On this episode of The Disciple-Making Parent podcast, we continue our four-part series on biblical conflict resolution. We’ll talk about why conflict is part of everyday life and how Scripture helps us respond with wisdom. We review the first two steps from Ken Sande’s The Peacemaker and then focus on the decision point: when should we overlook an offense, when should we submit, and when should we go and gently restore.
We walk through helpful criteria for making that call, like impact, responsibility, frequency, seriousness, and whether the issue is public or private. Then we cover practical, Christlike communication that aims for reconciliation, including listening well, asking clarifying questions, speaking humbly, and choosing the best setting for hard conversations. We also close with a clear warning about gossip and slander, and how to seek wise help without spreading harm.
Topics Covered in This Week’s Podcast
01:20 Review
02:30 Go, overlook, or submit?
11:20 Wisdom for when to approach
18:13 Go and gently restore
39:39 Getting help while avoiding gossip
Resources From This Podcast
Biblical Conflict Resolution Part 1– Introduction and the Call to Glorify God
Biblical Conflict Resolution Part 2– The Call to Get the Log Out of Our Own Eye
The Peacemaker, by Ken Sande
Pursuing Peace, by Dr. Robert Jones
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 marriage, parenting, children, or church. I bet since you’ve been listening to this podcast series, there has been a conflict in your life. Do you know what the Bible has to say? Hi, my name is Chap Bettis and I’m the author of The Disciple-Making Parent, and today is podcast number three of our four podcast series on biblical conflict resolution.
Well, before we start though, I want to remind you about two resources that might be helpful to you. The first is a book I just released, Managing Your Households Well: How Family Leadership Trains You for Church Leadership. And in that book I have a whole chapter on conflict resolution and casting a vision for unity. And so I encourage you as a church leader or even a parent to get hold of a copy. And then I always want to mention that our resource, The Disciple-Making Parent, the audio book is available for free at our website, thedisciplemakingparent.com.
Well, let’s start our time with a little review. The outline for these steps comes from Ken Sande’s book The Peacemaker, and step one is to glorify God no matter what the other person does. And we looked at that in the first podcast. We want to have a vertical focus. We want to please God. We want to live for our final reward. We want to have a vertical focus. We can please God no matter what the other person does.
And then in the last podcast we talked about getting the log of our own eye. And the idea is that we tend to not judge things correctly and overlook the sin in our own eyes and to point out the problem in others. So then if we understand that, we can ask forgiveness rightly.
But having examined ourselves, really, we come to a decision point. We come to step three, which he says is go and gently restore. And this is going to be kind of a long podcast and we’re going to unpack that. But really, before you get to go and gently restore, you need to ask: Should I go, or should I overlook, or should I submit? And what you can see when you’re looking at scripture is that all three of those are commanded. For example, overlooking.
There are lots of scriptures that call us to overlook things in others because God has overlooked so much in us in Christ. So for example, Proverbs 10:12, “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.” Or Proverbs 12:16, “The prudent ignores an insult.” Or Proverbs 17:9, “Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats the matter separates close friends.” And then one of my favorites, Proverbs 19:11, “It is a glory to overlook an offense.”
And then you see this in the New Testament as well, where Jesus talks about turning the other cheek in Matthew 5:39 or 1 Corinthians 13 where it says, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy nor boast. It does not insist on its own way.” You’ve also got Ephesians 4:2-4 where Paul is calling the church to walk with humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love. And that’s really what this is. When you overlook something, you are forbearing. 1 Peter 4:8, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” So there is a theme in scriptures that says to overlook offenses that are against us.
But there’s also a theme in scripture about confronting that. We are our brother’s keeper. We’re at times called to confront or rebuke a person’s sin. Remember I talked about before in the first podcast, there is good conflict. Peace is not equal to niceness. So you can see that starting all the way back in Leviticus 19:17 and 18, it says, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.” So just this idea that we are to rebuke or reason frankly. Proverbs 9 and Proverbs 19 say, “Don’t reprove a scoffer. He will hate you. But reprove a wise man. He will love you. Reprove a man of understanding, he will gain knowledge.” Proverbs 27:5 and 6, especially verse 6, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”
And you can see this even in the New Testament as well. For example, the passage we looked at in the last podcast, which was saying first look at yourself. But Jesus does go on and say, then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. So it’s implied that, yes, we’re supposed to do that. A passage we’re going to look at a little bit later in this podcast, Matthew 18:15, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault.” Luke 17 says, “If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.” Galatians 6:1 and 2, “Brothers. If anyone is caught in a transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. But keep watch on yourself lest you be tempted to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” So the idea in Galatians 6 is if someone’s caught up in a sin, we’re to go to them. Even in Titus 3:10, “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him.” James 5:19, “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth in someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save himself from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”
So what we see is that on the one hand, overlooking is commended. But so is going and rebuking or reproving or pointing out sin. So this idea of conflict is complex and it requires wisdom because actually there’s another third category. It’s interesting that neither Sande nor Dr. Jones included it, but I think it does come into play and that is this: There are times to submit and all of us are called to submit at different times. To submit is to do something you don’t want to do. So it’s not submitting if you’re doing what the authority wants to do because you also want to.
But it’s also complex. So for example, let me give you Romans 13:1 and 2. Paul writes to the church in Rome under the Roman government, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God. And those that exist have been instituted by God there. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment.” So that seems pretty strong and pretty straightforward. Except it’s not absolute because you see in Acts 5:29 where the authorities tell the apostles not to preach, and they say, “We must obey God rather than men.” So the authority is delegated from God to the authorities. And when it’s not in line with God’s authority, then then we need to obey God.
You see something similar with church members. Hebrews 13:17, “Obey your leaders. Submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be no advantage to you.” So that seems very, very clear and very strong. And yet you see in Acts 6:1, “Now, in those days when the disciples were increasing, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.” So the idea is that there is a proper bringing up of a complaint, of an issue.
And a wife is called to submit to her husband. But that is complex. It’s children to parents, employees to bosses, students to teachers. And yet, as we’ve seen, this is not absolute. First the submission is to God. And so there needs to be wisdom. So what we’re trying to decide here- remember, we’re at a decision point. We’ve examined ourselves, and then the question is, Do I go? And we see, well, this is complex. And I think this is a good time to introduce three terms that Ken Sande uses that I think are really instructive. He has a diagram that’s available in his book and online that you might take a look at, but the three words are peacebreaker, peacemaker, and peacefaker. Are you a peacebreaker, are you a peacemaker, or are you a peacefaker?
And so on one side of the spectrum is what he would call the peacebreaker. A peacebreaker is argumentative, nitpicking, overbearing, judgmental, strongly desiring his or her way, even when it’s not appropriate. So unity doesn’t matter. Just winning. And this could apply in all sorts of environments like church or work or marriage. The idol here is control. I want control. I want my way, and so I’m willing to break the peace.
At the other end of the spectrum, Sande would say, is what he calls a peacefaker, which is faking peace. Having peace no matter what. The person goes along, even when they shouldn’t. They bury conflict even though it bothers them or they know the Lord wants them to stand up and say something. The idol here might be comfort, or it might be fear of man. So as we think about, should I let it go? Should I submit? Should I go to the person? We want to realize, Okay, is my temptation to be a peacebreaker or a peacefaker? And I want be a peacemaker, someone who’s actively weighing the principles and then trying to bring peace and reconciliation wherever he can. So having said that, we need to understand, we need to think about wisdom.
So now let’s think about whether we should approach someone. And we’ve talked about, this is wisdom. And I think it comes from a number of different factors, not just one factor. And so I’m thankful for to Jason Hsieh, who’s the counseling pastor at my church for many of these, they’re just so helpful, as he teased them out. So here’s some criteria to be thinking of. The analogy he used, which, again, was really helpful, is when you go looking for a house, you have kind of your dream wish list, but then reality sets in. You’re like, Okay, what are a few of those that we really have to have? And so in a similar way, let’s think through what are some criteria.
One criteria might be the impact on you. Maybe your relationship isn’t impacted, as opposed to, actually, no, our relationship is being damaged. So maybe you know of two people in the church, they’re having a hard time, but you’re not really close to them. The sin isn’t against you, there doesn’t seem anything that you can do. It’s not really impacting you. So one criteria might be, is this impacting me? As opposed to someone who is sinning directly against me and causing quite an upset.
Another criteria to think about as to whether you should go or not, is your responsibility or closeness. So maybe on the one hand you don’t have any relational responsibility or biblically-commanded closeness. So maybe it’s a cousin or an uncle you hardly know, versus where you have major relational responsibility or you’re close to someone. So here’s an example. Maybe they’re someone who is in your small group, so you know them pretty well, and something comes up and you’re like, Aw, man, I think I should talk to them about that. Or maybe you have major responsibility as an authority, as a pastor or a supervisor or a parent. So maybe you’re leading that small group and one person is talking too much. This is on you. You need to go. You. Not only are you relationally close, but you have responsibility as an authority. And some of the “good conflict,” in my experience, quote unquote, times I would have to go were related to being a pastor. And certainly that’s the case as parents.
A third criteria might be the frequency of the offense- frequent versus not frequent versus this actually characterizes them. So back to the person talking too much in small group. Maybe it’s just one time. The guy had an off night. Just overlook, no big deal. Or does it happen week after week after week? And so the same way with, again, thinking of a marriage or thinking of in a church. So a third criteria might be the frequency of the event.
A fourth criteria might be how big or how small of an issue is it? Is it small, is it a preference issue? Is it just something that’s annoying or is it a moral or theological issue? Now think about newlyweds being married and learning to compromise and work together. Most of those issues are not moral, but simply preference. I was thinking about, and I don’t want to tell you all of those, but things that Sharon and I had to work through where we’re like, “What? You do that?” “You do that?” and those are issues of preference. They’re not moral issues. And so working those out is beyond the scope of this podcast, but it’s helpful to realize. But there are times when actually, no, it is moral and it’s not simply a preference and it is theological.
So another question is: Is the offender being hurt, or not really? They’re not really being hurt. And again, it goes back to preference, annoyance, or are others being hurt? Two more criteria you might think about: Is it a private sin or is it dishonoring the name of Christ and the church through public sin? You know, all of us have bad days and say things that we shouldn’t have. We have sinful thoughts. But the question is, is this public? A criteria would be, is this public? So I remember one time, again, at the beginning of the church plant that I led, I wasn’t aware, but there were some unhealthy dynamics going on. And there was actually one group that was accusing the other group of not quote, “loving them the right way.” The sincere Christian looks and looks at their heart and goes, Oh man, you’re right. I’m not loving you. And it took a while to right the ship, to go, Wait a minute, you’re accusing them of motives, you’re accusing them of things that really are private. No one can reach perfection. And actually what’s wrong here is your accusatory statement. So is it a private sin or is it a public sin?
And then seventh, we also might ask, is there a readiness to receive correction or is this person like we saw in Proverbs, where a foolish man will object to the reproof? But having said that, God also works at different paces with different people. On Jesus’ final night, he said, I’ve got even more to tell you, but you can’t handle it right now. So at times we may just hold back and pray. And realize, I don’t think this is the right time, but again, we need to ask, “Am I being a peacefaker?” In other words, is, am I just cowardly or no, actually before the Lord, I think this is right just to not go?
And I want to comment on that, because if we choose to overlook the sin, I want us to at least acknowledge that something happened to me and I’m forgiving and forbearing. And so we’ll talk about this in the next podcast when we talk about forgiveness. But what I don’t want us to do is that when people sin against us, that we just say, Oh no, it’s okay, and just dismiss it, because that actually doesn’t deal with the situation in my own heart. There is sin against me and the way to handle that, the way to properly overlook it- and again, this gets into forgiveness- but is in one sense to say, Ouch, that hurts. That was wrong. But based on how much Christ has forgiven me, I believe I am called to forgive him and that will allow me to go forward. So you see the difference between saying, Oh, that was nothing, and actually saying, No, actually that was sin, but I’m choosing to forgive. And again, we’ll talk about that in the next podcast.
Now we finally get to three principle three, which is go and gently restore. It’s the idea that we need to move towards a conflict. Let’s look now at Matthew 18:15 and following. “If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he won’t listen, take one or two others with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. If he doesn’t pay attention to them, tell the church. If he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like a Gentile and a tax collector to you.”
There are a number of things that we can see in this passage, but one of the things I want us to see is that Jesus commands, if we’re the offended, someone sins against us, we are to go. But it’s interesting, and I call this- this is my label- the peacemaker trap, because what Jesus basically says here is if you’re the offended, you’re to go. Then in Matthew 5:23, he says, the offender is to go. “So if you are offering your gift on the altar, and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” So really Jesus is putting it on both parties. So if you know this relationship has kind of become distant and I think I’ve done something to offend her, I wonder if I should find out what that is. And then we’re going to look at this a little later. Jesus actually says, not only the offender and the offended, but a third party. But right now, let’s focus on the fact that Jesus tells us to go. So again, there are times to overlook and there are times to go. We’ve already talked about that.
But as we go back to that, let me just ask this. What are some reasons that we actually will not go? So Matthew 18 tells us to go, but why is it that we might not go? Well, I can think of at least three different reasons. Sometimes it’s a lack of courage or a fear of conflict or fear of man. We think that being a Christian is being nice and never bringing up that “good conflict.” Another can be just a misunderstanding of scripture perhaps. We’re holding, for example, the command to submit as an absolute, not knowing that it’s weighed by other principles. And I think the third reason, and both this and number one were true of me, is sometimes it’s not knowing how to go and what to say. So again, because of fear, I just bury the conflict.
I remember times early in my years as a pastor when due to fear and due to lack of skill, ugh. I procrastinated talking with someone and then of course it got worse. So there really are all sorts of godly attitudes and skills involved in speaking the truth in love. And let’s talk about that because that’s the section we’re in now. So if we know we’re supposed to go, and the goal we can see from Matthew 18:15 is to win the person, then what are some principles to talk about? And what I want us to see is that Matthew 18 does have specific applications for churches and church discipline, but it also has specific applications for reconciliation. And so the first is just go to the person, don’t gossip to other people. We’re just going to go to that person.
So let me just give you some principles from Dr. Jones and Ken Sande, and then a couple that I have. So here are just a few principles. You can get his book. It’s really helpful. Just first ask, Are you seeking to please and honor God more than people? The second one is, Do you have the right to show him his fault or to win, to restore him gently? That’s what we’ve already talked about before. Have you prayed for the person and yourself? And then when it gets down to the contact, he’s saying, contact the person to express your desire to talk with him privately about something important. Try and gain the best situation, in person or over the phone. And I totally agree with that. In person or over the phone. And then state your concern humbly using “I” statements. “John, I’m concerned about something that’s been on my mind. You may not have realized it, but. . .”
So be careful using “You” statements. “You always do this”, “You do this”, “You do that.” You’re giving the benefit of the doubt. You want to speak grace. Another suggestion he has is ask about the offense. Don’t assume or accuse; give an opportunity for them to voluntarily repent because we want to communicate in a Christ-like way. One great question, and I’ve heard this over and over again, just using the sentence, “Can you help me understand. . .” “I’m just really wanting to understand what’s going on.” So those are from Dr. Jones. When I looked at Ken Sande, here are his helpful suggestions. And really, they’re just good communication skills for anyone, but especially for those in a conflict.
“So be quick to listen,” James 1:19 and 20. Proverbs 18:13, “He who speaks before listening is to his folly and shame.” So I want to ask questions. I want to draw the person out. Plan your words. He encourages, the more serious the conversation, the more preparation to do so. And again, I’ve tried to follow this one time when I had to carry out a very serious rebuke as a pastor. I wrote down what I was going to say, and then I thought about the different ways this person might respond. And then I wrote out my responses to those ways he or she might respond. So we want to plan our words. Proverbs says pleasant words promote understanding.
Sande also talks about asking clarifying questions. “Is this what you’re saying?” Again, here it is. “Can you help me understand?” Reflecting, “So you’re saying this, is that right?” Agreeing when you can. You want to talk from beside as much as you can, not above, and you want to, as much as possible, engage rather than declare. And then in addition to those, a few that I would encourage or think about are, I want to communicate in a way that’s appropriate to my responsibility and the seriousness of the issue. So is it just sort of fire and forget? “Hey,” you know, “I noticed this. What’s going on?” That’s very different than as a shepherd coming in and saying, “We need to talk about something really serious.”
As has already been stated, I want to communicate using the highest possible form of communication. So in person if possible, over the phone, but not email, not text. I had a saying as a pastor: good news in writing, bad news in person. So if I’m delivering something hard, I want at least them to be able to hear the inflection in my voice. At least that, and preferably face to face. And then for me, I was thinking about where will this conversation end? In other words, if they don’t hear me out, will I let it go? Or is this a Matthew 18 scenario where I need to do something else? So I was just trying to think ahead. All this requires wisdom. So just thinking about, is this a sin directly against me or indirectly, or is this about preferences?
You know, many times we should go and we need to. We want to become more skilled in this, so we want to take the initiative to bring something up. And again, it’s appropriate to the relationship. So you may have a boss correcting an employee. An employee appealing to the boss, a husband to the wife, or wife to the husband, church member to church member leader, et cetera. There’s just all sorts of issues and we want to become more skillful. Proverbs talks about an apt word, so we want to be skillful in our words.
Well, as I mentioned before, when you think about if we’ve gone to somebody and either it goes well or it doesn’t. Then once again, we have a choice point. We can just drop it and say, I’m going to entrust them to the Lord. Or perhaps we need to involve others. And again, this is wisdom. But again, Matthew 18 provides our blueprint here, even for reconciliation, because Matthew 18:16 says,” But if he won’t listen, take one or two others with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established.” So what Jesus helps us see is that although we may want to keep the conflict as small as possible and involve as few as people as possible, we can bring in others and the specific application that Jesus is giving is for sin in the church. And the final adjudication is the congregation.
But let me give some other examples of how this principle can be applied. So it can be used in judging disputes. So for example, 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 records that the Corinthians were going to court against each other. So can you imagine that you’ve got a church and you’ve got one party filing a lawsuit against the other? And Paul says to them, this is shameful. And he commands them, “Set up someone to judge between the two of you.” So have mediation between the two of you, and sometimes that third party is just helping other parties communicate better and stop communication killers. Sharon and I’ve sat down with people and sometimes marriage counseling is just helping the others communicate well and seeing what they’re not seeing. So, you know, the person comes and says, “I believe they’re wrong.” And, and the other person says, “I believe they’re wrong.” You’re able to help them see, and again, with reconciliation.
Every step of Matthew 18 doesn’t have to be followed exactly. We see that in 1 Corinthians 5 where there’s a situation that the whole church knows about and they bring it to Paul. And you can see that in 1 Corinthians 16 where he got wind of the situation from Stephanus and he addressed it. But Philippians 4 is a great example here. It goes back, if you’re following the notes, I talked about Jesus, “peacemaking trap” where he says that the person offended should go, the person who realizes I may have offended someone else, but also scripture says, blessed are the peacemakers.
And Paul calls this out in Philippians 4 where he says, “I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.” So there he is, two women in this church there, and he’s bringing this out publicly, which is embarrassing. So there’s a hard conflict. But then he also says, “Yes, I ask you also, true companion,” or perhaps it’s a name of a person, loyal yokefellow, or perhaps a name, “help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel.” In other words, get another party involved. So he is dealing with a disagreement, and perhaps they just settled into non-reconciled relationships and Paul’s heard about it and he’s playing peacemaker from afar and he’s entreating his companion or Syzygus.
This brings us to the final principle of this section. The idea of them going to Paul brings up the whole idea of gossip, and I just want to stop by saying, I think we can misunderstand gossip. So follow along with me: to gossip is to spread rumors or information about the behavior or the personal lives of other people, and specifically it’s to make them look bad. This idea of them bringing issues to Paul brings up the whole idea of gossip and slander. And I think we misunderstand these. Gossip is to spread rumors or information about behavior or personal lives. Slander is specifically to make, false statements. And I want to suggest that the categories we need to think of- and this.is what I’m going to call bad gossip and good gossip. And you might not like those terms, but they make it memorable because I’m stealing the phrase gossip to describe talking to a true spiritual authority either before an event or after for wisdom or perspective or coaching on how to handle a conflict.
So I think it is gossip when you’re like, “Oh, Sally and I are disagreeing. Would you pray for us?” Well, that’s not bringing something for help. That’s using the excuse of prayer to spread the information. And, and that’s exactly gossip, and it’s forbidden. In Proverbs, “The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels. They go down to the inner parts.” A whisperer separates close friends.” You could just go on and on. Gossip is forbidden, but so is slander. Slander is making a false spoken statement damaging to another person’s reputation, and that’s forbidden all over the scripture. It’s an aspect of non-Christians, and we as Christians can behave that way. Slander is forbidden.
But having said that, I also want to redeem being able to go to a true spiritual authority. And you see that exemplified in 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, and you also see that commanded in Matthew 18. And so on the one hand, we are to keep the conflict as small as possible. And we’re not to just go around and say, “Please pray for me. We’re having this conflict.” But we are actually told that we should go to spiritual authorities for wisdom and insight and help. And man, oh man, we’re not going to talk about it now, but this has all sorts of applications for the online world. And so if we know people making false statements, we find ourselves wanting to hear the latest gossip. And we just need to pull back from the online world, whether it’s related to our nation or whether it’s related to celebrities or whether it’s related to perhaps a church conflict that I know.
I can think of one church conflict where part of the problem was that there was all this gossip and slander going on online. And so we want to just be very careful in the midst of a conflict that we’re not slandering, that we’re not gossiping, but we’re also have the freedom to go to a true spiritual authority to figure out how to handle this in a way to honor God.
Well, we have covered a lot of material we’ve thought about. The third principle is that we’re to go and gently restore, but before we even get there, we’ve thought about should we go and what criteria should go on in our minds. It’s not always clear. Sometimes we should overlook, sometimes we should submit, sometimes we should go. And then we’ve covered thinking about how do we actually speak the truth in love. So what are some good ways we can become skilled in a way that brings reconciliation well? As we know, reconciliation doesn’t always happen. You can see that from the end of Matthew 18. Sometimes the person will not listen to anyone. And in our next podcast we’ll talk about forgiveness and what do we do in hard situations when reconciliation doesn’t seem possible.
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