Every time my family gets together it ends in a row over the same old ground. I dread it now. How do I go in without becoming part of it?

“And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.”

Abram and Lot were family travelling together, and their herdsmen were fighting over grazing and water. Abram's solution is unexpected from the older man with the stronger claim: he gives Lot first choice of the land and puts distance between the two camps. His stated reason is that they are kin. Sometimes the way to protect a family relationship is to stop sharing the ground you keep fighting over.

“Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.”

The Roman church was arguing about food and holy days, matters where believers genuinely disagreed and each side suspected the other of compromise. Paul does not settle the argument. He redirects it: pursue the things that make for peace and the things that build one another up. That is a question a family row almost never asks. Not who is right, but what this particular conversation is actually constructing.