On this episode of The Disciple-Making Parent podcast, we continue our four-part series on biblical conflict resolution with part two, focusing on the essential practice of examining ourselves before addressing conflicts with others. We explore Jesus’ teaching about removing the log from our own eye before pointing out the speck in someone else’s eye, and why this principle is foundational to resolving disagreements in a God-honoring way.
We discuss how to conduct an honest self-examination, looking at both our actions and attitudes that may have contributed to conflict. We explore common blind spots like argumentative spirits, passive-aggressive behavior, and the tendency to see ourselves as more righteous than we actually are. We also examine how leaders in particular need to be willing to acknowledge their blind spots and the impact their words and decisions can have on others.
In the second half of the episode, we break down Ken Sande’s Seven A’s of Confession—a practical framework for asking forgiveness in a way that’s genuine, specific, and transformative. We learn the difference between saying “I’m sorry” and truly asking for forgiveness, and why details like addressing everyone involved, avoiding qualifiers like “if” and “but,” and accepting consequences matter so much in the reconciliation process.
Whether you’re navigating conflict in marriage, parenting, church leadership, or the workplace, this episode equips us with biblical tools to own our part, confess well, and move toward genuine restoration.
Topics Covered in This Week’s Podcast
02:00 Review
04:49 Principle 2: Get the log out of your own eye
09:34 Questions for self-examination
14:43 Examining our own desires
20:37 Applications
25:46 Confession and forgiveness
Resources From This Podcast
Biblical Conflict Resolution Part 1– Introduction and the Call to Glorify God
The Peacemaker, by Ken Sande
Wisdom and Justice vs. Lack of Wisdom and Injustice
Podcast 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. Conflict is a part of life. Whether in our marriage, parenting, children, church, or business. Where there are people there will be conflict. Do you know what the Bible has to say, and how we please God in it?
Hi, my name is Chap Bettis and I’m the author of The Disciple-Making Parent, and today is podcast number two of our four-podcast series on biblical conflict resolution. And you can listen to the previous podcast where we introduced the subject, I tell you my sources, and also lay out where we’re going. That’s the previous podcast.
In this podcast, we’re going to be talking about getting the log out. But before we do that, I want to start with a little devotional here, reading a verse on unity, and it’s found in John 17:20. It’s comes from Jesus’ final night on Earth, and as he’s praying, Jesus prays this: “My prayer is not for them alone [the disciples]. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message [that’s us] that all of them may be one, Father. Just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent them. I’ve given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. I in them, and you in me, so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them, even as you have loved me.”
And so as we begin this podcast, we want to pray- whether in our family or other relationships- for unity, just like Jesus prayed. And I think that’s a great prayer for parents to pray. It’s a great prayer for churches to pray. It’s a great prayer for kids to pray.
Let’s start our time together with a little review. In the first podcast, we saw that conflict originates in the fall of mankind. God is a peacemaker. He’s made peace between God and man through the gospel, and he brings peace and strengthens us to be peacemakers. We also saw that conflicts are inevitable, therefore we should expect them. And conflicts are opportunities, therefore we should steward them. So yes, God is in control and yes, he does love me, so therefore they are opportunities and so we want to steward them well.
In that first podcast we also thought about two different types of conflicts. There are what I would call good conflicts. So since the world opposes God, preaching the gospel is a good conflict. But there’s also other types, and we might call them conflicts, uncomfortable situations. It all depends on how you define it. But think of the boss who needs to correct an underperforming employee. Well, that type of uncomfortable conversation we might call, in fact, a good conflict. So Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” You know, unfortunately today, discomfort is called trauma and accountability is attacking. So we need to remember there is good and constructive disagreement, but the rest of the time we thought about destructive conflict and that’s where we’re going to spend most of our time in the rest of the series.
I took for our outline, the four steps that really come from Ken Sande’s book The Peacemaker, and I modified them only slightly, but principle one or step one, we want to glorify God. Step two, get the log out. That’s what we’re going to be talking about in this podcast. Podcast three: we want to go and gently restore. And then step four, we want to go and be reconciled- maybe. And we’ll unpack that when we get to that. And just as a reminder, in the last podcast we talked about principle one or step one, the idea of glorifying God or pleasing God. No matter what, we can’t control the other person. We can’t control the outcome, what different people say, but we can and should control ourselves. We’re living to please God. And that is possible no matter the messiest situation. And I quoted Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” So if you didn’t take anything else away from that first podcast, it should be to have a vertical focus. I want to glorify and please God no matter what.
Well, now let’s turn the corner and think about the subject of this podcast, which is step two, or principle two, which is to get the log out of our own eye. And that may be unusual phraseology. If you’re not familiar with the Bible, what do we mean by that? And really, the first principle for us here is to examine ourselves knowing that we miscalculate. That phrase “get the log out” comes from Matthew 7:1-5, where Jesus is teaching the Sermon on the Mount. Let me, let me read that. So Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount says:
Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
So in this passage, Jesus starts by saying, judge not, or you will be judged. And people often take that out of context. Let’s start here for a minute. What is judgment? Well, to judge is to decide something is good and something is bad. And actually, we’re doing that all day. So you decide if a meal is good or bad. You decide if a book is good or bad. A TV show, is it good or bad? A politician, even this podcast, is it good or is it bad? And if you’re on the internet, you know that commentators are judging all the time. They’re telling you these things are good or these things are bad. And actually, to be clear, this passage is not completely forbidding judging. In fact, we’re told to be discerning Christians are to be discerning. The idea of cutting between the good and the bad.
I’ve found John 7:24 has been helpful to me in that passage. Jesus said this to the religious leaders: “Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” You see, they were judging wrongly. They were judging by appearances. So in this passage in Matthew, Jesus is forbidding what we would call judgmentalism. A judgmental person is a proud person who sees sin in the lives of others, but doesn’t see sin in his own life, and doesn’t recognize his own guilt before God. And so therefore, there’s a tendency to judge other people harshly. And that’s what people rightly call judgmentalism. But in this passage, Jesus is telling us a couple of things.
He says, one, if we’re harsh in our judgments with others, it will come back to us. And then second, he rhetorically asks, why can you see a small sin in your brother, but you can’t see your large sin? What’s he saying? He’s saying, in other words, you misestimate the size of your own sin or blind spot. You’re blind to it. And so what’s the principle here? The principle is that we are to examine our own selves. Knowing that we have a tendency to miscalculate, to pick out things in others, but excuse things in ourselves. So how do we practice this? How do we get the logout? How do we look at ourselves first? And I’m going to give you a couple of suggestions.
One way is to ask, and again, I’m thinking about we’re, we’re handling a conflict. We’re in the midst of a conflict, and first we ask, Did I sin in action or reaction? So remember, I’m going to seek to please and obey the Lord no matter what the other person does. And because the Holy Spirit dwells in me and gives me the power I can.
This is just a little sidebar here, but people use the phrase “trigger,” like, “that triggered me.” But the implication is that have no agency. I can’t control myself If something happens and I get triggered. Well, the truth is that a Pavlovian dog salivates when the bell is rung. That’s a trigger. A dog is triggered. Individuals, people, are not triggered. We have a choice point between the temptation, the provocation, and how we respond. And so we need to realize that and ask, Did I sin either by my action or reaction?
So for example, Proverbs tells us a gentle answer turns away wrath. Or 1 Corinthians 13:4 tells me love is patient. And I can’t tell you how many times that I have after a disagreement thought, was I patient? And then next we go into 1 Corinthians 13. Love is kind, was I kind? No, I wasn’t patient, I wasn’t kind, I was rude. And so, even though in some ways I might say not totally responsible for this conflict, the question is, did I sin in my reaction? I’m going to hold myself to the standard of Jesus no matter the actions of the other person. First we might ask, did I sin?
Another question we might also ask is, and this is slightly different, did I contribute even in unintentional ways? So we can contribute without causing. Let me give you an example. This is a really important principle to understand: We can contribute without causing. So for example, let’s just take a person who’s driving in the high speed lane of a highway and they have a good heart and they’re not really thinking. They’re singing along, but they’re going 50 miles an hour. So they have a good heart, but they’re actually breaking the law and they’re annoying others.
For me, as a driver, here’s what I need to be clear on: When I get upset at that, they actually did not cause me to get upset. That’s on me. They did contribute to the situation. So the Old Testament speaks of unintentional sin, and we all have blind spots where we may not have attended bad things, but they still happen. So think about perhaps a husband who doesn’t call his wife to tell her he’s going to be late and she has big dinner plans, and her expectation is that he’ll be on time and now she’s upset. So he didn’t cause her reaction per se, but he did contribute to it. And so under this, we need to remember, and we need to think about, that we are responsible for our intent and our impact.
So just because we have good intentions doesn’t negate the impact we might be having. So you might have a good intention to bring up something with your spouse, but choose a poor time. So again, the cause is not on you. We need to think about, did I contribute. So good intent does not negate negative impact.
And I’d encourage you to look at this blog post on The Disciple-Making Parent, and the title has to do with wisdom and justice. And what I point out there is that Solomon prayed for wisdom that he might administer justice. And what that implies is that when a leader lacks wisdom, then it can feel like or actually is experienced as, is injustice by those underneath. And I can tell you, I had to learn that as a pastor. And I see so many pastors that don’t understand this principle. I have power and even I didn’t intentionally do this. And I remember just when we had a couple of failed church plants and on the second one, it wasn’t intentional on the leadership part. But that didn’t matter. Our intentions were good, but yes, we can see the impact. We did not have wisdom. So a good prayer with this in mind is: Lord, open my eyes so that I can see how I’ve perhaps have contributed to this conflict.
Or another question: What are the planks or logs that I’m underestimating? What did I say or do that I should not have? Or what did I not say or do that I should have? And often we can invite another person that we trust in to tell us those areas as well because Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount that we are blind and we misestimate our own contribution. We want to remember the vertical dimension from the first class. I want to please God, I want to obey him no matter what the other person does or doesn’t do. God is sovereign and good, and he’s brought this trial into my life so that I can grow to be more like him. But to pursue looking at ourselves requires humility.
We all have a tendency to say, Lord, what about him? What about her? In addition, Jesus is also saying that we have a predisposition to see things out of proportion, to dismiss our own contribution and say, Ah, I just, I don’t know. Yeah, I got a little upset, or Yeah, that was a little slight dig coming out of my mouth. And we make a big deal out of the other person’s contribution. And so what Jesus is saying in this passage is that we want to take and own our own contribution. So getting the log out. It involves asking how I sinned or how I contributed there.
And then a second principle we want to think about besides examining ourselves and realizing that we miscalculate, is we also want to examine our desires. Because what the Bible says is that destructive conflicts come from desires. So think about the last disagreement that you had, and if I were to say, why’d you have that fight? Why? Why did the kids have that fight? 99% of the time, the answer would start like this: Because she, because he, because they. . . In other words, the reason we had the fight is because of this other party.
But James 4 says this: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?” And then I just asked that question and you’re ready to answer. Because he, because she, because they. . . “Is it not this, that your passions or desires are at war within you? You desire and you don’t have, so you murder. You covet and you cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask God. You ask and don’t receive because you ask wrongly to spend on your passions.”
So in this passage, God’s Word tells us that conflicts come from desires that battle within us. There’s a clash of desires. But let me tell you, here’s why I think this can be confusing. There truly are bad desires, sinful desires. I want my wife to help me embezzle money from the church, but she refuses. So we had a fight. There are bad, sinful desires. But where I think this gets confusing is we also have good or neutral desires that are out of control that can cause us to disagree.
So how do I know if this is probably a good desire that James is talking about? Because he says you don’t have it because you don’t ask. In other words, rather than clashing, you need to pray about this desire. That’s what he’s saying in this passage. So what is implied is it’s actually a good desire.
So this, this goes back to realizing that disagreements can happen because of differences of conviction or preference. So many of our disagreements are just that way. Sometimes it’s just timing. And so that helps us see why conflicts can be so complicated. Well, is this an issue of sin I shouldn’t give in to, or is it issue of conviction, or is this just my preference?
My wife and I had a small house fire recently and it’s causing us to have to rebuy some things, including our mattress, and we’re under a lot of pressure and time. We want to get back in our house, and so we’re having disagreements over which mattress? Well, that’s preference. So you can see why conflicts are so complicated. But why is it that these good desires can cause destructive conflict? And the answer is because we want them more strongly than we want to please the Lord. That brings us back to principle one. The late Dr. David Paulson stated it this way: “The evil in our desire typically does not lie in what we want, but that we want it too much. Often the object of the desire is good and the evil lies in the lordship of the desire. Natural desires for good things are meant to exist. Subordinate to our desire to please the giver of gifts. It’s not the desire, but the status of the desire,” says Dr. David Paulson. What do you mean? What’s the point there?
Well, the point is that in this moment of conflict, we each have battling desires. It’s not necessarily that what we are desiring is bad, perhaps, but it’s that we’re desiring that more than pleasing God. We’re desiring that more than being patient with our spouse. We’re desiring that more than loving others and listening and inviting them in. We just want them to do what I say. It’s that desire- just, I just desire obedience.
So let me give you an example. A husband wants the family vacation to be at the beach, and he’s got his different reasons. The wife wants the family to go and visit her parents and siblings in another part of the country. She has her reasons. So both of them- maybe we’ll assume the best- stem from good or neutral desires, and there are ways to negotiate it and seek solutions that are beyond this podcast. But the reason that that disagreement could become a destructive conflict, a fight is because they wanted it way more than they wanted to please God. Ken Sande helpfully traces a progression. He says a desire becomes a demand. It becomes an expectation. And then if that expectation isn’t had, it becomes a punishment.
I have a desire to have a loving husband. I demand to have a loving husband. I have a right to a loving husband, and I’m going to punish you if you’re not a loving husband. And you can apply that to all sorts of desires that become demands. I have a right to a boss that listens to me. I have a right to a church that’s problem-free. And just go on and on and on and on. If we put these verses together, we see that we need to look at ourselves for any sin on our part. And included in that may be looking for inordinate desires or good desires that we want too much.
Before we finish up on examining ourselves, I want mention three unique applications in the context that I think we should be especially mindful of as we look at ourselves.
And the first is, being defensive. You know, often the way that we see planks is when someone points them out to us. Planks are logs, someone points them out, and it’s easy to get defensive to attack the person or defend why we did something. Instead, if we want to grow to be like Jesus, no matter what the other person does, then we accept that we have blind spots and even welcome when we hear negative information about ourselves. So I label criticism as a negative assessment from someone who’s not on my side, while critique is coming from a friend, a negative assessment from someone who is on my side. Nevertheless, I need to be humble enough to receive both critique and criticism and, in fact, invite correction.
And- this is just a sidebar- it just seems people who are defensive are insecure, functionally. They don’t understand their acceptance in the gospel. And this is a paraphrase of Charles Spurgeon. But basically the idea being, no matter the worst thing you say about me, you don’t even know the half of it. I’m much worse than you even know.
[“Brother, if any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him; for you are worse than he thinks you to be. If he charges you falsely on some point, yet be satisfied, for if he knew you better he might change the accusation, and you would be no gainer by the correction. If you have your moral portrait painted, and it is ugly, be satisfied; for it only needs a few blacker touches, and it would be still nearer the truth.”]
And so we need to be able to hear because we’re seeking to please the Lord. We have that vertical focus. We need to seek to hear what others have to say. Let me just give you an illustration. I remember one time that we were going to talk as a leadership team about strengths and weaknesses each had. And as the lead pastor, I went first. And so, sure enough, that morning, we spent a whole hour talking about me and we prayed, and that was it for the week. The next time we got together, I expected that, oh, we’re going to spend an hour on the next leader. And instead, we covered all three in 45 minutes. And I’m like, wait a minute, wait a minute. You just spent a whole hour on me last week. And then now we’re just speeding through you guys. And I was wrestling in my heart, but eventually I resolved, I wanted to be the best I could, and part of that was, was of course, related to my extra influence that it was my privilege to have as the lead pastor. So I don’t want to be defensive.
And another issue in this section might be just examining myself to make sure I don’t have an argumentative spirit. Just is everything a fight. So scripture uses words like argumentative, having a critical spirit, backbiting the quarrelsome wife. Fighting and devouring each other and all those are negative ways we can communicate. We just have this habit of fighting and there are ways that we can disagree, even strongly, without being argumentative, without just, I’m going to win this battle no matter what. And let just flip that around here. If you’re leading a team and you want everyone to agree with you, you need to be careful that you don’t label someone as argumentative just because you want yes men or yes women. But ask, Do I have an argumentative spirit?
And finally, if you’re a leader of a church, we need to be especially willing to get the log out of our own eye. You know, I’ve often thought that leaders think that being a leader means, I never have to say I’m sorry, but being a leader doesn’t exclude us from having blind spots. And because we have power, influence as leaders, our blind spots can hurt people. We need to realize that, and that goes back to the intent and impact. Even if we didn’t intend to, even if it was a lack of wisdom on our part, we need to be able to realize we have that influence, we have that power, and so we can hurt people. So we must have a willingness to hear people out, and to apologize when our lack of wisdom or lack of skill may have hurt them. I would even suggest we have an obligation to seek out ways we can grow. And since I want follow Jesus, no matter what happens, I want to grow. Solomon prayed for wisdom to administer justice. I want to grow as a leader. And so just a suggestion there: if we’re a leader of a church, we especially need to apply these verses and seek out how to grow.
So what’s the big principle here? If we have a disagreement or conflict, have the vertical focus, we want to please God, we want to live for one person: God, the Lord Jesus, honoring him. And then second, we want to examine ourselves. So upward, and then inward. We’re looking for ways we contributed through things we did or did not do, or even our desires at the moment.
Now I want to end this section because this is actually a good place to talk about forgiveness. Because what if we have done something wrong? We can and should ask forgiveness. We can own our own part of the disagreement. We can confess our sin to one another. And this is a good place to talk about forgiveness versus I’m sorry. “I’m sorry” is actually a useful statement when it’s used correctly. Technically, “I’m sorry” is an expression of sadness, especially for something that I bear no responsibility. So, I’m sorry you had a hard day at work. I’m sorrowed you had a flat tire on your way home. And there are many ways that we can use “I’m sorry” to express unity with the person. “I’m sorry those things happened to you.” But many people use, “I’m sorry” when they should be using, “Please forgive me.”
So for example, “I’m sorry if I offended you”- That’s really not asking forgiveness. It’s fake. It’s expressing sorrow that the other person’s feelings got hurt and maybe it can be appropriate if it’s used in conjunction with “Please forgive me.” And certainly when we were training our little kids, often all they’d say is just, “I’m sorry.” But for those who are professing Christ as adults, we need to understand forgiveness and “I forgive you” is really reserved for something where I’ve incurred a moral debt. And I think this is a good place to include Ken Sande’s seven A’s of confession- and you can find it in his book, The Peacemaker– because people really don’t know how to own their own sin and ask forgiveness.
Maybe you’ve had an experience of receiving an apology that felt half-hearted, and you’re like, I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something wrong here. And I really appreciate Ken Sande’s seven A’s of confession and realize he’s working with individuals who have severe, severe offenses against each other. So you don’t have to follow all these steps all the time, but I think listing the complete set is helpful to think about. Then you can decide what applies in the moment. So let’s talk about Ken Sande’s seven A’s of confession.
- Address everyone involved. So the confession should reach as far as the offense. If my wife or children see my sin, then I should speak to them. Sande writes the true story of a time his pastor and an elder had a public disagreement in the church. The next Sunday, both of them stood up in front and addressed the congregation and said, “I’m sorry, you saw us act in an un-Christian-like way. We have made it up.” And what’s interesting is Sande reports, he had brought someone to church and he was kind of embarrassed. In other words, you’re showing a weakness here, that actually leaders actually sin against each other. And what he reports ironically is that impressed his visitor all the more that these men were humble enough. So we want to address everyone involved.
- Avoid “if”, “but”, or “maybe”. Those three words, if, but, maybe can negate the apology. So remember your standard: I’m going to obey and honor the Lord. So we’re confessing violating that standard, but when we add words like but, it negates everything after it. “I’m sorry if I yelled at you, but you should have done your homework.” “I’m sorry if I hurt you.” What we want to do is make an unconditional statement that shows your first concern is with the Lord. So we want to avoid if, but, and maybe.
- Admit specifically, not generally. Specific admissions helps convince others that you’re honestly facing up to what you’ve done, which makes it easier for them to forgive you. And in addition, being specific helps you identify the behavior you need to change. For example, “I know I’m not living up to your expectations” is very different than saying, “I know I’ve regularly interrupted you when you were speaking.” See, one’s very specific. The other has a little slight in there. So we want to deal with our attitudes as well as our actions. Sinful attitudes include selfishness, ingratitude, envy, jealousy, bitterness. I mean, you just go on and on. Self-righteousness, insensitivity, stubbornness, et cetera. So we want to admit specifically, not generally, and sometimes it’s helpful to ask them to help us to make sure we, we know. That the way the sin we’ve committed against them.
- Acknowledge the hurt you caused. And the goal here is to help the other party realize you understand the impact. So, for example, “You must have been terribly embarrassed when I said those things in front of everyone. I’m sorry I did that to you.” And again, here it might be helpful to ask the other person how he or she felt as a result of your behavior, and that will deepen the confession.
- Accept the consequences. Explicitly accepting the consequences of your actions is another way to demonstrate genuine repentance. You see this in Luke 15 with the prodigal son where he demonstrates it. When he comes home, he declares this: “I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired men.” He didn’t just waltz back. After an apology, he was willing to accept the consequences of sinning against his father. And so whether it’s negative consequences of hurting someone, or promising to make restitution, it’s easier for others to believe that we’re sincere when we accept the consequences.
- Alter your behavior and explain how you plan to alter the behavior in the future. So on the personal level, this could involve describing some of the behavior change or attitude or character change you want to make with God’s help. Maybe if you’re the one in charge such an as an employer or a pastor, you could describe how this will affect how you lead. In addition, you could even add a written plan that shows that you take the matter seriously and you want to please God going forward.
- Ask forgiveness (and then allow time). If you follow the steps mentioned above, many people will readily forgive you, but some people will need to be asked, “Will you forgive me?” So now you’ve signaled that you’ve done all you can by way of confession. The responsibility now shifts to the other person. Be careful not to use the question of forgiveness as a means to pressure someone into forgiving you. Sometimes a person needs time and other times they may withhold forgiveness because they’re not sure your confession is genuine or it’s inadequate in some way, and so they may need time to realize before God their need to forgive you, and we need to give them that. We cannot demand that. You’re asking for forgiveness, you’re not demanding for forgiveness.
Well, that wraps up our second podcast. We’ve co covered quite a lot of material. So the first principle is we want to glorify God. We want to focus on God. We want to please God. We want to live for him, take this as an opportunity from him. And the second is first we want to examine ourselves. Are there ways that we’ve contributed or ways we sinned, knowing that we tend to see things out of proportion?
Having said that, though, Scripture does tell us to go, and that’s what we’ll talk about in the next podcast.
Thank you for listening to The Disciple-Making Parent podcast. If this blessed you, I’d love to hear from you. So simply go to our website and use the contact form. In addition, I’d love to ask you to leave a rating or review. Those small things help others find our podcast. Thanks for listening.
