I find Romans 12:18 to be one of the most challenging passages in Scripture: "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."
It's an incredibly high standard in difficult situations, and it can be very challenging to balance God's clear values for unity, peace, and love with His equally clear value for truth, as well as other guidance in the Bible to admonish other believers and sharpen one another. Navigating that tension can be so difficult; rather than a blog post providing a roadmap, it is probably best left to the domain of seeking wise counsel and walking together with mature brothers and sisters in Christ who can speak into your life, encouraging you toward Jesus as you traverse this rocky terrain.
However, God has recently been leading me into a new season of growth in a related area: what does it mean to live at peace over time? When and how am I invited to reexamine places of disunity from my past?
Our culture too often looks at relationships as disposable. In the secular world, when a relationship goes sideways, people often bury it six feet underground. Too often, believers do the same.
But we Christians believe in resurrection. Biblically, I think it's clear that relationships are the point, the very reason we were created. We are designed primarily for the purpose of loving God and loving others. Therefore, when our relationships are fractured, there is little that should grieve us more. Sometimes there is nothing we can do to heal our relationships. But sometimes there is. And maybe more than I care to admit, sometimes there wasn't anything I could do before, but there is now. People change and grow, and situations shift.
God has been convicting me lately that just because I did everything possible to live at peace with everyone up until the point of fracture does not necessarily mean the story is over. Sometimes God will stir our spirits to reach out again, even years later, so he can provide healing. That may translate into reconciliation and restoration, or it may bring about greater closure. Much of the outcome is in God's hands, but obedience is in ours.
Sometimes in this discussion, people point to Matthew 18, referring to a biblical process of handling conflict that ends with "treat them like a tax collector" if the person remains unrepentant. Those of us well-versed (forgive the pun) in the Jewish cultural context know that Jews hated tax collectors, regarding them as traitors and sell-outs, despicable people not to be trusted. We can use this as justification to write them off and cut them out.
But "treat them like a tax collector" was written by a former tax collector. The human author of that passage had his life utterly transformed, partly by a contrast of expectation and reality: the distance between how he expected to be rejected as a tax collector and then how Jesus actually pursued him as a beloved child of God — kindness led Matthew to repentance. Then Matthew's heart was healed and his thinking shaped by walking with and watching Jesus love tax collectors and sinners for years. Jesus redefined how tax collectors should be treated.
Here's a critical distinction, though: Jesus was at peace with tax collectors, yet they did not comprise his inner circle. What about Matthew, you ask? Matthew was no longer defined as a tax collector; he had repented. He was defined as a disciple. The men who still identified as tax collectors were less intimate but still loved, living in the in-between of invitation and curiosity without acceptance and repentance.
Here’s another important distinction: Matthew 18 is about sin against you. It does not apply to all sin in general. Rather, the Matthew 18 process is designed so that we may have reconciliation with those who have sinned against us by addressing that wound directly and honestly, with truth and grace, in a way where kindness hopefully leads to repentance (repentance is “turning from the sin”).
In the case of a biblical process of conflict resolution, in situations where the steps have all been followed and the other party remains unrepentant, though, the person who is treated “like a tax collector” mustn’t be in your inner circle. Just as unrepentant sin in our own lives creates a barrier in our relationship with God, so it does between believers. Failing to acknowledge this by continuing to subject ourselves as victims of ongoing, unrepentant sin can perpetuate abuse and cause a desensitization toward sin, a pathological refusal to call it what it is because doing so would biblically require us to take certain actions. Or it can cause a dysfunctional callousing of our own hurt, a tendency to pretend we are okay when we are not. This is a sort of emotional self-harm, a devaluing of ourselves as Image-bearing co-heirs with Christ.
One final distinction: when God invites us to turn from sin, he does not do so from a place of hurt. Rather, he does it from a place of love and tenderness. He does so from a deep desire to be close to us, and I believe this posture maximizes the chances of repentance and healing. There is evil in the world, and there are times when others intentionally and maliciously hurt us. But most times, people hurt others because of their immaturity or the blindness caused by their own wounds. And as God works in their hearts, they can change. In such cases, sometimes it is helpful for me to meditate on Jesus's prayer on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” It also helps me to remember we have been forgiven so much more than the forgiveness we are called to offer in this specific situation, and we are instructed to forgive again and again and again.
I invite you to consider this: are you living at peace with everyone in your life, as far as it depends on you? God wants you to enjoy the freedom and integrity of doing so. He may be calling you to reexamine an old situation, to make an apology or to follow up or to confront someone who has sinned against you. Sometimes the Bible makes it clear how we should do this, but often, we benefit from pursuing wise counsel, journeying with others who have gone before us or who are especially gifted and/or skilled in such areas. Asking advice from fools is worse than not asking at all, but walking with the wise will make you wise, bringing with it many other blessings.
May we be at peace with everyone, even the tax collectors in our lives — those reformed and those in process. May we see them the way God sees them. May we love them, even when we are not able to have the intimacy our hearts desire. May God continue to bring healing to our fractured relationships through his goodness and our obedience.
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