If a brother or sister sins, go and point out the fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

—Matthew 18:15-17 (TNIV)

Conflict is inevitable. Nor does it necessarily indicate that something evil or bad is going on. Yet many Christians avoid conflict like the plague because they erroneously think that engaging in conflict is sinful. Here our Lord offers some very sound and practical advice in conflict management. If Christians would follow this advice, especially in their dealings with each other at church, we would have a lot less gossiping and backbiting.

How are we to handle conflict? Jesus tells us that when you have a problem with someone in the church, go to that person and explain it to him. Reason it out with that person and listen to his side of the story. Here is the secret to conflict management. Go directly to the source. Don’t try to out maneuver someone of evade the issue. It will only build up in you and get worse until it explodes in both your faces.

If you cannot work out your disagreement with someone, then bring a couple of others to try to persuade that person. These folks can help you determine if your complaint is justified, if you are being reasonable in your complaint. If you are, they should try to persuade the offender to change his position and/or behavior.

If the offending party still refuses, then bring the matter to the whole church and if the offending party still refuses to change his ways, then exclude him from the church. But the goal of using this process is reconciliation and restoration.

Notice how Jesus urges us to escalate our conflict management. Try to settle the issue privately so as not to embarrass anyone. But whatever we do, we must resolve the issue and not let it fester!

Of course, this is all done in humility and love because we must always remember that we are as fallible and liable to make mistakes and offend others as the next person.

If more persons in the church would follow Jesus’ advice, our churches would be healthier, happier, and more charitable places to come to worship. Do you love your fellow Christian enough to speak the truth in love when she offends you? Do you love your fellow Christian enough to listen to her speak the truth in love to you when you offend her?

Therefore strive now, in this your day, to “enter in at the straight gate” [seek to get into heaven]. Here is a short, a plain, an infallible rule, before you enter into particulars. In whatever profession you are engaged, you must be [single minded and purposeful], or be damned! The way to hell has nothing singular in it; but the way to heave is singularity all over. If you move but one step toward God, you are not as others are. But [don’t let that bother you]. It is far better to stand alone, than to fall into the pit.

—Sermon 31, Sermon on the Mount 5.412

As long as you go on licking the dust of the earth by loving it you cut yourself off from the God above. What is it that makes a person happy? You seek gold because you think gold will make you happy but gold will not make you happy. You imagine you will be happy with honor from men and worldly triumphs but worldly triumphs won’t make you happy. Whatever else you seek by licking the dust of the earth, you do it in order to be happy but nothing of earth can make you perfectly happy. It is because you want to be happy that you reach out for earthly things but such things bring their own sort of misery.

—Augustine, Sermon 231.4

The true Christians are those who understand that on earth they will always be aliens. Our native land is above in God’s heaven where there are no strangers. If we are all moving on, we should now perform good works which cannot be lost so that we can find in heaven our good works waiting for us. For example, in this life we should recognize our duty of hospitality, a work that will bring us to God. In this life we should receive strangers kindly because we are aliens just like them. Why are you afraid of losing what you invest here by generosity? Christ the Lord is keeper of such good works.

–Augustine, Sermon 111.4

When we are baptized we die with Christ. This is what it means to be baptized into his death. For there all our sins die, so that, renewed by the death we have cast off, we might be seen to rise as those who have been born again to new life, so that just as Christ died to sin and rose again, so through baptism we might also have the hope of resurrection.

—Ambrosiaster, Commentary on Paul’s Epistles

Being dead to sin means not obeying it anymore. Baptism has made us dead to sin once and for all, but we must strive to maintain this state of affairs, so that however many commands sin may give us, we no longer obey it but remain unmoved by it.

—John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 10

Whenever God wishes, even if we are utterly alone, even if we are in desperate trouble, even if we have no hope of survival, we need no other assistance, since God’s grace is all we require. You see, if we win favor from him, non one will get the better of us, but rather we will prevail against anyone. Whenever we have God on our side, even if we are utterly alone, we will live more securely than those who dwell in the cities. After all, the grace of God is the greatest security and the most impregnable fortification.

—John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 46.7-8

Of the Son’s ‘identification’ with the world into which he was sent, there can be no shadow of doubt. He did not remain in heaven; he came into the world. The word was not spoken from the sky; ‘the Word was made flesh’. And then he ‘dwelt among us’. He did not come on a fleeting visit and hurry back home again. He stayed in the world into which he came. He gave men a chance to behold his glory. Nor did he only let them gaze from a distance. He scandalized the church leaders of his day by mixing with the riff-raff they avoided. ‘Friend of publicans and sinners’, they dubbed him. To them it was a term of opprobrium; to us it is a title of honour. He touched untouchable lepers. He did not recoil from the caresses of a prostitute. And then he, who at his birth had been ‘made flesh’, was in his death ‘made sin’ and ‘made a curse’. He had assumed our nature; he now assumed our transgressions, our doom, our death. His self-identification with man was utter and complete. Therefore when he says to us ‘Go’, this is what he means.

—Dr. John R.W. Stott, Our Guilty Silence 65

The New Testament letters contain no hint that the divine honours given to Jesus were the subject of controversy in the church, as was the case, for example, with the doctrine of justification.  There can be only one explanation of this.  Already by the middle of the first century, the deity of Jesus was part of the faith of the universal church.

—Dr. John R.W. Stott, Jesus is Lord! Has Wide Ramification