This is going to be a multi-post topic, the reasons which shall be obvious as we go through this. This past week, I rejoiced to pay off the former owner of a business I bought. Since January, he has used attorney threats against me and turned a deaf ear to my requests to sit down and talk to resolve his concerns. For the four years prior, sitting down, talking through, and resolving our differing points of view is how we handled our relationship. I don’t know why he changed, he won’t respond to requests to meet.
As I said, this is going to be a multi-post topic, and so I won’t get into all the things I hope to write about. Let’s just start with lawfare. It is a real thing.
There is simply NO WAY that I can reconcile a Christian’s decision to go to war against another Christian. Neither could Mark Twain. Read that here. Don’t skip it.
There is also NO WAY that I can reconcile a Christian’s decision to go to law against another Christian. Here me out. The former business owner was (and as far as I know, still is) a Christian. We had had beautiful fellowship as we worked on this deal together. He selected me as buyer at least partly because of my allegiance to the Lord. He said over and over to me, we don’t need a written contract, our word is good enough. (We did have written contracts, however, a total of 1200 pages)
Throughout the past five months, I have kneeled to pray, asking the Lord for wisdom and help to discern how to handle this conflict. All who have reviewed the details of this, were left puzzled as to what the former owner wanted, how he could have felt injured, and why he wouldn’t have picked up the phone or responded to an email as he had done in former times. As I prayed about this, I was reminded of Mark Twain’s writing. Was the former owner and I both bowing in prayer, asking the Lord for resolution to our issue? Was he asking the Lord for help in conquering me? Was he so sure of his methods that he felt assured that the Lord was smiling upon him and frowning upon me?
I was not perfect in my love for the former owner during this time, and yet I can say with a clear conscience that my desire was always, and still is reconciliation. Will we really meet in Heaven with this unresolved conflict still between us? We will sit down and talk in Heaven even though he wouldn’t do so on earth?
I asked you to hear me out. Is it ever okay for a Christian to go to law? I think yes. But not for a Christian to go to court against a Christian. Because we have Matthew 18 as our method to solve grievances. We have ‘suffer wrong’ as our method to forgive and move on. I don’t believe the ‘suffer wrong’ means an unlimited get-out-of-jail-free card so don’t worry about it going to that extreme. You can suffer wrong here and there, even from a fellow Christian. However, any Christian who continues to insist you suffer wrong is himself in the wrong and should be rebuked, eventually before all the church. Matthew 18 also puts limits upon the licentiousness of a sinning Christian. If you have been told your trespass and you resist accountability and remedy, it is brought before others in the church to judge, and then before the whole church. If you fail to hear the whole church who would side with the trespassed-against brother, then you are not a Christian…you are an unbeliever against which the Law and laws again have effect.
That’s why a Christian can’t take a Christian to court. If so, then both parties haven’t remained as Christians. Maybe they are in name. Denominational boundaries don’t change our standing or responsibilities to each other.
Going back to earlier – how can two children in a dispute not go to their own Father for resolution? If they were to go to another father, imagine the perversion. Authority? Relationship? Trust? Standards? Culture? Resolution? So, I pray to my God and Father for help resolving this issue–I continue to even though my brother has no legal actions that he can take anymore–because he was my brother before he went to the law, and I hope he is restored as my brother after he repents and sees his sin. The Holy Spirit is surely working with him.