocean is actually higher than in surrounding areas. These seamounts actually increase gravity in the area, which attracts more water and causes sea level to be slightly higher. The changes in water height are measurable using radar on satellites. This allows us to make a best guess as to what thehomemade cow halloween costumes rest of the to be a pirate or not on this halloweensea floor looks like, but still at relatively low resolutions (the model predicts the ocean depth about once every 4000 meters). What you see in Google Earth is a combination of both this satellite-based model and real ship tracks from many research cruises (we first published this technique back in 1997). If you zoom in and take a look around the ocean for yourself, you can see higher resolution patches where ships have studied the sea floor and all the places we've still yet to explore. Here's a good example just north of Hawaii:


So, what if we really wanted to find Atlantis? We probably couldn't do it with satellites — man-made structures simply aren't big enough to be measured that way. But we could map the whole ocean using ships. A published U.S. Navy study found that it would take about 200 ship-years, meaning we'd need one ship for 200 years, or 10 ships for 20 years, or 100 ships for two years. It costs about $25,000 per day to operate a ship with the right mapping capability, so 200 ship-years would cost nearly two billion dollars. That may seem like a lot of money, but it's not that far off from the price tag of, say, a new sports stadium.

For now, keep exploring the ocean in Google Earth, and continue to share what you discover. It's great to have so many sets of eyes looking at the data currently in Google Earth and asking questions about what it represents. We and our fellow oceanographers are constantly improving the resolution of our seafloor maps, so we promise to work with Google to keep the virtual explorers out there busy.

Posted by Walter Smith, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and David Sandwell, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego