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Conflict & Reconciliation
The New Testament assumes Christians will fall out. It is remarkably practical about what to do next.
The New Testament assumes Christians will fall out with each other, and is remarkably practical about what to do next.
What you’ll explore
- 01 Go and speak to them directly
- 02 Leave your gift at the altar
- 03 Two named women in Philippi who could not agree
- 04 Listening before answering
- 05 Owning your share of it
- 06 “So far as it depends on you”
- 07 When reconciliation is not possible
Go and speak to them directly
Read Matthew 18:15-17
The first step is private and face to face — between the two of you alone. Only if that fails does anyone else become involved, and the escalation is reluctant at every stage. Most church conflict skips step one entirely, which is why it spreads.
Leave your gift at the altar
Read Matthew 5:23-24
Jesus interrupts an act of worship and sends the worshipper away to reconcile first. Note the direction: it is your brother who has something against you, and it is still your move. Reconciliation is treated as more urgent than the religious duty in progress.
Two named women in Philippi who could not agree
Read Philippians 4:2-3
Paul asks Euodia and Syntyche by name to agree, and asks a third person to help them — in a letter he knew would be read aloud to the whole church. These were co-workers who had laboured alongside him. Serious conflict between genuinely faithful people is normal enough to appear in Scripture by name.
Listening before answering
Read James 1:19; Proverbs 18:13, 17
Quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. Whoever answers before listening is a fool. The one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him — which is a warning about how convincing your own account of a dispute sounds to you.
Owning your share of it
Read Matthew 7:3-5; James 5:16
The log in your own eye comes before the speck in your brother’s, and Jesus does not say the speck is not there. Confess to one another. An apology that arrives attached to an explanation of why you were provoked is not yet an apology.
“So far as it depends on you”
Read Romans 12:17-21
Paul’s phrasing concedes that it does not depend only on you. Repay no one evil for evil; if possible, live peaceably with all. Leaving vengeance to God is offered as a release — it takes the case out of your hands rather than requiring you to drop it.
When reconciliation is not possible
Read Acts 15:36-40; Matthew 10:14; Romans 12:18
Paul and Barnabas disagree so sharply over Mark that they part company, and both continue in ministry — and Paul later asks for Mark. Sometimes distance is the honest outcome for now. Scripture records unresolved conflict between good people without treating it as the end of either one.
Questions to sit with
- Is there a conversation you have been having with everyone except the person concerned?
- What is your share of it, stated without the word "but"?
- What would "so far as it depends on you" require this week?
Every passage in this study
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Where this connects
This study sits inside a larger story. Read the passages above in their own books, and follow the thread back through Scripture as a whole.