How to Respond to Personal Offenses in the Church

Responding Biblically to Feelings of Hurt and Frustration

Let’s talk about how to respond to personal offenses in the church.

First, learn to delay judgment. Wounded feelings love to bolt from the gate like a racehorse; we are tempted to move from feelings to judgment in a moment’s notice. Thankfully, Scripture counsels us to delay judgment in the interest of a more thorough, levelheaded investigation. Proverbs 18:13 teaches, “If one gives an answer before he hears, / it is his folly and shame.”

Hurt feelings cloud our perception, tempting us to invent details, confuse facts, misremember statements, and stuff self-serving conclusions into the gaps in our knowledge. We all know from experience just how easy it is to supply unreasonable, emotionally charged explanations for why our offender chose to hurt us in a particular way.

But suffering wrong never cancels our need to decelerate judgment. The perception that someone has sinned against me does not give me the sovereign authority to determine reality with respect to myself or my offender. We must let the passing of time unearth facts that may illuminate a more accurate understanding of events. We always want to live according to the truth because truth matters to God. So if hasty judgments and raw emotions crowd out the genuine pursuit of truth, then we need to recognize that our emotions are not helping us. We need to learn to tap the brakes on quick judgments when we are wronged.

Second, consciously entrust yourself to God in prayer. When Jesus suffered unjustly, “he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Pet. 2:23). When we suffer an offense or hurt, we easily rely on fleshly wisdom and fixate on self-reliant counterresponses. But instead, we need to prayerfully place such matters in God’s keeping. We must practice walking by faith, laying down our fleshly weapons, and turning the offense over in prayer to the jurisdiction of our heavenly advocate.

Remind yourself, “This is God’s fight more than it is mine.” Doing so is liberating. His honor, not ours, is at stake. And believe me, he can handle things! As Isaac Watts reminded us, “He sits on no precarious throne.”¹

Third, thoughtfully assess the desires of your heart. Examining your own heart amid hurt is challenging. We can feel so unstable on the inside that the last thing we want to do is take a long look at our hearts. And, of course, you may need to let the dust settle a bit. But spiritual maturity shortens the delay between the initial feelings of woundedness and the first moment of clearheaded self-analysis. Learn to ask these hard questions as early as possible: “What do I most want in this matter? Are my feelings of discontent connected to an unmet desire or a thwarted ambition?”

Questions like these reveal that much of our hurt comes from wounded pride, selfish desire, idolatrously held personal opinions, stubborn refusal to receive correction, an insistence on “being me,” and similar deformities that live in our hearts (see James 4:1–3).

I’ve come to believe that the majority of offenses I have personally suffered in the context of my church would never have occurred apart from sin residing in me. I have also profited by resolving those offenses in the quiet of my soul by identifying and confessing the inordinate and self-serving desires that fueled my offense. Do this. I’m confident you will experience similar benefits.

Fourth, pursue reconciliation with your offender. Sometimes we should practice “overlook[ing] an offense” without saying anything to our offenders (Prov. 19:11; cf. Eph. 4:2; Col. 3:13). This may be the case when the offense is more accidental than intentional or more isolated rather than characteristic. You know that a forgiving spirit turns your heart toward that person, and you can cheerfully move on.

Yet sometimes we should also speak to the offender because our hearts continue to struggle, because we are genuinely concerned about their spiritual condition, or because we know that our relationship needs repair. In these cases, humbly approach your offender not with the goal of venting, getting something off your chest so that you might feel better, or making the person feel bad. If that’s the motivation of your heart, hold back. Take time to pray until you can approach the person in love.

The gospel supplies us with a powerful motivation to forgive those who sin against us.

Then—take two—approach your offender with the goal of repairing your relationship. Believe it or not, Jesus assigned the offended party the responsibility to initiate a conversation with the offender in the interest of peace: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault” (Matt. 18:15; cf. Luke 17:3–4). The apostle Paul’s counsel, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Rom. 12:18), requires not only passive but also active obedience—intentional, proactive peacemaking.

The one option that Jesus does not make available to us is the “in-between” option— something in between cheerfully forbearing and moving on and discussing the offense with our offender. The trouble is, the “in-between” option is easiest and most gratifying to the flesh. We naturally respond to offense by silently stewing in our own sadness. Or by tearing down our offender before others—venting our anger to people who have no right to know about and no capacity to repair our relational rift. We naturally fume, grow bitter, gossip, wallow in self-pity, withdraw, or turn a cold shoulder.

It’s also common to wait for our offender to apologize. “He hurt me,” we reason, “so it’s his job to talk to me. I’m the one hurting here!” Or, “If she doesn’t recognize that she has offended me, that’s all the proof I need that she does not truly love me!” Such relational positioning is poison to the soul; it fractures the unity of the church. It’s the polar opposite of being “eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” that is our high calling as members of Christ’s body (Eph. 4:3).

Jesus perceived the folly of demanding that others read your mind and share your exact feelings. He also torpedoed the silent-suffering approach, which is why, again, he said, “If your brother sins against you, go . . .” Having honest and loving conversations is not an approach our world typically encourages. But we are not followers of the world (1 John 2:15–17).

Striving for reconciliation with others demands that I love Jesus and his church more than I love nursing my sense of offense. Such love for Jesus flows from a Spirit-supplied appreciation that the Lord chose to pursue me, not withdraw; to engage me, not pout; to redeem me, not reject me (Rom. 3:9–18; 5:8–11). Zeal for Christ inspires us to follow in his steps, not hone the craft of erecting relational barriers.

Fifth, pursue forgiveness. The ultimate aim of approaching your offender is forgiveness and reconciliation. Mustering the courage to speak to a fellow church member may prove extremely difficult. Forgiveness may prove harder still.

But the gospel gives us the power to forgive others because we, as followers of Christ, recognize that we are sinners who have received God’s forgiveness ourselves. We are experienced recipients of his reconciling grace—so we have an advantage that unbelievers do not possess. The gospel supplies us with a powerful motivation to forgive those who sin against us (Matt. 18:23–35).

The gospel also satisfies our demand for justice. First, we know that Christ died to pay the full cost of every sin any of our brothers or sisters could ever commit against us (Rom. 4:4–8; 8:1; Col. 2:13–14). Second, we know that on the final day, the Judge of all flesh will render perfect judgment (Ps. 9:7–8; 1 Cor. 4:1–5; 2 Cor. 5:10). We can possess full certainty that no one is ever getting away with anything! Not only may we rest in these tandem truths but we must determine to operate in faith according to them as we relate to other sinners.

We must also think clearly about the communal aspects of biblical forgiveness. Forgiveness isn’t a unilateral process calibrated to free our spirit of the noxious emotions of unforgiveness. The ultimate aim of forgiveness is not us feeling better; it’s reconciliation—and reconciliation is an innately relational enterprise. So forgiveness isn’t an individual quest for relief. It’s a quest for relational restoration that is, to a significant degree, concerned with the unity of Christ’s body. Accordingly, this pursuit will often benefit from, if not require, godly counsel as faithful brothers and sisters in Christ come alongside to help us navigate the reconciliation process.

Responding to hurt in these ways will not erase your suffering. Praise God if one or two of these skills dislodged sin in your heart from which you have now repented.

This article is adapted from What If I’ve Been Hurt by My Church? by Daniel P. Miller.

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