34 Bible Verses about Disputes
Most Relevant Verses
But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Quarrel because they quarreled with him. Then they dug another well and quarreled over that one also, so he named it Hostility. He moved from there and dug another, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Open Spaces and said, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”
Then Jacob became incensed and brought charges against Laban. “What is my crime?” he said to Laban. “What is my sin, that you have pursued me?
So the people complained to Moses, “Give us water to drink.”
“Why are you complaining to me?” Moses replied to them. “Why are you testing the Lord?”
“When men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or his fist, and the injured man does not die but is confined to bed,
The people quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord.
The men of Ephraim said to him, “Why have you done this to us, not calling us when you went to fight against the Midianites?” And they argued with him violently.
Then two women who were prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. One woman said, “Please my lord, this woman and I live in the same house, and I had a baby while she was in the house. On the third day after I gave birth, she also had a baby and we were alone. No one else was with us in the house; just the two of us were there. read more.
During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him. She got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while your servant was asleep. She laid him at her breast, and she put her dead son in my arms. When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, I discovered he was dead. That morning, when I looked closely at him I realized that he was not the son I gave birth to.” “No,” the other woman said. “My son is the living one; your son is the dead one.”
The first woman said, “No, your son is the dead one; my son is the living one.” So they argued before the king. The king replied, “This woman says, ‘This is my son who is alive, and your son is dead,’ but that woman says, ‘No, your son is dead, and my son is alive.’” The king continued, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought the sword to the king. Solomon said, “Cut the living boy in two and give half to one and half to the other.” The woman whose son was alive spoke to the king because she felt great compassion for her son. “My lord, give her the living baby,” she said, “but please don’t have him killed!”
But the other one said, “He will not be mine or yours. Cut him in two!” The king responded, “Give the living baby to the first woman, and don’t kill him. She is his mother.” All Israel heard about the judgment the king had given, and they stood in awe of the king because they saw that God’s wisdom was in him to carry out justice.
Therefore, I rebuked the officials, saying, “Why has the house of God been neglected?” I gathered the Levites and singers together and stationed them at their posts.
I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them: “What is this evil you are doing—profaning the Sabbath day?
I rebuked them, cursed them, beat some of their men, and pulled out their hair. I forced them to take an oath before God and said: “You must not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters as wives for your sons or yourselves!
I will say to God:
“Do not declare me guilty!
Let me know why You prosecute me.
Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him?
Let him who argues with God give an answer.
Don’t take a matter to court hastily.
Otherwise, what will you do afterward
if your opponent humiliates you?
Make your case with your opponent
without revealing another’s secret;
When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked His disciples, “Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, He told them, “Those who are well don’t need a doctor, but the sick do need one. I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
The Pharisees said to Him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” He said to them, “Have you never read what David and those who were with him did when he was in need and hungry—
Then they came to Capernaum. When He was in the house, He asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, because on the way they had been arguing with one another about who was the greatest. Sitting down, He called the Twelve and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
Then they sent some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to Him to trap Him by what He said.
Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to think: “Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
But the Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to His disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
So the Pharisees said to Him, “You are testifying about Yourself. Your testimony is not valid.”
Then some from what is called the Freedmen’s Synagogue, composed of both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and some from Cilicia and Asia, came forward and disputed with Stephen.
When Peter went up to Jerusalem, those who stressed circumcision argued with him,
But after Paul and Barnabas had engaged them in serious argument and debate, the church arranged for Paul and Barnabas and some others of them to go up to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem concerning this controversy.
After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them: “Brothers, you are aware that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the gospel message and believe.
So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with those who worshiped God and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.
Then he entered the synagogue and spoke boldly over a period of three months, engaging in discussion and trying to persuade them about the things of the kingdom of God. But when some became hardened and would not believe, slandering the Way in front of the crowd, he withdrew from them and met separately with the disciples, conducting discussions every day in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.
When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say there is no resurrection, and no angel or spirit, but the Pharisees affirm them all. The shouting grew loud, and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party got up and argued vehemently: “We find nothing evil in this man. What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?”
They didn’t find me disputing with anyone or causing a disturbance among the crowd, either in the temple complex or in the synagogues or anywhere in the city.
[After he said these things, the Jews departed, while engaging in a prolonged debate among themselves.]
If any of you has a legal dispute against another, do you dare go to court before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Or don’t you know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest cases? Don’t you know that we will judge angels—not to mention ordinary matters? read more.
So if you have cases pertaining to this life, do you select those who have no standing in the church to judge? I say this to your shame! Can it be that there is not one wise person among you who is able to arbitrate between his brothers? Instead, believer goes to court against believer, and that before unbelievers! Therefore, to have legal disputes against one another is already a moral failure for you. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather be cheated?
Yet Michael the archangel, when he was disputing with the Devil in a debate about Moses’ body, did not dare bring an abusive condemnation against him but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
