Are you a Peace-Maker, Peace-Breaker or a Peace-Faker by Dave Wilson with Linda Parker
Linda serves as the Team Leader for the Missionary Care Team here at Trinity Church. She is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who helps her clients from a Christian perspective. She specializes in Peace-Making which is a biblically based model for conflict resolution.
Matthew 17-19
Peace-Making, Peace-Breaking or Peace-Faking are three words I have learned from Linda about conflict resolution and true humility. You may be familiar with the concept of making peace, but there are two other alternatives that are destructive and damaging to living at peace with one another. Peace-Breaking is when you stand on the side of ‘right’ and attempt to win an argument, while at the same time you lose the relationship. Peace-Faking is when you mistakenly accept an absence of conflict for real peace. Instead of confronting a problem or an offense, you overlook it. The problem is that there is still no real peace, just a calm that may not last.
Matthew 18:15-20 gives us an excellent model for Peace-Making. This process has church discipline applications as well as personal peace-making principles. The first step to peace is to confront the person who has committed an offense. The confrontation should always be with humility and with the purpose of restoring and maintaining the relationship. This should be a private meeting where you agree to never discuss the offense with others. You should make every effort to come to a peaceful resolution without the knowledge of others, but if that does not work then bring along someone else. You should bring someone who is impartial; not someone who will only defend you, but someone who will stand on the side of peace. Remember, your goal is to restore the relationship, not to win the argument. The next steps include official mediation which should be the last resort and should only be done if absolutely necessary for resolution.
Life in Christ demands that we live a life of peace and humility with others and with God Himself. But true peace (just like true love) takes work. A lot of work! And the most difficult part of peace is humility, because it requires that we set aside our rights, our passions and all of our selfish pride for the benefit of making peace. In light of this process, think about the context of the next few verses when Jesus teaches on forgiveness (70×7) and divorce.
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