On this episode of The Disciple-Making Parent Podcast, we explore the unavoidable reality of conflict in our lives and how to handle it biblically. We’re joined by Dr. Robert Jones, author of “Pursuing Peace: A Christian Guide to Our Conflicts,” who shares powerful insights about conflict management from a Christian perspective.
We discuss how conflict is inevitable in all relationships – whether in marriage, parenting, or church leadership. As Dr. Jones explains, statistically “one out of one people” deal with conflict, and those numbers multiply when you add spouses and children to the mix.
We also examine the transformative concept of “pleasing God” as our ultimate goal in conflict situations. Rather than focusing on winning arguments or changing others, we explore how prioritizing what pleases God can radically change our approach to disagreements.
This episode offers practical wisdom for anyone experiencing conflict in their relationships and provides a biblical framework for seeing conflict not as something to avoid, but as an opportunity for spiritual growth.
Resources From This Podcast
Pursuing Peace: A Christian Guide to Our Conflicts, by Robert D. Jones
The Peacemaker, by Ken Sande
In-Laws: Married With Parents, by Wayne Mack
The Young Peacemaker, by Corlette Sande
Anger: Calming Your Heart (Devotional), by Robert D. Jones
Prodigal Children: Hope and Help for Parents (Booklet), by Robert D. Jones
The Gospel for Disordered Lives, by Robert D. Jones
Freedom From Resentment: Stopping Hurts From Turning Bitter (Booklet), by Robert D. Jones
Do I Need Counseling? When and Where to Get Help (Booklet), by Robert D. Jones
Managing Your Households Well: How Family Leadership Prepares You for Church Leadership, by Chap Bettis
Topics Covered In This Week’s Podcast
00:00 Introduction: The importance of having a strategy for handling conflict
04:40 Why Pursuing Peace was written
05:55 Serving a God of peace while expecting conflict
07:21 Conflict is inevitable, and it’s an opportunity
11:39 Pleasing God in conflict
20:34 When one party consistently sins against the other
24:43 Good desires
31:51 Forgiveness
40:41 Closing thoughts for the family
Episode Transcript
Chap Bettis: 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. How are your relationships? Are you in the midst of a conflict with a spouse or an adult child or an extended family member? Maybe you’re a parent, and you’re refereeing conflict among your children. Or maybe you’re a pastor seeking to help others in the middle of a conflict. Well, then, this podcast is for you.
Hi, my name is Chap Bettis and I’m the author of The Disciple-Making Parent, and we continue a little mini podcast series on leadership. Last time I interviewed Brian Croft about his book on the pastor’s family. Previous to that though, I had two podcasts that discussed my new book, Managing Your Households Well: How Family Leadership Prepares You for Church Leadership, and in that book I have a whole chapter on learning to lead in conflict, both in the church and also in the home. Well, why? Because conflict is everywhere we turn. We have nations against nations, individuals against one another. Family members and church members, disagreements are all around us.
Someone said to me that as a pastor, you’re either coming out of a conflict, in the middle of a conflict, or about to enter one, and yet we often don’t have what I would call a “theology of conflict,” a strategy. What does God have to say about how we are to handle it? Our attitudes and our focus? What does he say? Does God have to say anything about that? Should we just forgive? I mean, we know that’s in the Bible.
Well, when my church plant experienced its first major conflict, I realized as a pastor, I was not prepared. I did not have a game plan, a strategy. And thus began a period of research and reading. And out of that I developed what I thought was a biblical strategy, but then along came several books that were so much more complete and helpful. One of those that we actually reference in this podcast is The Peacemaker by Ken Sande.
But then in this podcast, we’re going to be talking about the book Pursuing Peace: A Christian Guide to Our Conflicts by Dr. Robert Jones. It’s been out about 12 years, but I’m just now learning about it, and I think it’s a resource that every pastor and parent should have on their shelf. The ideas, the teaching from scripture are just so helpful.
Dr. Robert Jones serves as professor of Biblical Counseling and chair of the Department of Biblical Counseling and Practical Theology at Southern Seminary. He’s a fellow with the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors and a founding council member of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. Dr. Jones also serves as an elder and adult teacher at Hunsinger Lane Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He’s married to Lauren and they have two children and four grandchildren.
Well, before we start though, I want remind you of two resources that may be of interest to you. First, our newest book that I already referenced, Managing Your Households Well: How Family Leadership Trains You for Church Leadership. In it, I do a deep dive into thinking about how as current church leaders and future church leaders we’re called to develop and display the relational wisdom in our homes. So pick it up where Christian books are sold, and don’t forget to check out the online bonuses. And of course, the second resource that we always highlight is that we give away the audiobook of The Disciple-Making Parentabsolutely free. Just visit our website and sign up for our weekly newsletter, and we’ll give you the whole audiobook for The Disciple-Making Parent absolutely free. We’re on a mission to equip parents and grandparents to raise children who not only love the Lord, and they’re not only disciples, but disciple-makers. So head on over to thedisciplemakingparent.com for your free audiobook. But for now, let’s listen in on my conversation with Dr. Robert Jones as we talk about biblical lessons on handling conflict in our lives.
Chap: Well, it’s a joy to have Dr. Robert Jones on the Disciple-Making Parent podcast. I asked Dr. Jones to be on the podcast because of his book Pursuing Peace that we’re going to be talking about. He came up to our state in New England, Rhode Island, and did a conference locally that I was able to attend, and it was excellent. The whole material is excellent and so really, I wanted us just to take time to talk through the book.
So before we even delve down into the topic, let me just start by asking the question I ask every author, which is, what prompted you to write it? What were you seeing or thinking about where you felt like, yes, this is worth the time to invest this way?
Dr. Robert Jones: I became very burdened about the amount of conflict that I was seeing, and I was very helped by some of the writers like Ken Sande, who’s written and spoken on this, and I see him as one of my mentors. And that encouraged me forward.
One of the things I’d like to say, I say this about anger, is that all my research into this field has shown me that statistically, approximately one out of one people deal with this. And if you’re married, you know what? Those stats double. Add few kids to the mix and they quadruple. So it’s just a very common problem that we all recognize.
Chap: Yeah, that’s true. I remember someone saying to me that as a pastor you’re either about to enter a conflict, you’re in the middle of a conflict, or you’re coming out of a conflict, and so that’s true.
Dr. Jones: All of the above. Yeah, absolutely.
Chap: Well, I’d like to start the way you did in your seminar, which is so helpful: That on the one hand we serve a God of peace, one who is making peace and one day will make peace, and gives us peace. And yet conflict is all around us and sometimes it seems to surprise us. So I wonder if you could talk about both God being a God of peace, and yet the idea that we should expect conflict because we live in this world.
Dr. Jones: Yeah, I think it’s central to the gospel. In fact, many theologians have argued, and I think I’d tend to agree with them, that reconciliation is at the core of what the work of God has done. You see that all the way back in Genesis 3 with the fall and conflict beginning chapter 3 and 4. And it’s interesting when Paul in Romans talks about the future grace that God is going to do. He says, “The God of peace will crush Satan.” He’s just alluding back to Genesis.
We could say the whole sweep of the Bible is about the work of the peacemaking God. And yet as you and I experience and as the listeners obviously experience as well, there is a lot of conflict going on. And so ultimately it is the gospel. That is our answer. And that’s kind of what you are about, brother, and what I’m about: bringing gospel truths into the lives of people.
Chap: Well, talk about this idea. I remember your points there about conflict just being inevitable and it’s often from sin, and it’s also an opportunity. Can you expand on those thoughts? I don’t ever think, oh, I’m going into a new church. There’s gonna be conflict. Or, Oh, I’m going into marriage. There’s gonna be conflict. So there’s just this idea of it’s inevitable. And yet it’s an opportunity as well.
Dr. Jones: The inevitability is important for us to recognize because it’s easy to assume, for example, that if we are doing something right in our minds, everything should be going well.
But we know that our Lord and his apostles did things that were right. Of course, Christ always acted perfectly, and yet he encountered conflict. So the idea of inevitability is important when we’re dealing with premarital training. I always smile when I hear those few couples, thankfully only a few, who say things like, “Oh, we don’t have any conflict.” So I always think my role as a biblical counseling pre-engagement/premarital trainer is to kind of pick a conflict, get them conflicted so that we can really see.
So I think the inevitability is important. The way I define conflict in the book, and I think the way we typically think of the word conflict is, it is sinful. It’s not just a difference of an opinion, but it is something that actually separates us from one another. It brings hostility, tension, and distance. And therefore the call of scripture is repeatedly to resolve that conflict.
And then that third observation about these are opportunities. They really are opportunities. And one of my prayers for today as we talk and people are listening, and also one of my prayers as I write, is that we would be motivated to see conflict as not something we’re going to run away from, but are truly going to seize and enter in with the Lord’s strength to be biblical peacemakers.
Chap: I think that last point is really important because I remember as a young pastor- I’m sure fear of man, love of approval was in there- but just not wanting to have conflict, not wanting to have hard conversations. And some of it was because I wasn’t skilled in it, but some of it was because I just wanted to run the other way.
Dr. Jones: Ditto. I started as a lead pastor as a 26-year-old. It wasn’t a hard situation and was not prepared for running into that kind of conflict. But I do think that we are wise to recognize that this really is an opportunity. You know, if you’re not there, the conflicts among your church members are still going to exist. So you can either be there to help or just be there on the sideline.
Chap: Yeah. I’ve had the thought. I feel like in some ways as a leader, you are creating conflict. If you look at Paul’s letters, he’s creating conflict where they don’t want to have conflict. But on the other hand, numerous times he’s saying, don’t fight about this. So, on the one hand, he is calming conflict. That should not be happening. And then as a leader, if you correct doctrine, then that’s going to inevitably lead people to say, Oh, now we have a disagreement.
Dr. Jones: And I think our default should be to not raise conflict issues, not confront, but if we love people, we’re going to have to raise issues. Or if you’re in a pastoral role, you’re going to be making decisions. You and hopefully fellow elders will be making decisions that aren’t always going to be popular. And so, yeah, conflict can follow. I think the goal is making sure we’re doing what we believe God wants based on scripture, and then the consequences are just going to follow. Hopefully good consequences, but not always.
Chap: Well, let’s take some time and talk about pleasing God in conflict and why that perspective is so important. I think I want you to expand on this whole part of your book and your thoughts here, because to me, this unlocks so much. It unlocks a husband and wife who are disagreeing with each other, and she wants him to do all the work and he wants her to do all the work. And a pastor maybe in a hard situation, parents with prodigals. So can we talk about some of your perspective on what is pleasing to God? And then, this idea that that should be our aim. It’s just really helpful.
Dr. Jones: Yeah, I appreciate that. You know, first, just starting on a whole biblical perspective is a mega theme in scripture. We were probably trained somewhere in our lives to think about the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, which is, of course, obviously true. But you know, the language of pleasing God is actually more prominent throughout the New Testament. It is a mega theme, and whether we’re talking about conflict or any other aspect of our relationships or our Christian living, it is pleasing God. 2 Corinthians 5:9. So we make it our goal. We make it our aim to please God. And in the context of that verse, Paul is talking about whether he is going to live or whether he is going to die. Whether he is going to be killed by martyrdom or whether he is going to continue on. And Paul basically says, you know, it doesn’t matter whether I live or die, my goal is going to be to please God.
And I think what you’re alluding to, then, in terms of its application- I can share some of them. There are about nine implications I draw out- it’s in chapter three- on how this pleasing God goal impacts the way we are going to deal with conflict. And marriage is always a good example, I think. So I could share a few, or how would you like?
Chap: Yeah, why don’t you just talk about, well, just the idea that I can please God no matter what, and if two people are seeking to please God, the conflict’s going to go away. But if one is not, you know. That’s not within our control.
Dr. Jones: So first, if you start with a diagnosis, what’s going on when there’s a sinful conflict is that one of us, someone in this room and probably both of us are not pleasing God. Now, the flip side of that becomes the answer. If we both seek to please God, I can guarantee not that we’re going agree on our opinions about matters, but I can guarantee that if two parties seek to please God, the conflict, the entity, the adversarial relationship, the heat or the distance on the other side of that will ebb away. We will learn to be able to work together. So it comes back to understanding pleasing God as the core. We both do it? Success. If only one of us does it, not success. And often things can actually get worse. If one party seeks to please the Lord, and the other one doesn’t and becomes more resentful, more antagonistic or just pulls out of the relationship. And I’m sure you and I have both seen that in our pastoral role.
Chap: I think that’s really helpful. And I think what was particularly helpful. . . In my own thinking, when I went through some tough times, it was pleasing God, but I wasn’t thinking immediately. I was thinking, I don’t know how this is gonna turn out, but on the judgment day I want Jesus to say, ‘You did what you should have done.’
So in one sense I was living not for- and you can fill in anything there: I’m not living for the marriage. I’m not living for the relationship with my child. I’m not ultimately living for the success of the church. All I can control is me, and to live for him.
And I wonder if you find that in your marriage counseling that really, people are kind of doing this so that our marriage will succeed. And if he or she doesn’t do his or her part, why should I do my part?
Dr. Jones: Oh, exactly. Sure. Sure. I think one of the ways to even see that happen is when you do have one partner who is starting to do the right thing and doing what is pleasing to God, and we’re giving affirmation to him or her. I and my co-counselor; I always like to counsel with another woman, my wife or someone else when doing marital counseling. and I affirm her and yet she feels like, Yeah, I’m pleasing God, but my husband hasn’t responded.
There’s a legitimate disappointment there, but that can actually be an indicator of what your motive really was in all this. Because we can’t guarantee. Chap, the way I like to say it to a couple, actually in the first session I’ll say to them, You know, John and Mary, if you seek to follow the biblical counsel we give from scripture, John, I can guarantee that you will be a more godly man, a more godly husband, and if they have children, you’ll be a more godly father. But John, I can guarantee to you nothing about your marriage, Mary, if you seek to, and the same speech, if you seek to follow Christ with the counsel we want to give you, I guarantee you’ll be a more godly woman. A more godly mom if they have kids, a more godly wife. Sister, I can’t guarantee anything about your marriage, but if you both do, I can guarantee. Now, are you each willing to pursue the Lord without a guarantee of how your spouse will respond? And if we get that kind of commitment, I’ve seen marriages turn around. I love marriage counseling and I’ve seen the Lord work in so many cases when these core principles are operating in the life of each partner.
Chap: Yeah, that’s really good. So let’s drill down. I don’t know if I should do true confessions or not, but yeah. Say you’re thinking of a disagreement with your spouse. This may or may not have happened to me. And in my head, I’m convinced she is 90 to 95% at fault. So yes, I did do 5% in my head. So that’s the math, which is obviously wrong. But what I love about what you’re teaching here with pleasing God is that even if my math is wrong, I still need to own my part, and I can confess, apologize, seek reconciliation, and leave the reaction of the other person to the Lord.
Dr. Jones: Yeah.
Chap: Have you seen that work out in marriage? So even when it’s not so much that we’re in need of marriage counseling, but just the day-to-day squabbles.
Dr. Jones: Yeah, sure.
Chap: Comment on that.
Dr. Jones: Sure. Yeah. No, I have the day-to-day squabbles in my own marriage. We’ve been married 42 years almost, coming up. The counsel I want to give to you or whoever tells me they’re only at fault 5%. I’d say, first of all, it sounds like you’re probably being pretty proud. But let’s grant it for the sake of our discussion. Friend, brother, you need to give 100% attention to your 5%. You need to give your focus to this, and that’s going to be repenting before the Lord, and then going to your wife and asking her to forgive you for what you see as your 5%.
The other thing I’d also want to throw in here. You’re talking about the squabbles of a, a basically good marriage with squabbles, but we’re talking about the serious kinds of stuff. This is where she needs to entrust her husband to the Lord if he’s sinning in some serious ways. But also we as the church need to be involved with these situations. We as pastors need to be able to help these couples, particularly when you have the one-sided kind of sin that too often is going to destroy a marriage.
Chap: Well, expand on that, because I do want to talk about that. So think about where one party is constantly that party and in a sense, we could push these examples to the point where you get to abuse. Where the person says, Well, shouldn’t I forgive it? Isn’t that what Jesus tells me to do? Instead, she or he, usually she, is getting crushed. What are some counterbalancing principles where you say, Yes, I hear that, but no, you need to involve the church, you need to involve authorities?
Dr. Jones: Yeah. That’s a great question. You know, it really does begin with how we even view the church and how we view new members in the church and how we view our leaders within the church. Look at our members there. The whole concept of a covenant of commitment that is not only the marriage covenant. And it’s not that you can never leave a church, but rather that the church members recognize that we have a duty to love one another. And that’s going to mean that hopefully this couple that we’re envisioning where there’s something really bad going on is not alone. They’ve never been alone. They’ve been part of the body. There’s been hospitality extended. There’s one-another care, there’s small group life and all that stuff. And that really needs to be part of what it means to be a church member.
And when you don’t have those things in place, then these marriage problems that we’re talking about, the serious ones that we’re discussing here, they don’t have the kind of support and protection that we would normally have, but let’s assume that’s what we have right here.
When we learn about some serious marriage problems, I do think it is up to the pastors to take an initiative. What’s going on? And can I meet with you? Can I meet with both of you? And if she doesn’t want to be a part of that, we pursue him if he’s a member. There might need to be loving wise steps that might lead eventually to discipline and excommunication. In the meantime, we want to support her and help her, handle these things in godly ways and provide whatever support she needs. And also help her to recognize if there are any ways- we never presume there are- but if there are any ways that she might be contributing. Never causal, but things that she could be working on, that the Lord wants to do in her life.
Chap: That’s good. You’re getting into the role of the community, people needing the church community, and Matthew 18, which can be done formally or can be done informally. It basically says that if that person will not listen to you, go and get others involved.
And I remember we did a young marriage class in our church and was talking to the husbands. And it’s interesting, a number of them were just saying how the guys at work complain about their wives. Non-Christian guys. And I’m thinking, Why? You married this woman! But then I thought to myself, I think what’s happened is that they’ve hit the inevitable bumps that couples hit and they don’t have a community where they can go and say, ‘Hey, can you help us out? We’re disagreeing over this or that.’ Do you want to comment on that? You look like you have a thought.
Dr. Jones: Well, yeah. When you have a bunch of guys at work who don’t know the Lord, and you know, I always think of something David Palin said years ago that the local bar is a support group for a drunkard. They will support him in his agenda in his, you know, My old lady did this, my wife, blah, blah, blah. And so what we need is a support group that is not going to support that kind of behavior, but a support group that’s going to help. And that is what you need: the church.
Chap: Well, I don’t think we understand this idea. And I often in the ministry use the illustration with children, but it applies with our spouses, it applies in church. James 4 says that fights and quarrels come from our desires that battle within us. And yet I think I have a good desire. In your book you have the illustration of the couple who are disagreeing over family vacation or going to see the in-laws. Well, both of those are good desires.
I love your diagram; can you talk about this whole idea of a good desire? Obviously, there are sinful desires that should be opposed, but people church. . . there are good desires there. How am I to think about those and them causing the disagreement?
Dr. Jones: Yeah. And sometimes you have to be careful with even how we summarize these things. I’m always a little careful when I call them “good” desires vs. bad desires. I like to think of them as desires for good, desires for good things, because those desires for a good thing are, yeah, they’re good desires, Chap, I’m fine with that summary.
Well, I think what happens is those desires get so easily hijacked, and that’s the point of James 4. One of the things about 4, and I unpack that in chapter four where there’s that diagram I think you’re probably referring to where you have a throne and a staircase. And as long as those desires for a vacation, for whatever I desire, a good thing, stay under the lordship of Christ. The problem is that they begin to try to climb up under the throne and take over the lordship of your heart. And I think that’s the problem and that’s what James 4 is getting at.
One of the things I don’t know if everyone always sees in James 4 is that whatever it is the readers were wanting, James uses four different words for desire and wanting going on in those first three verses. Whatever they wanted there was not an evil thing, because James holds out the possibility at the end of verse two- he says, “You do not have, because you do not ask.” Then it says, “You ask and don’t receive because you ask for the wrong motives.” Several prayer problems there. But the problem is not the thing that they wanted. That wasn’t the issue because James holds out the very possibility that God might give it to you. It’s not an evil thing. The problem, and the way I would summarize it is, a good desire becomes a demand. Good desire, bad master. Good good, bad god. Just some memory aids there. And those desires begin to climb up under the throne of my heart.
My wife and I have 42 years of marriage almost. And we have a very good relationship. But yeah, there’s things that I want her to do and she wants me to do, and we don’t do them sometimes. And they’re not necessarily evil things we’re not doing. They’re actually good things that I might want my wife to do or vice versa. And the trouble is I let those desires become demands and I forget that the Lord is the sovereign one in this situation. I’m not in control of how my wife, or my husband in other cases, responds.
Chap: That’s good. Well, you’ve got a section where you talk about getting the plank out of our own eyes and just repenting at the heart level. Maybe we already covered that. Well, that’s why the math is wrong with my spouse. It’s a plank versus a speck. But what are some practical ways that you’ve found, I can do that if I say yes, I want to, I want to focus on me first. Are there, are there specific things that are help helpful there?
Dr. Jones: The passage that you’re alluding to that I talk about is Matthew 7. And the different English translations, whether it’s a plank or a log or a beam in your eye, whatever it is, it’s this big honking piece of wood. Jesus is using this exaggeration, and he’s saying that you kind of deal with your thing before you try to deal with the other person’s thing. I think what I have found, and I’ll go back to the desire component just for a moment here, is to recognize that when a desire is controlling me, it becomes of demand as I’m saying. There’s a couple self-diagnostic questions to ask. First, am I thinking about it all the time. You know, when I wake up in the morning, I sure want my wife to. . . I want my kids to. . . I have this desire that’s controlling me. It’s throughout the day, when I go to bed at night, I want my boss to whatever it is.
And then the other ones are kind of the flip side of each other. Do I sin to get it or do I sin when I don’t get it? I sin to get it meaning do I nag, do I pressure, do I try to make her feel guilty, right? I’m really nagging, that’s the sinning to get it. Or when I don’t get it, what do I do? Do I become angry? Do I pull away? Do I attack all the different kinds of responses when I don’t get what I want? And I think that’s the place where I need to stop and recognize that the problem is not my spouse at this point. It’s not my kids, it’s not my job. It’s not whoever. The problem is me, right? Not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me, O Lord. I stand in need of prayer. And I need to recognize that. I need to repent and I need to refocus on God and what he is, what he has provided for me, and I have to replace those demanding things with prayer, with calm speech, with loving communication, with biblical peacemaking.
I think when I start doing that, I’m able to reconnect with the Lord and it’s just going to affect the way I’m going to treat that other person. Even if the other person doesn’t change.
Chap: Yes. Or even if you continue to press for whatever you were desiring. Now you’re not pressing in the flesh. Maybe it is still wrong and it’s maybe it still needs to be corrected, but you’re doing that in the spirit.
Dr. Jones: Yes. Walking in the spirit. Galatians chapter five. There’s a lot for us on that.
Chap: So get really practical here. Let’s talk about forgiveness, which is just really difficult, painful at times. You addressed this and then in the appendix, you talk about two types of forgiveness in the Bible. So can you unfold those, um, and then talk about how this actually works out?
Dr. Jones: I have, as I suspect you have, and as biblical counselors have for decades, been wrestling with this question: Do you forgive someone who’s not repentant? And there’s actually going to be different schools of thought even among the biblical counseling membership movement that I’m part of.
I think the best way to resolve it is to think in terms of two levels. So there is a kind of unconditional forgiveness. I think you see that in a passage like Mark 11:25 where Jesus says, if you stand praying and if you have something against someone, forgive that person. There doesn’t seem to be a transaction, doesn’t seem to be repentance, and the writers who teach this are just. . . everyone teaches this. I can quote D.A. Carson and Tim Keller and Paul Tripp. The way I think you think about there’s a kind of unconditional forgiveness. But it’s not the transaction sort. It’s a relationship with God.
I’m really doing three things when I do this. I am trusting God to do the judgment and entrusting the person to God’s hands. I am letting go of my anger. That’s on me. You don’t make me angry. I respond to how someone treats me. And then the third component is a willingness to transact if there’s repentance, and that’s the second level. I’m going to call that the transacted level, the relational level where the person does repent. And we reconcile after that because if there’s not repentance, we can’t really say there’s going to be the kind of relational forgiveness, the horizontal level forgiveness. That’s my summary of that.
Chap: So just very practically. I’m thinking of a friend, and his wife is regularly harsh, intrusive, and sinful to him. And so he’s had to take some steps. But you would say there’s this God-ward I’m-going-to-keep-my-own-heart-tender posture, even while it may be necessary to- I hate this word, what’s a biblical word for “boundaries”?- but you know, you can’t transact. You can’t be like, Oh, let’s just have her over and she’ll just hang out with the grandkids. My heart is tender, but I also kind of have to be watchful. Is that fair?
Dr. Jones: I think it’s fair, yeah. I’m with you on that: there’s something about the word boundaries that I’m not comfortable with, but I do think there’s a right way to talk about love. My big concern about boundaries language, I guess, is that the metaphor itself is a very self-protective. It’s a defensive metaphor, boundaries. Protecting me from you. I’d rather think of what does real love look like?
And I would say that real love means that I’m not going to let my kids’ grandmother do things to my wife, or my in-laws aren’t going to do this to my spouse because I love my spouse and I love them, and it’s not in the best interest for the grandmother or whoever to be doing these things. I love you enough to say no. You can’t come over if you’re going to continue that pattern of speech when you’re in our home, and I love you enough to say this is not right and it’s not good for you. And you’re heaping judgment upon yourself, actually, if we can get that close with someone to explain that.
Chap: And we’re getting into the whole handling people who are unreconcilable in the sense that they refuse to repent or change. And I love how one of your points in there was not only are they sinning against us, but there should be- and make sure this is understood correctly- but there, there should be some sympathy because they’re entrapped by sin or selfishness. So as a pastor, I remember hearing the phrase, “hurting people hurt people.” And I’m like Yeah, that’s true. But I’ve got a job to protect the other people from that person who is hurting. So as much as I want to sympathize. . .
So talk about those who will not reconcile. Let’s go back to that grandmother situation, or maybe even thinking about adult prodigals who just cut off the parents. Maybe those are two different things, but take that question either way.
Dr. Jones: Well, principally, I like to think of Luke chapter six, where Jesus gives concrete instruction on how do you love your enemy. And he talks about loving your enemy and showing mercy to your enemy. He talks about in there, Luke 30:27-36. He talks about doing good. Blessing, which I think has to do with verbal desires and praying and praying for the person. These are the strategies that we have to have towards someone who’s unreconcilable and just doesn’t want to work on things. It could be that prodigal son who’s cut off from the parents. And what do we have to help those parents see? They have to see that this son or daughter, actually never ultimately belonged to you in the first place. You have to learn to entrust your son or daughter into the hands of God. You have to do what God wants you to do. You should consider some self-examination. There might be ways you’re contributing to this, but don’t assume you’re the cause of this. The cause lies in your son or daughter’s heart that’s turned away from the Lord. That’s just some of the counsel we give. And it applies to the grandmother too.
Chap: And this circles back to what we talked about at the beginning, which is pleasing God, working backwards from the judgment day. As much as I want that strong family relationship, ultimately I can’t control that other person, that child, but I can seek to please God.
Dr. Jones: Yeah, my wife recently did a study with a bunch of women in our church on mother and in-law relationships for women. And it was interesting, we had a number of mothers who have daughters who are turning away, prodigal adult daughters. And then we had a number of adult daughters whose parents aren’t in the church.
And this is a common problem, the whole in-law discussion. And I do think what we’re talking about today has direct application.
Chap: Well, so we can see: We’ve got conflict. We’ve got conflict with in-laws. We’ve got conflicts in church. . .
Dr. Jones: By the way, I like Wayne Mack’s little book on in-law relationships.
Chap: I’m not familiar with that. What’s the title?
Dr. Jones: I think it’s called something about just in-laws. [It’s linked above in the resources -Ed.] ] It’s somewhere between a, a full-length book and a mini book. It’s a little longer than a mini book. Wayne Mack on in-laws, we use it all the time. We just gave it to a couple recently and they came back and said, “This was so good,” because they had just been with their in-laws on summer vacation.
Chap: We will put that in the show notes. And I will check that out. Obviously I know Strengthening Your Marriage from Wayne Mack, but I never heard of that book. And similar to yours, it had been out for 10 or 11 years and I unfortunately had never heard of it. But now I love it and I think it’s the go-to book.
Let’s finish up. So you’ve got four grandchildren. Any thoughts on leading a home where you want to cast a vision for unity and maybe somehow inculcate these principles early?
Dr. Jones: Some of the materials that have been produced over the years from Ken and Corlette Sande, we do recommend the Young Peacemaker materials where you have the same exact principles. Ken Sande endorsed my book and I’m a student under him. So I think Young Peacemaker materials in terms of an actual curriculum that you could use for family devotions or you could use it in homeschooling settings. I know we’ve done all the above.
I do think that establishing basics of Christian commitments are going to be important here. God’s Word is going to be our ultimate authority, and so we want to be training our children in scripture. I think we need to be modeling these things, and I think particularly the modeling of going to your children when we sin against them. That’s crucial. And when they see us sin against each other as parents, I don’t think there’s anything more powerful than that kind of modeling.
And even if you think of the workplace and just outside of the Christian community, I mean, how many non-Christians have ever seen a Christian come and apologize and ask forgiveness for the way I misspoke about you in front of others? The evangelistic impact of that is just huge, I think. So those are some of the things I’d want to stress within families.
Chap: That’s great. Are you as a parent living it? And again, it circles back. I guess I keep circling back there to pleasing God. So yes, she should have done her homework. She should have obeyed you. This your daughter or granddaughter. But did you please God when you yelled at them or whatever? No, and so you sinned no matter what they did. And you can go back.
Dr. Jones: And you go back and say to your child, Honey, the way I spoke to you was wrong today. I’m sorry. I do think that you need to do your homework. I’m not changing the standards here. You still need to do your homework. But the way I responded to you, it’s not pleasing to God, and I know it hurt you, and I want to ask you to forgive me because I was wrong in that.
Chap: Yeah. Well, maybe that’s a good place to stop. I feel like I could ask you a lot more questions, but I appreciate your time and ministry. And we’ll put the other books you’ve written- you’ve written quite a lot!- up there in the show notes for people to take a look at those.
But thank you. Thank you for your ministry training pastors at Southern.
Dr. Jones: May I just pray for your audience? I know it’s always weird, to have someone pray and listen to a recording-
Chap: No, let’s do it!
Dr. Jones: But the Lord is timeless.
Father, I thank you for the opportunity that you give to Chap and the ministry with families and discipling that you’ve given him. We pray that that would multiply and continue. I pray, Father, for those who are listening to this today, that you would help them to seek to please you, the living God, because of the Lord Jesus Christ. That we’d no longer live for ourselves, but for him who died for us and was raised again. And I pray you’d help these, particularly these young families. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Chap: Amen.
Dr. Jones: Thank you.
Chap: Thanks for listening to the Disciple-Making Parent podcast. We love offering resources to equip you in family discipleship for free, but we can only do that because of our faithful financial partners. Would you consider joining us? We’re a small and lean ministry, and we make your kingdom dollars go far.
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