Handling Conflict In A Godly Way Part 1 #church 07

In the last post in this series, I talked about how conflict is a normal part of being human.  

In your local church community, people are going to disagree with you and you are going to disagree with other people. Conflict is normal.  The real challenge is how you deal with the conflict when it arises.  

I shared how at the end of Acts 15 Paul and Barnabas had a big disagreement that broke up their missionary partnership. It was an ordinary run-of-the-mill disagreement that they failed to handle in a godly way.  It led to the number one casualty of ungodly disagreement: broken relationship.  Even without Luke’s commentary, we can give Paul and Barnabas a solid “F” on how they handled this conflict.  They really blew it. 

Severing ties in a relationship is a terrible way to handle conflict.  It’s a great way to ruin friendships and destroy communities.  It’s an effective way to end up isolated and alone (if that’s the only way you ever handle conflict), but it’s a terrible way to handle someone you disagree with.  

What if we stopped trying to avoid conflict and saw disagreement as simply normal?  I’ll go one step further: what if conflict was viewed as an opportunity for growth?   

I’ve had some pretty strong commentary for Paul and Barnabas and how they handled this conflict. Since Luke didn’t give us any editorial comments, where am I getting it from?

From Paul himself.  I’m using his own counsel to the church at Colossai in Colossians 3 to gauge how well he handled it. This is the passage with which I opened this series of posts.  I’m particularly interested in verse 12:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 

Colossians 3:12

Paul’s own words, written much later, speak to the substance of this disagreement and how it was handled.  We can actually see a biblical recommendation for how to handle a disagreement in a godly way from this text.  

Holy & Dearly Loved

Look at the first few words:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved…  

Colossians 3:12

When we get fired up in an argument, we often lose perspective.  We go into fight or flight mode, bring up the defenses, and we stop thinking rationally.  In these moments, we often feel like we’re on a runaway car barreling down a mountainside and the brakes are out.  We need something to help us get control.  

What if we were able to see the other person as someone “chosen by God, holy and dearly loved?”  How might that change how we go into and handle a disagreement? 

This is the first step of handling a godly disagreement.  We need to do our best to:

See the other the way God sees them.

When we find ourselves in a disagreement with someone, especially when it’s something we’re really passionate about, it’s easy to dehumanize our “opponent.”  We sum up the whole of the person in a simplistic unflattering snapshot. We slap a two-dimensional label on a person and then we can dismiss them without ever thinking about who they really are.  

“Democrat.” 

“Republican.” 

“Pro-lifer.”  

“Pro-choicer.”  

“Affirming.”  

“Non-affirming.” 

“Young Earth.”  

“Old Earth.”  

“Traditionalist.”  

“Progressive.” 

“Conservative.” 

“Liberal.” 

…and a thousand other labels that allow us to not have to actually look at that person and see who they truly are. When this happens, we end up treating them like a cardboard cutout, the depth and complexity of their humanity dismissed.  

All followers of Jesus are God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved.  All people - even those who don’t follow Jesus - bear the image of God and are deeply loved by him.  This means that in every disagreement, a heart posture of basic dignity and respect extended to the other person is the minimum expectation for godly disagreement.  

Name-calling, labeling, and condescension: these are all unacceptable behaviors for godly disagreement.  This type of behavior divides and breaks down productive conversation.  

Imagine what would happen in a disagreement if you were able to stop, take a deep breath, and ask God to help you see the other person as someone loved by God.  

Compassion

Going back to Colossians 3:12, the next thing we see is compassion. 

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion…

Colossians 3:12

Compassion literally means “to suffer together.”  The idea behind compassion is that you would see the pain of the other person and step into with them. 

Let’s say you and I can’t agree on something we’re both very passionate about, and we get in an argument.   What I’m saying is causing you pain, and what you’re saying is causing me pain.  Let’s be honest: it takes at least two people to create a conflict.  In 99% of the arguments I’ve encountered, both parties were at fault to one degree or another.  What if, when I see the pain I’m causing you, I was moved to compassion for you?  What if you did the same for me?  How might what happens next be different?  Moved to compassion, we stop barreling ahead, slow down, and start trying to understand where we’re both coming from.   

This idea simply means to stop and find out why the other person is so passionate about the issue.  What we find so often is that we’re not even arguing about the same thing. The classic example is abortion.  Some pro-life people see it as murder.  Some pro-choice see it as oppression.  Then there’s a whole host of positions between the extremes.  The labels “pro-life” and “pro-choice” are unhelpful.  They represent polarized positions that may not be an accurate reflection of what the person in the argument really cares about.  

When two people are arguing, they’re feeling pain that drives their argument.  We must stop to seek to understand their pain if we truly want to come to some sort of godly resolution.  

I met a woman who worked with struggling families helping to keep them from becoming homeless.  She shared her perspective on abortion with me.  She’d seen many families in poverty because they were a single parent trying o raise a lot of children.  Statistically, those children are more likely to end up in jail, addicted to drugs, and are subject to a host of other social challenges.  To this woman, it seemed unkind to force a woman to have a baby in this situation.  

You may be unmoved by her explanation, but hopefully you can see that she isn’t a heartless monster advocating for murdering babies.  Just the opposite: she’s filled with compassion - she “suffers with” these families every day, and her position is fueled by her love for these families.  You don’t have to agree with her, but the two-dimensional label “pro-choice” will only cause pain and further relational destruction.  You have to slow down and move toward the person in the argument and ask to see their pain.

It’s that simple.  If you can see that the person is loved by God, and not some soulless beast from Hell, then you can stop and say this: 

“I don’t understand where you’re coming from.  Please help me understand.”

You’ll be amazed at what happens next.  Most people want to share their hearts, but suffer silently - or violently, in the case of arguments - because no one ever moves toward them and asks to see their pain.  Once you hear their stories, you can choose to “suffer with” them and, even if you don’t agree, you can understand their perspective. 

This is handling a conflict in a godly way with compassion. 

Let compassion move you toward the other person. 

In conflict, it’s so easy to separate, like Paul and Barnabas did.  It’s way harder to move toward the person causing you pain.  But this is what makes Jesus’ Church an extraordinary community: when we disagree, we’re moved to compassion, we move toward one another, and we suffer together.   

What would it look to move toward one another and to “suffer together?”

Kindness

Going back to Colossians 3:12, we next see kindness.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness…

Colossians 3:12

When the Bible talks about kindness, it’s rooted in God’s love and asks us to be friendly and considerate to the other person, regardless of what we think of them.  This flows out of our desire to try and see the other person the way God sees them: as someone he loves deeply, and as one of his image-bearers.  

We extend dignity and respect through kindness.

Apart from God, kindness is just being “nice” to people, tolerating them.  Tolerance allows for you to put up with a person, while secretly, or not so secretly, hating them in your heart.  God’s love calls us to way more than just tolerance.  God’s kindness calls for the exercise of God’s love - being FOR the other person, regardless of how we think or feel about that person’s beliefs or actions.   

Name calling and labeling are ways that we choose to deprive someone of their God-given dignity.  We treat them as less than human.  Condescension, talking “down” to the other person, or belittling them is how we rob people of the respect they deserve.  Sometimes these are things we do unintentionally. We say, “this is just the way I talk”, or “I wasn’t talking down to you.”  However, if the people around you are consistently giving you feedback that you talk down to others, you’ll want to pay attention to that.  Even if it isn’t want you intend, it’s what people around you are experiencing.  You’ll want to pay attention and see if you can figure out why they feel that way.  If you realize it in the moment, you can even ask, “What did I do to make you feel like I was talking down to you?”  

Kindness is intentionally doing your best to show dignity and respect to the other person, even if you strongly disagree with them.  You show them the dignity and respect you expect to receive.  

What would it look to be kind all the way through a disagreement?

In this post, we looked at handling conflict in three ways, all drawn from Colossians 3:12:

• Try to see the other like God does. 
• Let compassion move you toward the other person. 
• Extend dignity and respect through kindness.

In the third post in this series, I’ll continue exploring how to handle conflict in a godly way in Jesus’ Church, as I parse the remainder of Colossians 3:12.  

I'll leave you with a few questions to consider for now. 

“When you’re in an argument, how do you see the other person?”

“Think about the person who makes you the most angry in this entire world.  If you had to sum them up in just one sentence, what would it be?”

“When you’re in the middle of an argument, how might you stop and see the other person as someone loved by God?”