The Rooted Podcast

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think they're trying to shape us into a particular kind of person. It might be a cliché, but to try to think, well, what would Jesus do? With conflict, you get more than you bargained for. Something that's really struck me from reading Proverbs is that most of them aren't really focused on large-scale conflict like that. It's much more to do with relationships. A hastily sent email is a dangerous thing. If you don't deal with that problem pretty quickly,

Because it's a water source, it will go downstream and it will affect all kinds of other things. How helpful or otherwise is this sort of 24-hour news cycle? How can we actually pray about the conflicts that we're really worried about today? What is the message of hope that we have as Christians? You're listening to the Rooted Podcast from Bible Society. In each series, we take a closer look at a theme or book of the Bible and explore its relevance in our lives today.

This is our series on Proverbs. Hi everyone and welcome back to The Rooted Podcast. I'm Mark and I'm joined this week by Esther and by Rachel Jones, who contributed to the Proverbs edition of Rooted. Rachel, you haven't been with us before. Do you want to tell us just a little bit about yourself? I haven't yet. It's great to be here. Thank you so much for work. I work as an editor at The Good Book Company, which mainly involves

helping authors develop their manuscripts and also includes a little bit of writing myself. Yeah, and I'm part of a church here in Southwest London. Love being part of that church family. And I'm also a student studying theology at the moment as well, part-time. yeah, lots to keep me out of, Miss Jeev. Lots going on there. Right. Well, you're most welcome anyway. So look forward to hearing what you have to say. So before we jump into the conversation, let me just remind you to leave us a review or a rating.

and be sure to share this episode with a friend if you like it. So we're going to carry on with our discussions in proverbs. There is a lot in proverbs about conflict, how we identify it and how to avoid it. It just seems to be a major theme. So we're going to explore it together in this episode. I thought we'd begin with just half a dozen proverbs which give us a flavor of what we're talking about.

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I've asked Esther and Rachel just to read them in turn. Esther, do you want to take us away? Absolutely. Proverbs 10 verse 12, hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers all wrongs. Proverbs 13 verse 10, where there is strife, there is pride, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.

Proverbs 15 verse 18, a hot tempered person stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel.

Proverbs 17 verse 1, better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting with strife. And finally, Proverbs 17 verse 14, starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam, so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out. Right, there are some lovely ones there, aren't there? I love the one which says better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.

Well, they all kind of cut to the heart of things, don't they? I mean, they're quite short and pithy sayings, but there's tons going on under the surface. I wonder if we could maybe just start by thinking about what we mean by conflict and maybe think of some examples that we can just bring forward about what a conflict might actually look like.

Yeah, well, I think this is a really good question because when you say conflict, I think most of the time my mind goes large scale and I'm thinking about wars and things like that. But actually something that's really struck me from reading proverbs is that most of them aren't really focused on large scale conflict like that. It's much more to do with relationships that we have in our homes and in our communities. So I guess conflict in that sense, it's...

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being unpleasant, it's being against those who are around you, it's stirring things up, it's not promoting harmony. Does that ring true with you, Rachel? Yeah, definitely. mean, there's all sorts of contexts in which we can be drawn into conflicts. Think about work, church, that's often where conflict is really painful. And I think often not just in person,

but also in writing. mean, a hastily sent email is a dangerous thing, isn't it? It's a very dangerous thing. Always, always remove the recipient when writing the email and then go away and come back again. But yeah, we can do a lot of damage with our tongues and also with our keyboards. Yeah, such, such good advice there. I did wonder about whether to share this story as it is not at all creditable to me actually.

I used to be on Twitter, I used to spend a lot of time on Twitter actually when I was a journalist. And I remember getting into a row which lasted all day with somebody who had sent a sort offhand tweet saying something about Jesus never having existed. So I sort of immediately dived in with the

Yeah, and the moon landings were fake. Did you know that too? You know, something desperately sarcastic. And well, it turned out this chap was quite a senior journalist who was really not used to being contradicted. And so it sort of degenerated into a whole day of snarky emails between us. I must admit, part of me quite enjoyed it because he was really easy to wind up. But I got to the end of the day, I thought, I've spent so much time on this. I have not won him.

to my point of view at all. I've just succeeded in annoying him and I do not look back on that with any kind of pride to be perfectly honest. That's one of the reasons I came off Twitter actually. It's so easy to rise to people who are, well, I don't know, I think they're obviously talking nonsense, but that doesn't mean that I have to stoke the flames of the conflict, does it? It's just that temptation to be right and to say something which you really shouldn't say.

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And I needed to spend more time in proverbs, I think. And actually that kind of illustrates a lot of what we saw in those verses. I love the imagery of that one. Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam. And this idea that it's quite a small hole you might make in a dam, but then this whole rushing water will burst out and flood everything. And that idea that with conflict,

You get more than you bargained for most of the time. You send one tweet, one email, and then your whole day is taken over by trying to prove a point. Absolutely. And I am that man. I am that man. It's interesting, Rachel, isn't it, what you were saying about conflict in church. And you would think that that was the last place.

you would find conflict, wouldn't you? Because that surely is the place where we're all supposed to get on with each other. you know, isn't church a place that's full of love and harmony and peace and all the rest of it? It's certainly meant to be. But I do think there is hope for us because at least in the church community, we do have these teachings and we have the teachings of Jesus. I think all of us can

be guilty of falling into that trap, getting sucked into conflict, especially if our feelings are hurt, you know, so we're speaking out of pain. But the idea within the community of believers is that we bring each other to reconciliation. And I, you know, there will be times when we get it wrong, but what happens after that is equally as important, forgiving each other, reconciling, coming to an agreement.

moving forward. I don't know, I mean, hopefully churches are good at that, just as good at that as they are sometimes as getting into a mess. It's interesting reading Paul's letters, isn't it, from that point of view, because, you know, he wrote to churches which weren't, you know, quite often not full of peace and harmony. You could take almost any of his letters actually. I don't think there are any criticisms in Philippians, but when he writes to

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Galatians, he's boiling mad for sure. And there's a lot of disharmony in that church and Corinthians as well, all sorts of goings on there. And again, you know, a lot of internal conflict. So I suppose I'm just thinking there's nothing new there really. And churches are not always the joyful and harmonious places that they ought to be. I suppose one of the things is that things matter really in churches and you know, people

People feel things deeply because sometimes they feel that there might be a point of principle involved or relationships are that much more intense. So when there's a breach in the fellowship, then it's easier for the, like the dam breaching, things come out. don't know. One reason we might have an absence of conflict is that we're just not that close to anyone. We're not close enough to anyone for them to annoy us or for us to annoy them.

So yeah, if there aren't opportunities to be bearing with one another patiently, actually sometimes that's a sign of relational distance rather than relational health. Gosh, that's a really challenging thing to say, but that really strikes home, doesn't it? I think as well, just because you mentioned Galatians, Mark, obviously near the end of Galatians, we get the teaching about the fruits of the spirit and so much of that is about,

patience and kindness and self-control. And I think the Proverbs speak into that a lot as well about, well, they sort of illustrate what are the effects of staring at hatred. But on the other hand, when we're kind, when we are righteous or whatever, what does that look like instead? How do we solve these problems? So I'm encouraged by that. And I think the church is a place as well where we can

see quite directly that transformation that happens when we have been going down this route, but we realise we're going wrong. We ask the Holy Spirit to help us and then we see how life-giving that is and how healing it is. And the opposite of course is destructive. think that's another thing that the imagery in Proverbs is really great at capturing. Just looking at Proverbs 26 verse 20.

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Without wood, a fire goes out. Without a gossip, a quarrel dies down. That idea that conflict is like a fire, it so easily springs out of control and it does so much damage and it can really hurt lots of people. A lot of these proverbs seem to be about the kind of person you are. It talks about a quarrelsome person, for instance, and that just makes me wonder.

you know, what sort of person is a quarrelsome person? What makes somebody quarrelsome rather than peace loving? And is it just something in us which just makes us want to gossip? Is it about power? Is it about, I don't know, just wanting people to look at us and notice us and to be in control of something? Yeah, I mean, I think you can see all sorts of motives kind of coming through in these proverbs.

I was really struck by 13 verse 10, where there is strife, there is pride, but wisdom is found in those who take advice. that idea of pride being at the heart of conflict, both kind of a wounded pride that maybe I want to defend, but guess the second half of the verse, know, wisdom is found in those who take advice. you know, the first half of the, that kind of illuminates the first half of the verse.

And that idea of wanting to do my things, my way or the highway, and everyone else needs to get on board or else. So yeah, think a lot of conflict kind of comes down to pride. Yeah. I just feel in modern life as well, if I think about how I see conflict mostly played out today, we're encouraged all the time.

to be in conflict with one another, really. I think you mentioned that thing about, you know, needing to be right, maybe. But I think lots of us, if you make that a question of what does it mean to be good and moral? And if you set aside the Bible, I think people's views on that, what is moral, what is right in any given situation can be quite different. And when they take their own interests into account, if they're thinking, well, this is not good for me.

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And it's not good for these people that I care about, therefore I'm against it. And I just think we see a lot, you know, maybe, I don't know that it is so much in my own personal life, but definitely in society and in the news and in, on social media, it sets up a series of clashes and then it forms this sense of us against them.

You know which side you're on and you spend time building up all these reasons why the other side is wrong and why you're right and what needs to be done about it. we see, you know, it can spill out from social media into the streets. We see marches and counter marches. There are debates in parliament, two sides. We have sort of parties that are not aligned on what is right and just. So conflict is sort of everywhere.

And what I find so encouraging about Psalms, but also where it becomes, I mean, the standard is so high, is because it's not about any given society. It's about God above all societies. It's about his law, his righteousness, what is good in his eyes. And that's what the wise way is, is to seek that. But I guess that's why it's applicable to any situation, but it's not.

I mean, how do you get everybody on board with that? That's the question. you know, there's a tension in our society. Yeah, it's interesting. We've said before in this series that Proverbs was probably written in part as an instruction manual for young aristocrats, you know, the people who would end up in positions of responsibility, ruling and administering the country.

And so there's so much practical wisdom there really isn't there that really needs to filter down and sort of permeate the whole of society. We've been thinking about conflict as a negative thing and Proverbs, obviously it warns us repeatedly to avoid conflict. But are there times when we shouldn't avoid conflict? Are there times when actually we need to

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confront people and face them down and just engage with them and say that's not right or I don't agree with that. Rachel, I don't know what you think? Yeah, I was quite struck by Proverbs 25 verse 26, which says, a muddied spring or a polluted well are the righteous who give way to the wicked. And I suppose there's this sense and you get it in the New Testament as well that, you know, persistent

unrepentant sin doesn't belong in God's community. And that's kind of context that you get Jesus' advice. If your brother sins against it, first address him, just the two of you. If he doesn't listen to you, then take someone else. And then if he doesn't listen even then, then tell it to the whole church. Or thinking of Paul writing to the Corinthians, they weren't confronting

someone in unrepentant sin and he tells them that they need to expel the unbeliever from your midst. That's very confronting. There is this sense that we don't stand by while people who bear the name of Jesus continue in unrepentant sin. We don't stand by while the weaker downtrodden or the

The widow and orphan are not given their due. Yeah. So, all these things might lead to confrontation. And that's a challenge for some of us who are, I've heard it compared, know, rhinos versus hedgehogs. Some of us are rhinos. I read this in one of our books recently called The Art of Disagreement. And some of us are rhinos and we go charging in and some of us are hedgehogs and we curl up.

And actually the author Gavin Arland, was making the point that we need both and each of us needs to be a little more like the other one. Actually, that's good that we can learn something from each other. And as long as our goal is justice, is all the good and godly things, whether we're a rhino or a hedgehog or a bit of both, we're aiming at the right, a life-giving

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result. I love the rhino hedgehog thing, that's great. I think we know, I mean, it's one of these things that, you know, people talk about, you know, being conflict averse. And I think quite a few of us are conflict averse actually. you know, the rhinos tend to come out on top because they aren't challenged when maybe they need to be challenged. And

I'm just thinking about it from a work situation, thinking back over my own life and experience really as well, because I think I am much less conflict averse now than I used to be. I think one of the things that's helped me to change is just working in places with really good cultures of, well, don't call it confrontation really, call it just discussion and openness. Certainly I feel that.

I feel that here at Bible Society, you know, that we can have frank and honest conversations. And I think people are heard if they have different views or unpopular views. But, you know, certainly in my own past, I wasn't always like that. I mean, I think I used to be a Baptist minister. And I think back to my very early days when I was really young in ministry.

and there was one of the deacons of the church who was particularly, shall we say, forceful. you know, it's quite difficult to deal with that sort of stuff when you're young, you're not particularly sure of yourself. And, you know, there was a point at which he threatened to resign unless he got his own way. And I remember I caved at the time and I've always regretted it. I mean, it wasn't about anything particularly major.

But I think nowadays I just say, go. But you learn, don't you? And I think building a culture in church or at work or even in your family life actually, where people can have these honest conversations and stand up for what they think is right and not feel bullied or intimidated is really, really important. I feel in myself that I am naturally conflict avoidant.

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bit of a people pleaser to be honest. So it's always very tempting to just agree or to make something work even if deep down I think, I don't know if this is right. But sometimes I get that feeling where my heart just beats a little bit harder and I'm like, no, I have to say something. And I think that verse that you shared, Rachel, it talked about when you give way to the wicked. Like a muddied spring or a polluted well are the righteous who give way to the wicked.

Yeah. And what gets me on that is like, if you don't deal with that problem pretty quickly, because it's a water source, it will go downstream and it will affect all kinds of other things. And it's so much harder to solve a problem that's spread. You know, there are certain things where if you give way on kind of fundamental truths, for example, like, and then the consequences of that filter out into society, it's very difficult to put the genie back in the box to say,

you know what, we got that wrong, let's unpick and undo all of those things. That's so much harder and so much more damage and pain comes from that than probably the pain that it would cause me. Right at the moment, I first heard the idea, you know, speaking theoretically and just said, this is not right. This is not going to lead to flourishing. This is not good. mean, we've talked about conflicts.

on quite a personal level really from our own sort of experience. But what about international conflicts? mean, there are far too many of those going on at the moment, aren't there? I mean, are the roots of these just the same as personal conflicts, but just kind of scaled up or are they of a different nature entirely? Do they have things in common?

I'm sure they've got lots in common. mean, yeah, because at the end of the day, you know, nations are made out of people and they're led by people and people all fundamentally have the same problem, which is the problem of the heart, isn't it? So, yeah, I think it's easy to see a lot of egos on the world stage at the moment. yeah, watching how that plays out is, yeah.

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I think that kind of idea that pride being at the heart of lots of strife definitely rings true. Yeah, mean, I guess pride also greed, injustice. So I think a lot of these things, but the problem, I guess, when it scales up and it's not just one person in a community, the more people who get involved, the more entrenched it becomes, the greater the damage that can be done and the harder it is to stop it because...

If I get into a conflict, just me, and somebody speaks to me and says, know, we need to stop this or whatever, I can change my mind and hopefully the other, offended parties will be very forgiving. It sort of dies down and hopefully it's contained. But once it's nation against nation and in today's globalised world, other nations will get involved. They'll be like, okay, well, we're going to be, we're allied with these people. And how do you stop that?

And I think that's something we're seeing in the news at the moment, isn't it? Where people are trying to enter into negotiations, but how can you negotiate people's satisfaction? I think there's an interesting question as to like, how helpful or otherwise is this sort of 24 hour news cycle? Because again, in Proverbs, there's this sort of character of someone who kind of is entering a conflict that's not theirs, this sort of third party that's getting involved, you know? So again, Proverbs 26.

Like one who grabs a stray dog by the ears is someone who rushes into a quarrel, not their own. Or again, without wood, a fire goes out. Without a gossip, a quarrel dies down. And yeah, I do sometimes think this, you know, the news cycle is sort of perpetuating situations and yeah, I don't know. Yeah. So I was just sort of thinking, thinking of that in terms of that character in proverb that's sort of adding fuel to the fire.

Yeah, that's really interesting. The 24-hour news cycle and the whole online conversation as well, that's all adding fuel to the fire, isn't it? And just making things worse. And I suppose one of the other things it does is just underline the need for there to be at least some people who take Proverbs seriously and to take peacemaking seriously.

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And Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers. And I guess even if people don't seem to be listening, there need to be that core of people, that core of disciples who will just try and avoid feeding the flames and just try and do the right thing and say the right thing and orient their lives on the teaching of Jesus. Yeah. I mean, one actual verse

that does talk about putting an end to quarrels. This is from the ESV, it's Proverbs 18 verse 18. It says, lot puts an end to quarrels and decides between powerful contenders. And I thought it would be interesting to discuss this because I think there must be something contextual about this idea of casting lots. It's not really something we do today, I don't think.

But how could it translate to today? Does anybody have any thoughts on that? Where that idea of casting lots comes from? How could that resolve the quarrel? Well, think it's, I can't remember exactly where it comes from. It's probably Leviticus, think, originally, something like that. But I think the idea is that you cast lots and it's not just leaving the upshot to chance. It's not like us.

rolling dice or anything like that. This is a prayerful process and however it was done, you were effectively saying, we are handing this over to you, God, and we want you to decide for us and we will abide by the results of the lot that we cast because we believe that your hand is on the dice, as it were.

And so it's about, I mean, I think it's about submission to the will of God, which is a very challenging idea. And it is quite difficult to imagine how you kind of replicate that, isn't it, today? suppose that would only really work within a community of believers because everybody would have to be believing in God, trusting that he's in this process of us casting lot.

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and you don't really have that on an international scale. Instead, suppose negotiation means looking for, you know, everybody gets something. But that's different, isn't it? Or it might mean, I suppose, looking for some common ground which everybody admits is right. You know, if they can...

negotiations where everybody agrees what the desirable outcome might be. That's almost a way of saying, okay, well, you know, these are the goals that we're all working towards. But that still requires people to submit, doesn't it? To, you know, some sort of morality or some sort of account of ethics, which is bigger than themselves. And that's what makes it so difficult when

you've got a hot war going on or you've got generations of hostility. It's really difficult. I think it sort of underlines the inherent limits of human wisdom. mean, it's interesting, it comes right after verse which says, a lawsuit, the first to speak seems right until someone comes forward and cross examines. First that shows us that there definitely was a place for

due process in Israelite society and there were witnesses and judges who decided cases rather than always casting lots. yeah, guess both of those verses show the limits of human wisdom and there's so much that we don't know. again, just thinking about international conflicts at the moment and just the long histories.

I can read the headlines on a Tuesday morning, but there's just so much I don't know. Just centuries of history. At the end of the day, that's why we appeal to the Lord. We appeal to the Lord to be settling these disputes and to be working in ways that only he knows is wise. This is what I've been thinking really.

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It's so easy to become, to feel helpless and just...

just so discouraged when you look at what's going on, when you start going into the history and just thinking, I don't even know what's right. I don't even know if I can trust the news accounts that I'm being given. You know, what narrative are they giving me? Is that actually the truth? As a Christian, I just keep landing on all I can do is pray about this. But I think potentially to people who are not believers, that can sound like a platitude, can't it? They'll say, know, hopes and prayers sort of thing. And they sort of scoff at that.

But I would love to know if either of you have any sort of thoughts and advice on, just ideas, experience like praying around these issues of conflict. How can we pray in a way that is, you know, I guess also what action can we take in our own spheres, but I'd love to encourage our listeners and be encouraged myself.

Like, how can we actually pray about the conflicts that we're really worried about today? I think one of the things that strikes me is how the Proverbs are so much about the kind of person that we are. It's not that they have answers for every situation, but I think they're trying to shape us into a particular kind of person.

And what you're saying about prayer, Esther, I think is really important because if we're sensible, we are probably not going to pray. At least I wouldn't feel comfortable praying that, for instance, that Ukraine would win the war against Russia. I'd far rather pray that there will be a just and lasting peace. And I have been doing that for

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the last couple of years. And when I really think about this and when I try and put myself into the position of the different combatants, when I try and see how they're feeling and what they're desiring and so on and so forth, then I find that it kind of expands my mind and it expands my heart. And part of me is just grief stricken at the whole affair.

but part of me just wants to try and understand things more. And I think that's a very Proverbs way of approaching things actually, that we are taught things by our prayers and we learn as we come to God in that attitude of prayer. It just reminds me of a book that I was, well, as I was reading it, I wasn't really reading, I was skimming through it. It's called The Chimp Paradox.

It's described as a mind management program and the author basically says there are two people living in our heads and one is the rational human side and the other is the instinctive chimp side. And the chimp side is the emotional one, the one that just reacts to stimuli and gets angry or upset or whatever.

leading a right kind of life, he says, is all about learning how to control your chimp, your inner chimp. And he calls that the human side. Well, I would prefer to call that the disciple side. That's the bit of us which wants to conform to God's plan for us, to God's intention for us and to try and

rein in our instinctive reaction to things and to think, well, you know, it might be a cliche, but to try to think, well, what would Jesus do? Yeah, in terms of praying for situations, know, a habit that I've always found really helpful is praying scripture. That's what we see the believers in Acts 4 do when, you know, Peter and John have been arrested and they've been beaten and then they are released from prison and reunited with the believers.

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The believers pray and they pray the words of Psalm 2 to fuel their prayers. In Proverbs, we see the kind of human being that God wants us to be. We see what a wise person looks like. I think it's a great way of putting the flesh on the bones. We pray for wisdom for our leaders and that's a great thing to pray. But Proverbs shows us exactly what wisdom looks like.

And so these are great verses to kind of pick up and pray for our leaders as they seek to champion the cause of peace and justice and praying that they would be people who are not hot tempered and stirring up conflicts, but people who are patient, people who don't love to quarrel, people who aren't proud, using these proverbs to stimulate our prayers.

Well, and I guess people who long for more than just what war and endless conflict brings. I just wanted to pick up on what you said, Mark, actually about how complicated it is to pray for specific conflicts, particularly, you know, ones that are across the world and they're so complex. We don't know every facet of it. And sometimes we might pray for a certain outcome, but how do we know that that's completely aligned with

what God would have us pray, you know. I thought it was really interesting in Proverbs 24, this is verses 17 to 18, it says, not rejoice when your enemy falls and let not your hearts be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased and turn away his anger from him. I thought that was so interesting because

It's sort of natural, isn't it? I suppose if countries are at war and then somebody is defeated or somebody who's powerful in the opposition is removed, the temptation would be to sort of crow over that, to mock and be like, you know, and to belittle that person. But actually Proverbs seem to be saying, no, that also isn't good.

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God doesn't want that from you. What a challenge though. And definitely, if we were talking about the sort of chimp response or that emotional response, that's maybe an immediate thing. But how does God want us to wait and weigh things up differently? Yeah, that's so interesting. And doesn't that go straight to the Sermon on the Mount as well, where Jesus said, your enemies and pray for those who despitefully use you? Well,

I think we're coming towards an end, but let me just ask the question, what is the message of hope that we have as Christians because we believe in a God who is wise? I've been so struck reading these proverbs that show us what wisdom looks like because they also show us what God is like. God is slow to anger. He is not quarrelsome. He is patient. Even just thinking about the mess

The world is in, I've been thinking about 2 Peter 3, where it says, know, the Lord is not slow in keeping his promise as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. And the idea that the world is a mess and, you know, we know that Jesus is going to come back and he's going to put it right.

But where is he? That's what the Christians are asking. Why doesn't he hurry up? And it's because God is patient and he is waiting for people to repent. And I just think that's a wonderful picture of who God is. And that is a great place to end. Thanks so much, Rachel. And thank you, Esther. I think we will wrap it up there. And I hope you've enjoyed our conversation and we'll see you again next time.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Rooted Podcast. To find out more about Bible Society's mission to invite people to discover the Bible for themselves in England, Wales and around the world, visit biblesociety.org.