Refuge from Abusive Conflict
On Sunday we met that passage in Philippians which speaks about a conflict within the church, between two women who have been friends and fellow-workers but came into conflict. We’re not told what the conflict was over, and we don’t see anyone taking sides or suggesting one was right over the other. But, what we do see is that Christians in the church have every opportunity because we have been given the gospel, to now agree in the Lord.
We heard from God’s word on Sunday how conflict is always an opportunity for the gospel, because Jesus died for us when we were his enemies and now our names are in the Book of Life. This helps us immensely when it comes to most ordinary conflicts we encounter among our friends - but what about when it’s not “ordinary conflict”? What about when we meet abusive conflict?
What about when it’s not “ordinary conflict”? What about when we meet abusive conflict?
The Elders of Reforming know, and have met, conflict in extreme ways and damaging ways. Some of us bear wounds you can’t see. Some of us have had experiences with conflict where we have tried time and time again to ‘agree in the Lord’ with people we’re in conflict with, only to find the responses of some to be proud, attacking and even abusive.
If this is you, and such conflict has wounded you, you’re often left wondering what to do.
How do we respond to conflict from an unrepentant manipulator? What about the narcissistic person? How do we relate to someone who abuses our trust, lies, says “Jesus is Lord” and yet lives like He isn’t? Such people exist, and they exist in the pages of the Bible, in the human story of sin.
How do we relate to someone who abuses our trust, lies, says “Jesus is Lord” and yet lives like He isn’t?
The Bible doesn’t sugar-coat the reality of how sin gets into everything, even the church - and especially into how some people treat others in the church.
Whilst our prayer is that Reforming Church would have a church-wide culture of being a refuge from abusive conflict - we recognise that this side of heaven the church is not yet perfect. So as we open our Bibles and open our arms as a church, we seek to help one another in a way that the Scriptures would shape our responses to conflict, even extraordinary conflict.
It goes without saying that there has been a history of abusive conflict that has been exposed in the church around the world, in Australia - and this especially at the hands of abusive pastors. As I serve as a pastor, I am daily aware of my own sin and the power that people like me could hold by the very nature of our position. This is why I love the Presbyterian system of service, shepherding and accountability, it’s one of the reasons I signed up for being Presbyterian as the accountability is healthy - especially for transparency for me and care for you.
It’s one of the reasons I signed up for being Presbyterian as the accountability is healthy - especially for transparency for me and care for you.
Biblically there is no place in the church for power and leadership to be centralised into one person, such as a senior pastor. The biblical authority that God gives to church leaders is one of a mutual plurality, a shared authority. This is why Presbyterians work by such plurality, because this is the shape of steward-servant leadership in the Scriptures, this is for the transparency and accountability of leaders - most of all for the care of the people of the church who belong to God.
God cares deeply for his flock, he is watching those leaders who would lie, manipulate and abuse people for their own hunger for power. God sees the abusive conflict that can happen in churches. God sees the abusive conflict that happens to you.
God sees the abusive conflict that happens to you.
So what does God say we can do as a response to abusive conflict?
1. Receive help from God through the church. When I have met abusive conflict, I have been helped by others holding out God’s word of life to me. I need to hear His voice. When I have been deeply wounded, the first thing I have needed was someone else to apply the Bible bandage of God’s word to my heart to firstly stop “the bleeding” from the wound. I need the Lord and his people to lift me up (Ecclesiastes 4:10). I have needed people to show me from the Scriptures that God does care, that he knows what’s really going on, and that he is speaking to my situation from the Scriptures. When this has happened for me, it has helped me “stabilise” from the help of “first responders”, though I am not in the recovery room yet.
2. Receive comfort from God by crying out to Him. We can continue to pray for help from our Father of mercies and God of all comfort, that he would comfort us in our affliction from abusive people (2 Corinthians 1:1-11). We can also pray for those who have made us their enemy. We can pray for the unrepentant person, that they would turn to the Lord with and from their sin, and be changed by the gospel. It is a great comfort to us that we can pray to God who is in control of all things, and that he is the only one who can even change hearts. So we receive comfort from him as we pray for our enemies. Until that happens the Bible also gives us some help in the meantime.
3. Receive wisdom from God for what’s next. It has helped me so much for godly friends to show me that our response to abusive conflict sees us to call out to God in prayer as we rightly flee from abusive people and situations. We see in the Psalms that David does this again and again when he is hunted by people like King Saul (Psalm 57), or even his own son Absalom (2 Samuel 15-19). It is good and right for David to flee from these toxic men, to then pray to God, and to respond by not taking vengeance into his own hands. Not only is abusive conflict not helped from revenge, moreover it is not our place but God’s to avenge and bring complete justice to unrepentant people (Romans 12:19).
We see in the Psalms that David does this again and again when he is hunted by people like King Saul (Psalm 57), or even his own son Absalom (2 Samuel 15-19). It is good and right for David to flee from Saul, pray to God, and respond by not taking vengeance into his own hands.
4. Receive refuge from abusers, it’s good and right to get away. When we meet abusive conflict from unrepentant people, from those who refuse to come to the exposing light of God’s truth (1 John 1:6) - the Bible gives us safety and refuge by telling us to get away from such people. The biblical way to respond to unrepentant, divisive, abusive behaviour is to get away from that, for your care. This is not our natural inclination, and my own story has been one of living by the motto of “show grace and embrace” again and again. But the kind of conflict that comes from abusive behaviour needs a particular help, and that is given to us in places like Titus 3.
10 As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, 11 knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.
(Titus 3:10-11 ESV)
When someone older and wiser, with experience in abusive conflict, showed me this verse - it was like I’d never seen it before. Maybe I thought that this was for other people, or for things of formal proceedings - but having met abusive conflict these words have become real for me as a comfort from the Lord. The phrase ‘stirs up division’ doesn’t manifest as the type of conflict between Euodia and Syntyche in Philippians 4:1-3, this is not about “disagreeing” and the need to agree in the Lord but rather, this phrase speaks of an abusive person. This verse speaks of a person who could even call themselves a “Christian” and yet treats others in a narcissistic way, because it’s using a word that could mean being a “heretic, who fosters factions”. That is, they might say that are Christian, and yet they are functionally being heretical in the way they disobey Christ’s command to love God and love others.
5. Receive assurance that God has got everyone in his hands. It is an assurance from God that he has your situation in his hands, and he has you and the person who is wounding you in his hands - even for their good. I was greatly relieved and helped when someone with more experience and wiser than me gave me that comfort from Romans 12:18. Not only does this passage speak about not taking vengeance into my hands (which are not sovereign and just enough), but also it holds what I can do right now. I can live peaceably with an unrepentant person by knowing it is okay to get away from them in this life. It is okay, because God has this life, and the next life, in his sovereign hands. I have thought about this a lot over my experiences of abusive conflict. I have second-guessed my thoughtful responses, decisions and wisdom - even as I have been helped by the wisdom of so many others. Yet a great comfort from God’s word is that God has indeed got this.
I have laid awake at night, wondering how I will relate to a person not only in this life (living peaceably) but in the next. That is, if a person is unrepentant now, and yet one day because they are indeed born-again and truly repent, one day they will be in heaven and so will I. Will we hang out together? I don’t know all the answers to this, but I do know that if our names are in the Book of Life, then we will share in the new creation life together - where there are no tears, no sin, no abuse and all things are made right and new by God. The Lord has got everyone in his hands, in this life and the next.
The Church can be a Refuge from Abusive Conflict, for we don’t have to do this alone.
I have felt this, and you too will know what it’s like not to have others - to be alone. Facing abusive conflict often leaves us feeling isolated, with a loneliness that makes us think no one else understands what this is like. Yet as we have reflect here, the Scriptures show us again and again people who have experienced such sin - and received help from Christ’s church.
The first step of receiving such help is to know that Jesus understands your experiences because he himself lived in this world wrecked by sin, and he himself was the victim of abusers (Mark 15:16-32). It is Jesus who then doesn’t leave us alone, but is with us to the end of the age by his Spirit. It is also Jesus who gives us the church to look after the vulnerable, to look after those who have faced abusive conflict. You can receive help from Christ’s church, you don’t have to do this alone.
Jesus understands your experiences because he himself lived in this world wrecked by sin, and he himself was the victim of abusers (Mark 15:16-32).
Whilst the church is not yet perfect, she is blessed with gifts from the perfect Lord and Saviour. In the Presbyterian Church of Victoria we have an excellent Safe Church Unit that is resourced and ready to serve you. You can reach out to them at any time. We are a local church, part of a wider church, that seeks to serve as a refuge from abusive conflict.
The church will always see conflict this side of the new age that is to come, there will always be opportunities for the gospel to change everything for people like Euodia and Syntyche. We can agree in the Lord. Yet the church will also have every gospel opportunity given to give help to those who need refuge from abusive conflict. This is part of the church’s commission, one of compassion that serves under the total transparency of Christ’s sovereign sight. This means that as you and I receive help, knowing we don’t have to do this alone, we do so being encouraged and equipped by God’s gospel word.
So to that end I’m going to offer a few helps that are shaped by God’s word - and as I do that I offer to you on behalf of Reforming Session, and of Reforming Church, we are here to help you. All you need to do is all you can do, simply receive help - for Christ is your refuge.
Helps we recommend for you:
