On this episode of The Disciple-Making Parent Podcast, we begin a four-part series on biblical conflict resolution. We explore why conflict is inevitable in relationships—whether between spouses, parents and children, siblings, or within church and workplace settings—and examine what instruction God actually gives us for navigating these difficult situations.
We establish that the first and most essential principle in any conflict is to glorify God and please Him above all else. Rather than focusing on controlling outcomes or changing the other person, we learn to ask: “How can I please God in this situation?” This vertical focus keeps us anchored to biblical commands rather than our emotions, and reminds us that we can always control our own response, even when we can’t control the conflict’s resolution.
We conclude by considering the practical question: How would Jesus live in my situation right now? By aiming to act, react, and pray like Jesus—empowered by the Holy Spirit—we position ourselves to grow through conflict and pursue reconciliation in a way that honors God, regardless of the other person’s response.
Resources From This Podcast
The Peacemaker, by Ken Sande
Pursuing Peace, by Dr. Robert Jones
The True Bounds of Christian Freedom, by Samuel Bolton
Topics Covered in This Week’s Podcast
02:02 Introduction
05:40 The origin of conflict
09:37 Our God of peace
15:48 Types of conflict
21:18 Glorify God
29:03 Final rewards
Episode Transcript
I am Chap Bettis and you’re listening to The Disciple-Making Parent, where we seek to equip parents and churches to pass the gospel to their children. If you have relationships, you will have conflict. Husband and wife, parents and children. Sibling rivalry. Problems with in-laws or at church or at work. Do you know what instruction God gives in His Word? Most Christians don’t.
Hi, my name is Chap Bettis and I’m the author of The Disciple-Making Parent, and today we began a four-part podcast series on biblical conflict resolution. I taught this information recently for my church and I thought it was so important and so misunderstood that I wanted to record it for my podcast. I believe that every Christian pastor and parent needs to understand the biblical principles that we will talk about over the next episodes. But before we start though, I want remind you about two resources that might be helpful to you.
The first is the book that I just released, Managing Your Households Well: How Family Leadership Trains You for Church Leadership. And we take a deep dive into this oft-neglected attribute of an elder found in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. And it’s available wherever Christian books are sold. Indeed, there’s actually a chapter in Managing Your Households Well on conflict and on overseeing it.
And of course, the other resource is the audiobook of The Disciple-Making Parent, and we give that away free when you sign up for our weekly newsletter at thedisciplemakingparent.com. We’re on a mission to equip parents and grandparents to disciple their children. So head on over to thedisciplemakingparent.com and you’ll see that free audio book is available with the popup. And now let’s think about the topic of conflict.
The year was 1990. And our young church plant was involved in a conflict. Unbeknownst to me, one of the elders had gone around and been very heavy handed, and people were reacting to that by criticizing our church and our doctrine. It took us a while to sort everything out, and unfortunately some people ended up leaving and it took a while, but our church conflict did settle down.
Well, as I reviewed that time, I realized that I was ill-equipped to shepherd through disagreement. So were our people. And I began to search the scriptures and read anything I could. What I found was that the Bible had a lot to say about peace, unity, conflict, divisions, and handling disagreements. I resolved going forward that I would be clear in my mind on what God had to say, and be wise on how to apply it when it comes to conflict.
I would need it because in the year 2000, one of our church members decided he did not believe in a core doctrine and he started talking to others. And that was a very difficult time, not only in our church, but for Sharon and me because we were close to him and his fiancée. So we ended up having marital disagreement because of what was going on in the church.
And it’s not just church that has conflict. There are conflicts between husband and wife in marriage. Between young brothers and sisters. And as I said, we call that sibling rivalry, but it’s really sibling sin against each other. We can have a conflict between grown-up children with each other. Between children and their parents. Between leaders in a church, in an elder team or in a leadership team. Between members in the church. There’s a myriad of ways we can have conflict. And then of course you get to business: between employees and their bosses and between employees and each other. We could go on and.
Well, when I talk about conflict, what are some of the current conflicts in your life that are happening right now? Or I could ask, what about the past? And so as we walk through this material, it’ll be helpful to have those real-life scenarios in mind. You know, in the middle of a conflict, it can be a very painful time and confusing. So my goal for the next podcast together is to equip you to handle those situations from the perspective of God’s word, or rather, I should say, begin to equip you because there’s so many of the concepts that we will not have time to cover or we can only barely touch on. So consider this just a beginning.
And I also want you to know that many of these ideas will be coming from two significant books. The first is The Peacemaker by Ken Sande. That’s The Peacemaker by Ken Sande. And then another book that’s been really influential that goes together is Pursuing Peace by Dr. Robert Jones. Ken Sande was a mentor to Dr. Jones, and that book is Pursuing Peace. They say many similar things, but they’re using at times different wordings, and at times they have a different emphasis. So for example, Sande was a lawyer and Dr. Jones was a pastor and is a professor of counseling. And so that’s his aim. But both of these books, I would encourage you to have them on your shelf and be studied by you, especially if you’re a church leader. So it’s The Peacemaker by Ken Sande and Pursuing Peace by Dr. Robert Jones.
Well, let’s start by talking about the origin of conflict. And if you know your Bible, you know of course that the world started out in peace and flourishing and it will end in peace and flourishing. And if we look at Genesis 1:31 and then Genesis 2:24, we see that the world was made very good. For example, Genesis 1:31: “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” And of course, Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
But living in a world of conflict comes because of the fall. Genesis 3:8 and following talks about this. I’m going to read this rather extended passage because you just can hear the conflict coming into the world as there is broken relationship with God and broken relationship with each other. So listen along as I read:
“And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’And he said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.’He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.’Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’
The Lord God said to the serpent,
‘Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring[ and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.’
To the woman he said,
I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.
And to Adam he said,
Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
“You shall not eat of it,”
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.’”
What started out in perfect peace is now broken. We see Adam and Eve alienated and shameful in their relationship to God, in their relationship to each other, to the world, and to themselves. Now, there’s alienation. There’s brokenness. Because in their pride, they reached out to be like God, they’ll now have a world of alienation. So the world that we are born into as sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, our world is not only broken, but it’s also rebellious and fractured. We are at enmity with God, with each other, with the world, and with our selves.
But God. But God takes the initiative to begin restoring peace. He is the God of peace. We start with the fact that God is our peace maker in the gospel. God has made peace between himself and sinful men and women, and he’s also given us instructions on how to make peace. The gospel gives us the power to pursue peace as well.
So let’s look at different aspects of peace. So you can see the word “peace” and the concepts all over Scripture. So let’s start first with God and men. God brings vertical peace, so we’re born alienated from him, but he initiates peace in the gospel. So for example, Ephesians 2:15-17, especially verse 16, let me read this: “In his flesh, he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death. He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.”
So God in the gospel at the cross brings peace between men and women that he has enmity with. But God not only gives vertical peace, he also gives internal peace. The gospel brings internal peace to our troubled souls, no matter the outward trouble. So for example, John 14:27 says, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your hearts be troubled or fearful.” Or Philippians 4:6-9, which are well-known verses: “Don’t be anxious about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Isaiah 26:3: “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.” And of course, we know Galatians 5:22-23, which talks about the fruit of the spirit being love and joy and peace among other things.
So God gives internal peace, but where the kingdom is, God also brings horizontal peace. The gospel also brings peace between individuals. So for example, Ephesians 2:14-15: “For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh, he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. In chapter 4, Paul writes this: “Therefore, I, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you’ve received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” The Spirit brings unity. The Spirit creates that bond of peace. Paul goes on to write, “There is one body and one Spirit- just as you were called to one hope at your calling- one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in all.” So justice as sin is destructive, so God is recreating peace. And again, we can also go back and look at Galatians 5:22-23, which we often read as fruit of the spirit for individuals, but it can also be applied to churches. The fruit of the spirit in a church is love and joy and peace.
And finally, fourthly, God brings global peace. As we’ve seen before, one day God will bring worldwide peace through Jesus Christ. So you can see that in Revelation 21:4. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying and pain will be no more because the previous things have passed away.” And then of course, a passage that we know from Christmas, Isaiah 9:6-7 says this: “For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” So our God is a God of peace, his son is the prince of peace, and the Spirit brings peace.
But let’s think about conflict more deeply because we still live in a fallen world. And I want to start with three specific principles to ground us in our perspective from Dr. Jones that I think are really helpful.
The first is this: conflicts are inevitable, therefore we should expect them. We live in a fallen world, so we know there’s going to be conflicts, so we should expect them. We should not be surprised.
Second, conflicts are opportunities and therefore we should steward them. God is in control. He’s allowed this to happen, brought this into our lives. Conflicts are opportunities, therefore we should steward them.
And then thirdly, Dr. Jones states that conflicts are sinful, therefore we should resolve them. And I worry about that one a little bit because I think he defines conflict a little too negatively.
And I’d argue that there’s actually a biblical category of what we might call good conflict and that because at times we as Christians can be tempted to be nice when we need to speak the truth, and sometimes that brings us into conflict. Maybe you can think of a good conflict that, that perhaps you’ve had or perhaps should have had. Maybe we’ll talk about this a little bit later. But there’s what are called peace fakers, where you know you need to speak up and say something. One of the reasons that I would argue that there’s a place for what we might call good conflict is God is putting us to live upstream in a downstream world. And so due to the fallenness of humanity or the darkness of our understanding, there are going to be times that we can’t be nice.
So, for example, Jesus says in Matthew 5:10, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.” In other words, by preaching the gospel and by loving people and telling them the truth, they’re actually creating a conflict. People don’t like what they hear, and so they’re going to oppose them. That to me is a definition of conflict. Or Jesus said, thinking about a family, “I’ve come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.” You can find that in Matthew 10:35-36. So in other words, the gospel creates conflict in families.
Or in the Book of Acts where the apostles say, “We must obey God rather than men.” So in that case, obeying the Lord put them in conflict with the authorities. Then of course, on a personal level, Proverbs tells us this: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Well, what happens when we sharpen each other? Sparks fly. So what I’m suggesting is that we see good conflict as having a place. So, in fact, I would even suggest in the book of Acts chapter 6, where there’s a problem with the leadership doesn’t see what’s happening with the feeding of widows, and so problems are brought up. And so in other words, there was an important problem that needed addressing. The scripture itself states, the Lord is a warrior, so we’re to take up the full armor of God to fight against the devil’s schemes for our battles, not against flesh and blood.
So I remember there were times, and certainly there were times I made errors as a pastor, I wasn’t wise. But there are also times I believe I was representing God well and there was a conflict with the person because I was shepherding them with God’s truth and they didn’t like it. They really wanted their sin more. So all that’s to say, as we talk about resolving conflict, let’s realize that because we live in a fallen world, that even doing God’s work sometimes will bring us to what might be called, for lack of a better word, good conflict.
But the rest of the time we’re going to be thinking about what we might call destructive conflict. And if you look- and again, we won’t have time to go through this in all the different podcasts- but the New Testament is filled with warnings against divisive people. We’re also told that pastors or overseers, elders are not to be argumentative. That doesn’t mean they don’t have disagreements, but there’s this personality of being argumentative. Proverbs warns against the quarrelsome wife. Some people are characterized just by being quarrelsome. Or the hotheaded man. So again, it’s not that a couple never has disagreements or an elder team never disagrees. In fact, that worries me if that happens. But because we have different ways of looking at things, we may have different convictions, but what we don’t want to do is as we go through that, have functionally what is destructive conflict. When we have disagreements, we want to make sure as much as possible, it’s actually constructive. And so that’s what we’re going to be talking about in this series. How do we do that?
Well, that brings us the outline off the podcasts. And I’m going say without shame, I took this directly from The Peacemaker by Ken Sande, with a few modifications. But really, what I want to suggest is if you are facing a conflict, there are really four principles that we need to think about. Four principles.
1. We want to glorify God, and we’ll unpack that in the rest of this podcast. We want to seek to glorify God.
2. We want to get the log out, and we’ll talk about what we mean by that in the next podcast.
3. We want to go and gently restore.
4. Go and be reconciled (maybe). And we’ll talk about reconciliation and forgiveness, and sometimes that’s not possible. But we’re going to talk about those.
So let’s spend the rest of this time together in this first podcast thinking about this first principle here, which is glorifying God. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. And so we want to start with the right perspective on any disagreement, perhaps on the one you have in your head, or perhaps one you’re going through right now. We want to start with the perspective.
Do you believe that God is sovereign? Do you believe that he’s in control of these situations? As you look at your situation, is God there? Is God in the picture, or is he somewhere on Sunday? And do you believe he cares about you? If the answer to these is yes, and it is, then he has brought this conflict into your life as an opportunity.
Remember the principles before: conflict is inevitable. And conflict is an opportunity. So we need to start by thinking of this conflict as an opportunity to glorify God. In Genesis 50:20, Joseph, when he’s reconciling with his brothers and he’s been betrayed and he’s had all sorts of evil done to him, he says, “As for you, you meant it for evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” And so Joseph can put these two things together and said, “You meant this for evil and God meant this for good.” So do we see this conflict with our spouse or church or child or parent or lawsuit as a chance to glorify God? Does it come from his sovereign and good hand, or is he somewhere he’s so busy running the world that actually, this slipped by him?
Well, let’s think about what does it mean to glorify God? It means to display him to the world, to show off his greatness. To show off that because we are followers of Jesus, we’re going to point to God by trusting him, obeying him, and imitating him no matter what comes our way. Well, here’s where I think Dr. Jones can help because I sometimes I think this idea of glorifying God can be a little abstract. He says the same thing, but he uses different wording. He uses a different biblical doctrine, and that’s the idea of pleasing God. So how can I please God in this conflict? And I really like this. I think this idea of pleasing God is a neglected doctrine. And just this idea that my actions either bring pleasure to God as we obey and treasure him, or we can be displeasing. And there’s a number of verses that I could go through. I’ve got so many, I’m not going to read them all, but let me just read a few here. 2 Corinthians 5:9-10: So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
Hebrews 11:6: Without faith it is impossible to please God.
1 Thessalonians 2:4: But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.
1 Thessalonians 4:1: 1 Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.
Let me just do a couple more. Ephesians 5:8-10: For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
So you see that this idea of pleasing the Lord is just woven throughout the New Testament.
Colossians 3:20: Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. So even in families.
When you say, well, how does this apply? We are pleasing Christ because we’re in union with him. He has purchased us through the cross. We are adopted and so we are pleasing to him. And yet, yet there is a sense in which as his child, we are to bring pleasure to Christ.
Dr. Jones says it this way: “Failure to please God by one or both parties is the ultimate cause of conflict,” and I agree with that. And so what he would encourage us to do is to focus on pleasing God. You can’t control the other person. So if you’re focused on pleasing God, that keeps your focus on God, not on the conflict and not on what the other person’s doing.
So you want to be focused on pleasing God. And he also says, “If you’re focused is on pleasing God, that means your goal is always doable no matter what the other person does.” So you can please God no matter what the other person does. And when this idea of pleasing God controls you, then the other person, their responses or failures, don’t control you.
And then I love the example that he gives, and maybe it’s applicable to your situation. But because he does a lot of counseling, he gives the illustration of counseling a husband and wife who are at odds with each other. And he says to the first one, “Russ, if you seek to please God, I can guarantee you’ll be a more mature Christian and your children will have a more godly father. I can’t guarantee that you’re going to be reconciled with your wife.” And then he turns to the woman. “Carol, if you seek to please God, I can guarantee you’ll be a more godly person and mother. I can’t guarantee that you’ll reconcile with your husband.” But then he looks at them both and says, “If you both seek to please God, then I guarantee you will have full reconciliation.” And oh, I just think that is so helpful. Because what it helps you see is that I need to seek to please God, and I can’t actually control the other person.
I can’t control the outcome as much as I want that outcome. And many times that’s why people go to a counselor. Why? Why are you here? I want you to fix my husband. No, I need to know how to please God in this conflict that I’m in. So what that means is we want to live by biblical commands, not our feelings in the moment. we want to live to please the Lord. So with this first principle, and it’s said a couple of different ways, is glorify God. One is please God.
I want to just put one more motivation that goes along with those that really is personal for me. And it has the idea of having a vertical focus and knowing I can’t control the outcome. And it’s a focus that has helped me as I’ve gone through some very significant conflicts, but it’s different and it has the idea that I am aiming to be rewarded on the final day. It goes along with pleasing God and glorifying God. But I remember one particularly painful conflict where I didn’t know if our church was going to survive or not, and I suspected that my reputation was being shattered by gossip. But looking back, one thing that I think I did right was to focus vertically and say, Lord, on the final day, I want you to say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’ I want you to say, ‘Chap, you did everything I wanted you to do. You handled that conflict well.’ And by aiming that way, that’s different from hoping for or trying to get a certain outcome. I wanted an outcome. I wanted unity. I wanted reconciliation. But I couldn’t control that. I could only control me.
And so really that that brings us, as we’re talking about proper motivations, we can also talk about what are some false perspectives or focuses we have in the midst of a conflict. And honestly, that’s what counselors deal with a lot. And what often is not clear is that instead of the parties seeking to please God, often it’s, I want my prodigal to return or I don’t want to get fired from my job.I want my marriage to survive. I want a godly husband. We can’t control that. What we can control is, I can please God in the midst.
Okay, so we’ve talked about how God is the God of peace. We’ve talked about that there is conflict baked into this world that we live in, and we’ve started to think about how because we’re Christians, there’s going to be, maybe we could call it constructive conflict. But we’re going to spend the really all of our time on destructive conflict. And the first principle, and hopefully you’re with me here, the first principle is we want to glorify God or please God, or aim for the final day. And I just want to end with what for me has been a very practical implication for this, and I think perhaps it can be for you as you go through a conflict. And so the question is how do we please God? How do we glorify him? And the answer is really by living as Jesus would live. How would Jesus live in my situation? Right now, we’re totally accepted in the gospel, but from then we seek to please the Lord by obeying the scriptures. So we do that by living like Jesus in a situation.
Now, let me just share this quote by Samuel Bolton, a well-known Puritan, from the book, The True Bounds of Christian Freedom. It has been very helpful because he says it this way: The law sends us to the Gospel that we may be justified; and the Gospel sends us to the law again to inquire what is our duty as those who are justified.” ― In other words, we’re not saved by obeying the Lord. We’re saved through the blood of Christ alone and our faith. We put our faith in the justifying work of Jesus on the cross. But then we say, okay, Lord, what do you want me to do? How do you want me to please you? And what that does is send us right back to the commands of scripture.
And so what I have found helpful and I would encourage you, is to think about how can I live like Jesus in this situation? And that includes actions and reactions. And so that means no one can make me sin. So that means, and this is often true for me, when my reactions are not like Jesus, then I can confess my sin, even if I’m on the receiving end of injustice. And I’ve actually thought, and I know some brothers and sisters have gone back and forth on this, but I’ve found Matthew 5:48 very helpful in this situation where Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount says, “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” In other words, do what Jesus would do. No matter what the other person does act like Jesus and react like Jesus, pray like Jesus. And when we don’t, we can apologize and confess it.
But that actually brings us to the next podcast. But that hopefully that will help you start to think about how can I please God? How can I glorify him? How can I live for the final rewards in this situation that the Lord has sovereignly brought my way? I can respond like Jesus. I want to pray like the Holy Spirit’s going to empower me to do that. Trials are tailor made for you and me, and God is the tailor. They’re for us to grow. But in our next podcast, we’ll look at principle number two, which is getting the log out. Because what happens when we don’t necessarily act or react like Jesus? Well, then we’re going to get the log out of our own eye. We’ll cover that in the next podcast.
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