Christian Conflict
Christmas can bring conflict
Christmas is coming, and that usually means that your wider family comes together. This is in fact what happened at the first Christmas.
For many families Christmas is a wonderful time full of joy and laughter, but for some, often it is not. Large family gatherings tend to bring people with different opinions or ways of doing things and tensions can arise. The same is true for any family get together like weddings or birthday parties.
This is what our church family is like all the time. Every week we have a large family gathering on a Sunday and sometimes conflict can arise which can lead to sinful behaviour. Like all families we need to learn to deal with conflict in a healthy way. So how do we deal with sinful behaviour in the church family? Jesus tells us how in Matt 18:15-20.
““If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.””
(Matthew 18:15–20 ESV – All following scripture references will be quoting from the ESV)
Context:
Just before this passage Jesus has taught the parable of the lost sheep in which he implies that there is value in every person, and that when a person becomes lost, every effort should be made to restore them… In the parable it is God who seeks to restore those individuals who are lost, but Jesus purposely moves from that parable to this teaching. What this tells us is that Jesus intends for the church to become the primary vessel in which he acts through to seek out and restore those who become lost in sin. it won’t be easy, but he doesn’t leave us to guess how to do it, he leaves us with clear step by step instructions.
1. Step One - Private Confrontation (18:15)
15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.”
First, this instruction is meant to be between Christians who should agree on what is, or is not a sin. We don’t hold non-Christians to Christ’s standards.
Second, this confrontation is only meant to take place if a brother or sister in Christ has personally sinned against you…Now this does not mean that we should not confront a fellow Christian if they are clearly living in sin, but the point is that Jesus is trying to get people to take personal ownership of their own conflicts…You can’t just rely on someone else to go confront someone who has sinned against you. Jesus is implying that you should do the confronting yourself.
As O’Donnell said:
“So step one is not to wait…And step one is not to sit and sulk… step one is not to give the cold shoulder…it is not indifference… it is not tit for tat…it is not to gossip…and step one is not public slander…. Rather, step one is a private conversation—underline ‘you and him alone.’”[1]
Now there are two different ways to approach this conversation. There is a time and place for gentleness and a time and a place for gracious harshness, I could provide many scriptural references for both. However, I generally advise people to take this approach:
“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted” (Gal. 6:1).
Gentleness is nearly always the best answer. Regardless, whatever the approach, it should be done with a spirit of humility and love.
It wasn’t too long ago that someone had sinned against me personally and it’s particularly painful when it comes from a Christian brother or sister…I know that I have made my fair share of mistakes as well, but it took me a long time to be able to gather the strength to go the person and have a conversation…if you have done this you will know that your stomach will be in knots as your approach the conversation…dealing with conflict is terrifying sometimes. But I had the conversation, shared my heart on the matter as gently as I could, and I am thankful to say that our relationship was restored.
Notice Jesus says, if he listens to you, you have gained a brother. The key word here is gained, and the purpose is always restoration…If you have any other motive other than restoration, your motive needs to be aligned with Christ.
2. Step two – Gather Evidence
“But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.”
(Matthew 18:16 ESV)
Lord willing step one has restored the relationship. But if it hasn’t, does Jesus tell us to say, “oh well, I tried. I’ll just let it go now?” No, he tells us to do the difficult thing and to take a second or third person with you.
But be very careful here. We can only go to step two if, and only if one or two others have witnessed the sin against you. Otherwise, how can they be witnesses?
The same is true for crime today. Think of the many crimes shows on TV with the brilliant detectives such as S.H. Holmes, where they use their skills to gather enough evidence or witnesses to bring a charge against a suspect. The same is true for this situation.
Jesus was clearly referring to:
15 “A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established” (Deuteronomy 19:15 ESV).
So, with this context in mind, we must understand that we only go to step two if you are able two being one or two people with you who witnessed the sin. This is a wise and practical step. If it’s just one against one, then it may be hard for anyone to know who is telling the truth. It turns into a he said, she said mess. By bringing a genuine witness along they can try to restore the brother who has sinned.
3. Step three – Church Judgment
“If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
(Matthew 18:17 ESV)
Public church discipline is written into every church constitution, but rarely are Church’s willing to follow through with it. In a modern-day culture of inclusivity, and a live and let live attitude, the concept of a church publicly disciplining a fellow Christian by excommunication, seems awful and judgemental. We cringe at judgement as if it is unbiblical, when in fact it is very biblical within the prescribed framework.
First let’s establish who is at fault here, it is the brother who has not repented. Every chance has been given to him to let go of his pride and change his ways. If a whole church agrees over someone’s actions being sinful, only a sinful ugly pride attached to the individual can be the answer. However, Jesus points out that step three is not straight up excommunication. There is still room to repent. But if he even refuses to listen to the church, Jesus writes the person off as an unbeliever. He says, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. What does this mean? The words gentile and tax collector in NT language is synonymous with the worst sinful people you can imagine.
I talk about the words, the ways, and the works of Jesus. In this case to understand the words of Jesus we must look at his ways. We know that Jesus spent time with sinners, rather than avoiding them completely. But first let me clarify that this does not mean that Jesus somehow has a live and let live attitude. Jesus does want to spent time with what we might could woke people today, not to tell them he loves them and to continue living in sin, but the opposite.
30””And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance”” (Luke 5:30-32 ESV).
A liberal reading of this text would interpret that Jesus avoided hanging out with religious people and loved hanging out with sinful people, but this is not the intention. Firstly, every single person is a sinner, and secondly, Jesus points out to the grumbling Pharisees that he has come to call the sinners he is hanging out with to repentance.
What is Jesus’ purpose, when he says to treat them as Gentiles and tax collectors? In every instance that Jesus spends time with tax collectors or prostitutes, he always moves the conversation towards faith and repentance, always!
But the direct context of this passage is focused more how you treat someone who has claimed to be a Christian, but falls away in sin and refuses to repent.
Now there is still room for some kind of communication and contact with these people under certain circumstances. The kind of contact and conversation would be what Jesus has displayed, to talk to them in order to lead them to repentance. To plead with them to change their ways, but the rest of the NT reveals that under no circumstances is the unrepentant brother to be allowed to take part of things like worship services, communion and prayer meetings. This is a limited shunning or excommunication. They are not to take part of the gathering of the church but there is still room to speak with them.
However, depending on the severity of the sin they have committed the NT teaches that there could be an unlimited shunning.
“If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching (bringing false teaching), do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.” (2 John 1:10–11 ESV)
“As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice have nothing more to do with him” (Titus 3:10 ESV).
“But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.” (1 Corinthians 5:11 ESV)
This seems harsh, I don’t know about you but I would initially struggle to obey this teaching. I think because we assume that shutting someone out like this will drive them away. But this is not what the apostles believe will happen, notice that for both the limited and unlimited shunning, the hope is always that you might gain a brother.
“If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.” (2 Thessalonians 3:14–15 ESV)
“you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (cast him out of the church), so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 5:5 ESV)
This judgment always has the intention to bring the unrepentant person to their senses so that they might be restored.
At my last church we had a leader in the church behaving in a sinful way. All three steps were followed in order to bring reconciliation. Unfortunately, that time even when the church agreed that he was in the wrong he still did not repent, and his membership was removed and he was asked to leave. He attempted to sue but he had no grounds against us. To this day he still has not changed his mind, he thinks that he is justified.
This leads me to my last point.
4. The Church’s Judgment is God’s Judgment
In reaction to these three steps Jesus predicts how the sinful brother might object. When someone is so deep in prideful sin that they won’t repent, you can nearly guarantee they will say “who do you think you are? Only God can judge me!” And they might even be genuinely hurt and spend years rejecting a judgment from the church, feeling justified, when in fact they are rejecting a judgment from God himself.[2]
But what does Jesus say?
18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
These verses are commonly used outside of their context. Jesus is not talking about his presence somehow being with a prayer meeting because two or three are gathered. No, Jesus is with every believer always, even when they pray by themselves.
These words from Christ in their context are in effect putting his seal of judgement on whatever the church as a whole has deemed to be judged. In other words, the unrepentant brother cannot say “who are you to judge me?”, for it is the Lord himself who has given them the authority to do so.
Heavy words, but true words. As I said church discipline is rarely practiced these days, often because the person who is unrepentant or the person who isn’t willing to even follow step one, ends up going off to another church. Or if they are disciplined, they go off to another church and starts fresh. But do they really? You see there is a spiritual reality that many people either are ignorant off or choose not to believe. But if someone has been legitimately disciplined it’s not so easy to escape that judgement. Don’t forget what Jesus said, whatever is bound on earth is bound in heaven. It doesn’t matter how far away you run, or what new church you might go to, even if the new church does not know about the discipline, you will in fact remain under it, for it is a judgment from God himself. Until there is repentance, God’s blessing will not rest on you, and his Spirit will remain grieved.[3]
Application:
This is really difficult for us in our modern culture of inclusivity to accept and even more to practice, we want to include people and to make them feel welcomed. However, we have to remember that this teaching is specifically against those who say they are a Christian and proclaim they are a Christian, and yet go around unrepentant of a public sin bringing shame to the name of Christ. What is more important? That we make the unrepentant proclaiming Christian feel accepted no matter what? Or that we protect the name of the church and the name of Christ by not allowing unrepentant sin to be flaunted publicly? The answer is obvious because Christ has commanded that this discipline take place.
So, when conflict arises, and a brother or sister in Christ sins against you (or perhaps even just offends you), you need to respond biblically.
a. Take the First Step:
Identify one strained relationship and take a small, practical step toward reconciliation. This could be sending a message, making a phone call, or arranging a meeting to discuss the issue privately (Matthew 18:15).
Pursue Reconciliation with Gentleness:
Approach conflicts with a spirit of grace, aiming to restore relationships rather than outrightly blaming (Galatians 6:1).
Commit to Church Unity:
If tensions exist in your church family, resolve to handle them biblically. Avoid gossip or harbouring resentment (Matthew 18:16).
Model Christ’s Example:
Treat those who refuse reconciliation with kindness, praying for their repentance, while upholding the limited or unlimited boundaries commanded by scripture as needed (Matthew 18:17; 1 Corinthians 5:11).
Cultivate a Heart of Forgiveness:
Regularly examine your heart for bitterness or unforgiveness. Ask God to help you let go of offenses, even if the other person is not yet repentant.
As Christmas draws near, and we celebrate the birth of Christ into this world, let us remember the purpose for his coming. He came to bring reconciliation, he came to pay the price for the sins of those who would believe and trust in him. Through Jesus Christ, we can find hope knowing that despite the conflicts that arise in life, despite the conflicts that can take place in church, that those who are willing to repent and obey Jesus’ commands, can find forgiveness in Him and even more, a home in his church, our family.
References:
[1]Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Matthew: All Authority in Heaven and on Earth, ed. R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word. Accordance electronic ed. (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2013), 514.
[2]Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Matthew: All Authority in Heaven and on Earth, ed. R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word. Accordance electronic ed. (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2013), 518.
[3]John Phillips, Exploring the Gospel of Matthew, John Phillips Commentary Series. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1999), 370.