CONFLICT MANAGEMENT: A Christian Approach

Read­ing Time: 4 minutes

Con­flict res­ol­u­tion in Mat­thew 18:15–20: “Moreover, if your broth­er [or sis­ter] sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your broth­er. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three wit­nesses every word may be estab­lished. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a hea­then and a tax col­lect­or. Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heav­en, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heav­en. Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth con­cern­ing any­thing that they ask, it will be done for them by My Fath­er in heav­en. For where two or three are gathered togeth­er in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”

In every soci­ety, fam­ily set­ting, group, work­place, and among friends, con­flicts are inev­it­able. With good­will, con­flicts, wheth­er inter­per­son­al, intra­group or inter­group, can be resolved. Vari­ous factors can lead to con­flict. For instance, mis­un­der­stand­ings, poor com­mu­nic­a­tion, jeal­ousy, envy, dif­fer­ing val­ues, intol­er­ance, cul­tur­al back­ground, com­pet­i­tion, and the struggle for power and recognition.

In resolv­ing con­flicts, many adopt vari­ous mod­els, includ­ing the Thomas-Kil­mann con­flict mod­el (com­pet­ing approach, col­lab­or­at­ing approach, com­prom­ising approach, accom­mod­at­ing approach, and avoid­ing approach), developed by Ken­neth Thomas and Ral­ph Kil­mann in the 1970s. Jesus pre­ferred a dif­fer­ent approach for Christians.

The Gos­pel approach: As part of his revolu­tion, in Mat­thew 18:15–20, Jesus presen­ted his fol­low­ers with the Gos­pel, or fraternal, approach to resolve the mis­un­der­stand­ings or dis­agree­ments that will even­tu­ally arise among them. This meth­od involves three steps.

First step: This step is between you and the per­son who offen­ded you. It is a face-to-face approach. The pos­it­ive aspect of this meth­od is that if the mat­ter can be settled between you and the per­son who offen­ded you without involving oth­ers, that will keep rumours and mis­un­der­stand­ings from mul­tiply­ing. This will also ensure the con­flict does­n’t spread. Jesus thinks this meth­od should work because if the two people are true believ­ers, the per­son who offen­ded you should be humble to acknow­ledge his or her fault and ask for for­give­ness, and you should be able to for­give. It is bet­ter to dis­cuss your case with your broth­er or sis­ter without dis­clos­ing your secret to oth­ers (cf. Prov 25:9). This step will guar­an­tee your pri­vacy. What if this does not work? 

Second step: If the first step fails, Jesus sug­gests the parties use the second option. This step requests the offen­ded party to take with him or her one or two people to wit­ness the set­tle­ment. This is in line with the sug­ges­tions of Deu­ter­o­nomy (19:15) that “one wit­ness shall not rise against a man con­cern­ing any iniquity or any sin that he com­mits; by the mouth of two or three wit­nesses the mat­ter shall be estab­lished.” The pres­ence of the wit­nesses is not neces­sar­ily to listen to the offence but rather to wit­ness the attempt that has been made to recon­cile with a fel­low believ­er. The wit­nesses can inter­vene in talk­ing to the parties, but they must avoid lying (cf. Deut 19:16–19). What hap­pens if after this step the parties con­tin­ue in their enmity?

Third step: If the first and second solu­tions fail, then it is time to make the mat­ter known to the eccle­sia (con­greg­a­tion, the assembled com­munity, or church). By ‘eccle­sia’ is prob­ably meant the eld­ers and oth­er lead­ers of the believ­ing com­munity. It is pre­sumed that at the end of the three steps, the quar­rel­ling parties should have been recon­ciled. How­ever, if after the whole pro­cess the offend­ing party still refuses to repent, then he or she should be treated as a Gen­tile or as a tax col­lect­or. What does that mean?

Gen­tile or tax col­lect­or: Jesus advises that the unre­pent­ant mem­ber of the com­munity be regarded as a Gen­tile or as a tax col­lect­or. That simply means the per­son should be treated as a non-mem­ber of the com­munity. Hence, the per­son should be excluded from the fel­low­ship and be regarded as an unbe­liev­er. The reas­on is simple: if the per­son were truly a mem­ber of the believ­ing com­munity, he or she should have repen­ted after the three attempts to recon­cile him or her with the oth­er party.

As noted above, con­flicts are unavoid­able. What we should be wor­ried about is our approach to con­flicts. Address­ing his dis­ciples, Jesus said to his dis­ciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27). In like man­ner, Jesus also offered Chris­ti­ans a new way to resolve con­flicts dif­fer­ent from the one the world offers. But why do people, nations, com­munit­ies, and groups find it dif­fi­cult to resolve conflicts? 

Bey­ond an inab­il­ity to reg­u­late emo­tions, insist­ence on being right, defens­ive­ness, stone­walling, and the urge to pun­ish, arrog­ance, obstin­acy, pre­sump­tion, and incor­ri­gib­il­ity also obstruct con­flict res­ol­u­tion. Nations are at war because the lead­ers are moved more by their ego than the well-being of the people. Chris­ti­ans are at war with each oth­er because, regret­tably, they are driv­en by their selfish­ness and not by the gos­pel prin­ciples. The peace giv­en by Jesus is not the kind of peace obtained by append­ing sig­na­tures on a piece of paper.

It is impossible to avoid con­flicts. Even Jesus’ teach­ing on how to resolve con­flicts pre­sup­poses their inev­it­ab­il­ity. Chris­ti­ans should pray for the wis­dom and capa­city to resolve con­flicts more con­struct­ively. Such will, in fact, enhance rela­tion­ships with others. 

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