Tim Keller’s podcast using this title caught my attention – it’s what I have spent years studying, engaging and practicing as well as trying to find the best ways to walk alongside folks in broken relationships.
While I recommend you listen to his full podcast, I extracted core pieces here which rang so true for me — and accurately reflected my experience and knowledge in the Christian conciliation field. He really captured me when he called this the “handy dandy relationship repair tool kit”.
Wouldn’t you like to have one of those?
It won’t surprise you that the biblical text from which he drew heavily is Proverbs. The book about wisdom. And while wisdom is about being good and moral, it is a lot more – it is about being so in touch with reality that you know the right thing to do in the large majority of life situations (including the ones that the moral rules don’t directly address).
His example? …..let’s just say you’ve got something to say to a friend that is going to be hard for that person to hear, but good for them. You have something to say that is true, hard and good.
Should you tell them now?
Should you tell them later?
Or should you only tell them if certain circumstances present themselves?
Or should you not tell them at all?
Any one of those options is morally allowable. The moral rules don’t distinguish between them but one or two of them will probably destroy the relationship and maybe harm the person. And one or two of them might bring great good to the person. Which do you choose?
Boy – Keller knows how to “tee it up” for interest, right? And I am looking for the quick and easy answer: cut here, paste there and voila, you have the solution. Not so fast (as you probably imagined).
But he is also simple and direct. He says “It doesn’t matter how good or moral you are if you are stupid.” And the book of Proverbs says you need to get wisdom. It is not enough just to be good, you need to be wise.
Then he narrowed it down to the area of wisdom related to relationships. He so correctly stated that you can’t make it in life without the right relationships. Relationships will make or break your life, and, therefore, you won’t make it unless you are wise enough to know how and why relationships tend to break down and how you can repair them.
AMEN!
So he takes us on a trip through Proverbs 24 looking at it under 3 headings:
…the need for relationship repair
…the components of relationship repair
…the heart of relationship repair
The NEED –
The main reason why relationships are constantly in need of repair or maintenance takes us to Proverbs 10:18 “Whoever conceals hatred with lying lips and spreads slander is a fool.”
He adds a bit of an English lesson here – we think of “hatred” as “screaming anger” but in the Bible, the word hate very often is used a bit differently. Keller suggests biblical hate is more like “ill will”. You will recognize that you are having ill will for someone when you can find happiness in their unhappiness.
Look at Proverbs 24:17 –
“Do not gloat when your enemy falls;
When they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice….”
There it is – when you see somebody and you have ill will toward them, you know it because when they mess up, put their foot in it, are embarrassed or someone puts them down….you like it. You find their unhappiness pleasant – or, if it is not happening, you root for it, for their comeuppance, and when it happens, you smile inside.
Keller says that is hatred, or the seeds of hatred. And then he asks “What do we do with our hatred?” The answer? We conceal it – not only conceal it from the person, but mainly we conceal it from ourselves.
And if you don’t think you do this, Keller suggests you take a look at the Sermon on the Mount – you will have the same problem there. Jesus said “You shall not murder…” (Matthew 5:21) but then goes on to say that if you look at someone and call them ‘fool’ or call them ‘raca’ (which means ‘you nobody’), then you are guilty of hellfire. At first read, that sounds rather “over the top”. You say “that’s not murder” – maybe disdain, ill will. Jesus says, ‘how do you think murder starts?’
Hate is there – whether you conceal it well or refuse to call it what it is. When you are talking about that person to other folks, that’s where it comes out. It is slander. (Keller points out “slander” in Proverbs is not meaning a false report – simply means a bad report.)
It does not mean you can never say anything of negative evaluation of someone, but here is what Keller says it is saying – any communication designed to diminish the person in the eyes of the listener is slander….because it is ill will.
Now – you see why relationship repair is inevitable? Because when this begins to happen, community is destroyed. Relationship is destroyed. Now — do you see this happening around you almost every day?
Every day you see people who are kind of ruthless, selfish, or they are blowhards or they are full of themselves. Almost automatically, you begin to look at them and begin to hope that somebody will put them in their place. But if you do it and you let yourself do it…according to Proverbs’ text, you are a ‘fool’. And don’t forget what the fool is – not just being silly, it is being destructive.
Keller suggests if you want to see how this twists you and destroys you and the person toward whom you have the feeling, look at v. 28-29:
Do not testify against your neighbor without cause—
Would you use your lips to mislead?
Do not say, “I’ll do to them as they have done to me;
I’ll pay them back for what they did.”
There you have it – look what has happened. Someone wrongs you – ill will – you begin to root for that person to be unhappy. But unfortunately, some don’t get unhappy – so you begin to say I have to make them unhappy – I can go say in court that they did this. OK, you say, it’s a lie, but he lied against me. He did this to me….
And look at what happened – the evil done to you is shaping you into its own image – you are becoming what you hate and you can’t even see it. The power of ill will, hate in this little seed form, can begin to twist and shape you and, in a sense, defeat you. Sadly, this happens all the time.
The COMPONENTS of a relationship repair–
According to Keller’s unpacking of this Proverbs chapter, there are 4 Components:
…you have to resist the superiority
…you have to release from liability
…you must overcome evil with good, and only if you have done all that….
…you can confront as necessary
As Keller says, it is brilliant, it is wise, it’s complete and it is all in the book of Proverbs.
Unfortunately, I have to waaay over-condense his full explanation, but I hope you will get the picture (and desire to go listen to his full sermon).
First – you have to resist the superiority. Look at Proverbs 11:12-13 “A man who lacks judgment, derides his neighbor but a man of understanding holds his tongue. A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.”
What is the root of ill will? …what is the soil in which ill will, gossip, slander, all grows? Derision, which means to look down on someone. We maintain resentment by saying deep down in our heart “I would never do that”…and the pride swells.
You cannot stay angry at somebody unless you feel superior to them. When the sense of superiority is gone, the ill will goes away.
Keller points to “when a man who lacks judgment derides his neighbor” which literally says in translation that when a man without a heart looks down on his neighbor. A man without a heart.
In English the word “heart” means the seat of your emotions – so the above could mean someone who is unfeeling. But the bible talks about the word “heart” as the very core of your being – the seat of your entire personality (mind, will and emotions). Essentially, it is who you are, your soul.
So, when the Bible says the man without a heart looks down on his neighbor, it is saying the superiority with which we treat the people around us is a symptom of something wrong at the very core of our being. No minor blip or problem here. It gets to the Biblical teaching that every human being desperately wants to call the shots in his or her own life. We all want to be in charge, in control of our own lives – we want to determine ourselves what we do. And the bible says, according to Keller, at some very deep level, we know in doing that we are putting ourselves in the place of God.
What else creeps in here? Every human being goes out into the world radically insecure and in desperate need of self-justification. We constantly need to prove to people that we are OK, all right. And when someone fails in front of us, or especially fails US, that self-justification apparatus goes into “hyper-drive” immediately, according to Keller. We begin to say about the failing person “what a dolt, how idiotic, how stupid”. We use their failure to somehow show we are OK.
And we are so good at deceiving ourselves about this — If they lied to you, you think of them as nothing but a liar. Now if you lied, it is different. You are complex – there is another side to it, etc. (you get my drift)
Secondly, after resisting the superiority, you must release them from liability. What does that mean?
Notice what Keller calls the “economic language” – Proverbs 24:28 “Do not say, “I’ll do to them as they have done to me; I’ll pay them back for what they did.” That is a grudge – resentment. I am going to get out of him what he got out of me!! That’s economic – I hold him liable for what he has done.
But in Proverbs 17:9, we have a wonderful example of what it means to forgive. It says “Whoever would foster love covers over an offense, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.” You might think it is talking about covering up an offense – not so. Add on the verse Proverbs 27:6 “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”
It is saying that the most unloving thing possible is to let someone go on just doing the wrong thing. Therefore, it does not mean to cover up – it means to stop repeating it. And do you know why you are repeating it? You are exacting the cost, making them pay the debt – you have been repeating it to yourself (which is the perfect example of what it means to have a grudge). And as a result, you may repeat it to other people under the guise of warning them, you slander the person – repeat and don’t let them forget it. You are harsh, unkind, you tell them off (in your mind or literally).
Ask yourself – do you feel like they owe you something? So what does it mean to cover an offense? It is the opposite of dwelling on it, repeating it, and exacting the cost. To forgive an offense means you pay the cost and release them from the liability.
Here is how Keller put it — Here’s how to forgive somebody. If someone comes to me as a pastor and says ”I don’t know how to forgive”. I say, “I can tell you how to forgive” — I say, you don’t have to feel forgiving first, you have to act out forgiveness first. And if you do forgiveness, eventually you’ll feel forgiveness. They say “how do you do that?”. I say, “simple – don’t repeat. Make a promise, 1) not to bring the matter up to the person who did it to you, 2) not to bring it up again to the other people around you and 3) not to keep bringing it up and up again to yourself.”
What I do love about Keller is his practicality – and honesty. Here is what he said next about the forgiveness process he explained.
“Try that – go home and try it. And you know what is going to happen? The first time you have an opportunity to run that person down but you say “no, I won’t” – ouch! Oh, that hurts – not to do it. And the first time you are ready to kind of indulge yourself in thinking about something in the past and you are going to try to bring it up to yourself, and you say ‘no, no’ , you turn your mind away from it – ouch! Oooo, that hurts. Why does it hurt? Because now you are paying the cost – you are covering it. You are absorbing the debt yourself.
You say, my, that is hard. Yes. Ok, you know what your alternative is? To become a fool. To be twisted into the form of that which twisted you. And those are your only two alternatives. You can either let the evil completely beat you, as you think you are beating it, by fighting fire with fire, by ill will, by resentment, by slander. You can either be defeated utterly by evil – or you can forgive. These are your only two alternatives.”
All I can say is he is so absolutely right – I have witnessed it time and time again in my life and those with whom I counseled.
Third, and just in time, you must overcome evil with good.
Keller goes to Proverbs 25:21 for this wisdom –
“If your enemy is hungry give him food to eat;
If he is thirsty, give him water to drink.”
Most of us, says Keller, when we hear what the Bible says about not having ill will, don’t find your happiness in their unhappiness and don’t have it “in” for somebody, we say, OK, FINE. You just pull back and say “I won’t hate, have ill will…” etc. but you also say “I just don’t care about them. I don’t want to see them or have anything to do with them.” Ooops, Keller laughs and says you still have “ill will” – don’t kid yourself.
What is that? It is “punishing them” – all the while saying you don’t want revenge. He says there is no escape from ill will and the twisting and destructive effects until you begin to learn to positively will their good.
He says it so well – their character flaw has hurt you, but don’t you know that their character flaw is going to hurt them more? Ok, you have been hurt, and you are not going to let them do it any more as you go forward. But he poses a great, insightful question – “Can you hurt more for them than you are hurt by them?” He says that unless you can get there, you are not free from the evil that they have done to you and is now in you and twisting you.
Paul quoted in Romans 12 the Proverbs verse above saying “Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written ‘It is mine to avenge, I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Now, lastly, if you have overcome evil with good, if you have dealt with the superiority, if you have released from the liability and you are absorbing the debt yourself, then and only then can you begin to confront them. Oh yes, only then. Why?
I previously did a blog on this (click HERE), so you know I truly agree with Keller on this verse: “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.” Proverbs 27:6
He emphasizes that it is absolutely unloving to let somebody who is doing wrongs to you and doing wrongs to other people, to just let them go. It’s unloving to the rest of the world who is going to be hurt by them. And it is not loving to the person. Therefore, you must challenge them, you must confront, in love. But here’s what you must see now. Only if you have done the inner forgiveness, will the challenge work.
Keller says it well – I don’t know how many people over the years have said to me, “I don’t want to forgive them. I want justice.” You fool. If you don’t forgive, you will never get justice. Do you recognize that? Because if you don’t get rid of the inner ill will, when you finally go and talk to them, they are going to be able to tell that you are not trying to help them but you are just trying to punish them and they are not going to listen to a thing. And as you express that anger, you are just going to be twisted by it because you are hurting them. And they are going to pay you back, and on and on it will go. If you don’t forgive, you are going to be so angry when you do confront them, it will just make both of you worse.
And there it is. There is your handy-dandy relationship repair tool kit. And here are Keller’s words – “So go home and work on it !” (but pay attention to what he says next….)
Now if you have born with me up to this point, you will realize that what I have just asked you to do is spiritually impossible. It’s psychologically impossible. Especially that stuff about willing their good, absorbing the cost, overcoming that sense of superiority and that self-justification, confronting them without any ill will.
You say “how can I do that?” And Keller would tell you that you are absolutely right to respond that way. He then shares a great story that I can’t give in detail due to space (and this is already too long), but let me give you the upshot.
A professor of Psychology at Harvard University was asked a question by a student – “How does psychotherapy help a person forgive?” Response: “Well, he’ll have to learn to live with it and hopefully not be driven by it. But I don’t know how to help somebody forgive.”
More questions and his responses got more testy until the professor finally said “don’t force your values or your neuroses about forgiveness onto the patient” … which brought the question by the first student “Do you think the words ‘love your enemy’ are rooted in neurosis?”
The professor finally let up and said, “Look, if you guys are looking for a changed heart, I think you are just looking in the wrong department.”
Keller wrapped it up saying psychotherapy can help you understand your hate but cannot help you forgive at all. Forgiveness takes a spiritual power and it takes moral work and psychologists are supposed to be scientific and can’t address those things.
This led Keller to a final – and an important – observation about that spiritual power you need to walk through this repair of relationships. In looking at Proverbs 24:17-18, there is a danger…
“Do not gloat when your enemy falls, when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him.”
Now when you first read that – it is disturbing. Because it really seems to be saying this– like you should go to your enemy and say “I don’t have to pay you back – God’s gonna get you.” “Lord, there is the perpetrator – nuke him”. But is that what it is saying? It can’t be saying in v. 18 you should hope God’s wrath falls on someone because that is exactly what v. 17 says you are not allowed to do.
It is saying this – that when you hate somebody for the sin they perpetrated against you, God is as angry at your hate as He is at the original perpetration. Why? Remember Paul said “vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord”. So, when you have a grudge, ill will, you are putting yourself in the place of the Lord. And that is going to be a disaster.
The only thing that will stop servants from acting as Lords is to behold the absolute beauty of the Lord who became a servant. Voluntarily taking the vengeance we deserved. That’s the heart we are missing if we feel superior to other people and have a grudge and don’t know how to repair the relationship.
Keller’s words are a wonderful closure: To the degree we see the Lord acting as servant, we will stop acting as Lords, we will stop putting ourselves in the judgment seat, we will stop making ourselves the Lords. And then we can go out being peacemakers in this world which so desperately needs peacemakers. I pray the Lord will burn these truths into our hearts and melt us so that we can be those peacemakers.
Not subscribed to my weekly email? Click HERE
