Wednesday, May 06, 2015

How to Deal with Offenses: Part 2

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In Part 1 of this post, we discussed the very first part of Matthew 18:15: “If your brother sins against you.” As we found, there is a vital point to understand in dealing with offenses, and it is that we have to do something. We must either take it directly to the person with whom we have an offense, or we must let it go. To do anything else is to gossip or hold bitterness; either is sin.

Now let’s look at Matthew 18:15-17 for ourselves and see Jesus’s “four-step” process in dealing with those who sin against you:



Saturday, May 02, 2015

How to Deal with Offenses: Part 1

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Let’s face it. People are difficult. Personalities clash, cultures battle, and ideals often oppose each other. Dealing with other people, especially within the Church, can be complicated.

Because of this, one of the most difficult – yet common – troubles we have as Christians is resolving offenses. It’s so easy for us to feel as if we’ve been wronged, and so we often look to the person with whom we have an issue, hoping that they will somehow change. We try to avoid conflict, so we do nothing.

But what should we really do?