Wednesday, 28 September 2011

Dealing with conflict




Debate your case with your neighbour, And do not disclose the secret to another; - Proverbs 25v9

What is the godly to handle conflict with someone? Does the Bible give advice on something so simple and mundane?

The nice thing is that God does care about these ‘little things’ and gave us this marvellous little handbook of advice in the book of Proverbs.

When you have a problem with someone, keep it between yourselves, don’t go blabbing about it anyone else.

That may be a pretty weak parrowphrase, but I think it captures the essence of what God is saying.

I wonder how often we could stop serious conflicts if we could just keep it between the parties involved. In the New Testament we read that the first step in dealing with an offence is to go, by ourselves, right the person who offends us. It also says that if we think we may have offended them we go straight to them to deal with it.

We, well at least I, don’t always do that. I get my back up and try to garner some support before I deal with it one on one. I have found that doing things that way usually only makes matters worse.

Maybe there is nothing deep here today, but there is some pretty good advice that would save us all a lot of trouble. 

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