9/30/26

This quotation from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is certainly of the most well known verses in the Christian world and spheres, I would know having grown up in them myself; however, their familiarity unfortunately makes them no more acted upon than the many other famous teachings in this sermon that we, myself included, often become oriented against as we allow ourselves to be formed by the decaying world around us. In a handful of diverse conversations this past week, I've been thrust repeatedly back into the words of Jesus in both Matthew 5-7 and 18 as I've been asked about the Christian's response to conflict, both inside and outside of the Church. Spoiler alert - the way of Jesus is narrow and hard. May God be praised that He abundantly pardons our transgressions when we return to Him, and He is faithful in our waywardness, long suffering, and merciful in our time of need.

The first conversation I had regarding Christian conflict was with a young lady who is at odds with a friend and member of her church community. Through whatever might've caused it, the friend of this young woman has repeatedly demonstrated selfishness, pride, dissension, envy, and the like in her interactions with her, and the question was posed, "How am I supposed to handle this situation?" What a wonderful question to be asking as a follower of Jesus! I feel like the saying, "What would Jesus do?" kind of gets a bad rap as cheesy, but that's precisely the question a disciple of Jesus would ask of their Rabbi, Jesus. However, it's hard to know what Jesus would do if we don't first look at what He did do. So, after posing this question to the young lady, we opened the Bible to the words of Jesus in Matthew 18. 

"If your brother [or sister] sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone"

Wow! This teaching is already revolutionary and we haven't even gotten a whole verse into it! Imagine how much strife and dissention could be immediately extinguished if us Christians made this our first move after being sinned against by a brother or sister. I'm literally only 21 years old and have seen the disobedience of this command time and time again take the smallest offense and produce rifts in whole communities that could easily have been corrected in a two minute conversation between two people. I wager that it takes no persuading to convince you of this because you have almost certainly seen it and been a part of it a handful of times. As I pondered why this command might be so rarely applied, it reminded me of a teaching I heard from a wise brother once. He said that the reason we are so resistant to forgive is because forgiveness is so expensive. When we forgive, the debt isn't merely erased from the ledger; we have to eat the cost of the offense. In Jesus' beautiful parable at the end of Matthew 18, the master of the house forgave the tremendous debt of one of his servants - a rough equivalent of $6,000,000,000. That money isn't just happily not a problem anymore. In order to forgive that debt, the master of the house had to surrender his right to the sum of money and, in essence, consider the debt to be paid. That is very costly. Likewise, when I forgive someone of their sins against me, I have to release what I rightfully deserve from them. The debt gets paid by me! No wonder we don't like to forgive! When we forgive someone, we surrender the power we held over them in their debt and declare that they no longer have binding to it. When we forgive, we demonstrate the power we have in Christ as the need to maintain the feeling of power over others vanishes. When we remember that God is the sole source of our stability, we can then, and arguably only then, freely give the gift of forgiveness to others.

"If he listens to you, you have gained your brother"

The second half of this initial verse is likewise crucial as it places, at the forefront, the intended outcome of this confrontation: the reconciliation of you to your brother and your brother to God. To miss this detail would be to miss the thrust of the ministry we have been given in Christ. As Christ reconciled us to the Father, so we are sent out as ambassadors to reconcile the world to God. It can be easy to ignore this when we feel entitled to the debt owed to us and the desire for merciless judgement outweighs our desire to see the benefit of our brothers and sisters. As further explained in the beginning of Matthew 7, the posture of our hearts when approaching someone with correction largely determines whether our actions are righteous or wicked. Humble correction is a treasure that not all appreciate, but to the one hungry and thirsty for righteousness, it is received with gratitude.

I continued to dialogue through this instruction in Matthew 18 with this young lady, and we slowly made our way to the fulness of the process. As we came to understand the general instruction of the passage, we then had to ask the question of if and how this informs her and her friend. 

Is this person a brother or sister? 

Yes. 

Has this sister sinned against you? 

Well, I don't know. We aren't supposed to judge people as Christians, so I can't really know.

Would you say that it's a sin to murder a baby?

Well, of course.

So, it seems that you do believe that we can make judgments on what's right and wrong - what's righteous and what's a sin. What passage causes you to think we can't make judgement calls on what is and isn't sin?

I'm not really sure, but I've definitely heard it somewhere.

I suspect you're thinking of Jesus' words in Matthew 7. Let's turn there and see what it says.

As we turned to Matthew 7, she affirmed that this is the passage she was thinking of, so we began to dialogue through it and consider what Jesus is trying to communicate in the context of this passage's teaching. To summarize a larger conversation, we found that the text reveals an instruction in how we should approach the issue of correcting sinful brothers humbly and mercifully. The instruction is not to wholesale avoid confronting the speck in your brother's eye, but rather a warning to firstly submit yourself to the work of sanctification before immediately pointing out the other person's fault. As we become humbled by our own need for forgiveness and mercy, our correction is now flavored by tones of mercy, care, and invitation as opposed to tones of rejection, disgust, and isolation. 

So, with that in mind, what should we do before confronting someone else about their sins?

We should take the plank out of our own eye by dealing with our own sins.

Correct. How do you think we could do that? What would it look like for you to do this before approaching your friend?

I'm not sure. How should I do that?

There are a number of very practical steps we can take to discover the health of our hearts. In the Psalms, we see the psalmist invite God to search his heart and point out any offensive way in him. We should firstly go to God in prayer and invite Him to correct us by His Spirit. Then, if our desire is to be completely sure and honest, we can take the bold move of asking a close brother or sister in Christ to share with us honestly if there is any sin they see in our lives. When we do this we should be careful not to jump to defense because our goal is to seek freedom from our sins as we confess them to God and other people. This is the first step in entering Christian conflict - prayer, confession, and repentance. Then, and only then, will we be ready to graciously and mercifully correct our brothers and sisters.

By this point, most people would already be over the entitlement of the original offense as they've had to come to terms with their own debts to God and other people, and now all that remains is bringing the correction out of love for the other person and in desire to see Christ made manifest in them. As it describes in Matthew 7, the merciful correction of a self-aware Christian is extremely valuable and should be given out with care.

Now that we had read these many passages, as well as a plethora of passages to establish a baseline of things that are considered sin, we found ourselves at a point in the conversation. All that could be said had been said, and the question now remained at the young woman's feet, "Will I obey this hard teaching of Jesus, or will I become the transgressor by refusing to seek the benefit of Jesus' Bride and my sister in Christ?" Truly a hard and common reality to be faced with - a knowledge of the truth left to be acted upon in the power of the Spirit. Are we not in the same place as this sister so often? Praise God for His abundant patience and mercy as we are purified into the likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ.

The second conversation related to this issue of Christians engaging in conflict actually surfaced as a result of DMC 2 as we work through Matthew 18. However, this conversation was less tailored to DMC 2, and actually hit on the material in DMC 1 in the Sermon on the Mount. In this situation, a young woman found her and her friend opposed to a nonbelieving person who was withholding money that rightfully belongs to them. As they were faced with the decision of taking them to court or not, she expressed her frustration and desire to acquire justice through suing the person. Viany and I began to inquire about the situation and asked her, "How are you being a peacemaker in this situation?" This is a hard question to be asked when we have truly been wronged by someone, but, again, a necessary question to ask as a disciple of Jesus.

We asked her how her knowledge of Jesus' teachings might inform her response to this wrong done to her. She described a resistance to becoming a doormat by merely allowing this person to take what isn't theirs and potentially enable the same injustice for future people. As she found it a very emotional situation for herself, she resolved to avoid this person and have her nonbelieving friend handle the issue moving forward - calling this "peacemaking". The issue is that avoiding the offender is not pursuing peace, but rather taking a passive role and giving our job as Christians to the hands of nonbelievers. But how should we, as Christians, respond to people who wrong us and take what belongs to us? To answer this question, we turned to Jesus' teachings in Matthew 5 about retaliation and enemy love.

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for and eye and tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil... if anyone slaps you... takes your tunic... forces you to go one mile..."

Instead of the two options mentioned so far (avoidance and vengeance), how does Jesus command us to respond to people doing evil to us? Justice? Vengeance? Ignoring? Giving up? No. Something far more offensive. Jesus commands us to act with generosity towards that person. WHAT?! Why in the world would I want to do that???? What a great question, and I'm sure the disciples were wondering the same thing.

An interesting thing happens when we respond to someone's oppressive, demeaning, and evil act by showing kindness and generosity. We take what the enemy meant for evil and we turn it to good. We take something that was supposed to make us victims by taking life from us and we destroy it by becoming givers of life. No longer a victim of oppression, but now a generous giver of blessings. In this we image our Creator, Christ, who took the evil curses of men and turned them into the blessings that bring transformative life to the world. "Oh, but then we will be doormats!" Wrong. To shrink back in victimhood is to be a doormat. To stand up in generosity is to be a disciple. Oh, what an offensive teaching! Could it really be that Jesus wants us to do good to the evildoer? How in the world could this produce righteousness and justice as God so values? Could it not be that, through your embodiment of Christ's life, God might draw the world to Himself? Was it by the vengeance of man that the early church 'turned the world upside-down?'

"You are the salt of the earth... the light of the world... a city set on a hill... In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven."

As Christians, we are called to imitate the life and example of Christ as the perfect representation of citizens in His kingdom. That often looks like foolishness to the world and its systems, but the wisdom of God produces life and righteousness whereas the wisdom of the world produces death and chaos. Jesus demonstrates a profound life of subversive leadership that demolishes the world's power game by becoming the lead servant who will give it all in love, even to the reviler and oppressor. The apostle Paul puts it well in the letter to the Romans:

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Christian conflict is such an important issue for those in the Church. Whether we are in conflict with those in the Church or in the world, our reaction and response should be conformed to the image and example of our Lord, Jesus Christ. To ignore this important issue is to contribute to the division of Christ's Body and the misrepresentation of God's character and nature to the world that is watching us. It doesn't seem so much that people committing sins will cause lasting damage to the Church, but rather a disregard of the proper response to the sin - humble, merciful confrontation that's aim is reconciliation and restoration. In the same way that a generous response to evil is a very costly endeavor, so it is in every conflict a disciple of Jesus finds themself in. The disciple is not above their rabbi; therefore, we too will become pierced peacemakers.