What To Do in Conflict

Moving up the “Hierarchy Ladder”

Photo by Nel Ranoko on Unsplash

Perhaps you have found yourself in the same situation that I often find myself in. Friends of mine from church frequently take out their phones and read some burning text message or some charged email waiting for their response. “Let me just read you what she texted,” a husband might tell me. Or perhaps a small group leader says, “I’ll just show you the screenshot of his Facebook post.” Of course I’ve done this same thing many times. “Hey, can you look at this email and tell me if I’m reading it correctly and if my response is justified?”

This all sounds so healthy, right? After all, doesn’t Proverbs say, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice” (12:15). When we have others read our written communication before we respond, surely we must be headed in the right direction.

But when someone pulls out their phone and thrusts me smack into the center of their conflict, pastoral experience has taught me it’s always a sign that a dozen things have already gone wrong. I might be able to help make it better, but almost invariably responding with the same medium and manicuring the response helps little and often makes the conflict worse. Rarely do interpersonal struggles get better until the people involved move up what I call the “Hierarchy of Communication Ladder.”

What Is the Ladder?

As far as I know, I just made up the phrase hierarchy of communication ladder; maybe social scientists have a better name. Regardless, you likely can intuit what it means. The ladder is a way to quantify the personableness of various modes of communication, a scale from the most personal to the least personal. The rungs of the ladder look something like,

|—| In-person, face-to-face conversation involving food in a home
|—| In-person, face-to-face conversation in a public place
|—| Video conference call
|—| Phone call
|—| Voicemail
|—| Hand-written letter
|—| Typed letter
|—| Email
|—| Text message
|—| Social media exchanges via direct messages
|—| Social media exchanges that “tag” specific people
|—| Social media exchanges to the general public

As you can see, it moves from the various forms of in-person communication to the various forms of written communication. We could further nuance this and come up with “in-between” rungs of the ladder, but I’m not trying to be exhaustive.

My central point is that if you find yourself in a conflict situation and you want to improve the conflict, rather than staying on the same level of the ladder—and certainly rather than moving down the ladder—you need to seek to move up the ladder.

I’m not saying you must jump to the top of the ladder right away. That is rarely workable or advisable. But it’s been my long experience that no matter how well you craft the perfect reply text message, your tone of voice will never be understood as perfectly as if you had responded with a phone call, just as your tone of voice in a phone call will never be understood as perfectly as when the other person can also see your body language. Telling a friend that your feelings got hurt, and then pausing to grab a tissue, creates a different effect than texting a crying emoji.

Is It Biblical?

Many passages of Scripture support such an approach. I think of Jesus’s familiar words in Matthew 18, which warrant quoting in full.

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matt. 18:15–17)

Clearly, Jesus is not dealing with the medium of conflicts we so often deal with (social media, text, email, etc.), although in his time they certainly also had their form of written letters and public pronouncements. You’ll notice in this passage that Jesus assumes we start with in-person communication. This is what he means by saying, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him.” He doesn’t tell us to write a letter to the other believer or send someone else to talk on our behalf, which would be a step down the ladder. The going and telling imply spoken words and visible body language.

The point Jesus makes about taking one or two other people along, if the initial attempts fail, also highlights the necessity of moving up. And if the first conversation doesn’t work, you keep moving up until you reach the point of involving the whole local community of believers—not through sinful gossip but through formal church discipline. In this situation, we’re told that God even moves toward those in the conflict and up the ladder, if you will: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (v. 20).

Consider another passage where Jesus speaks about resolving conflict. In Matthew 5, Jesus says that if you should ever find yourself in the middle of an act of intentional worship of God, yet in that moment realize that another believer has something against you, then you should “leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matt. 5:24). The point is that we might have to put down our Bible reading or pause our singing and praying at church to make things right before we continue in worship.

You’ll notice the urgency and immediacy of it all. “Leave your gift there,” he says, “and go.” Practically for us that might look like receiving a charged text message, and sending a response that says something like, “Okay, thanks. Let me call you in 5 minutes so we can sort that out.” Or maybe you’ll reply, “I’ll stop by tomorrow after work.” But don’t ignore the text for a week and then respond with an essay written with your thumbs.

We can also see this move up the ladder in the parable of the two sons (Luke 15:11–32). The younger, prodigal son doesn’t send a letter asking to return home; he knows his sins require face-to-face interaction, hard as that must have been. When his father sees him a long way off and runs to him, this also implies a move up the ladder. He didn’t stand aloof and wait for his son to grovel. The father also moves up by throwing a party in their home.

When the elder brother hears of the celebration, we see more moves up the ladder.

Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.” But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him. (Luke 15:25­–28)

At first the message of the prodigal’s return gets conveyed back-and-forth through servants. But when the father learns of the older brother’s frustration, he doesn’t send the servants again. The father himself entreats his son.

We certainly see this move up the ladder in the gospel and the story of redemption when Christ came down, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Consider how the author of Hebrews begins his letter, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.” Then he adds, “But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Heb. 1:1–2). We who were far off have been brought near (Eph. 2:11–22).

Temptations and Exceptions?

Admittedly, this approach is more of a guideline than an iron rule and thus requires wisdom to apply (cf. Prov. 26:4 and 5). Pausing to think through this guideline, however, often helps me see sinful temptations in my heart when I’m in a conflict, especially with other believers. Sometimes, if I’m honest, I don’t actually want the conflict to improve so much as I want to be justified.

This is partly why moving up is not always easier. In fact, I’d say it’s rarely easier. In the last decade I’ve become decent with written words, so if it happens that I’m accused of something on the text message or email rungs of the ladder, sometimes I want to keep the skirmish there to play to my strengths. I know how to win an argument with words; I might even sound kind while doing it. Rarely has this approach won people. Many text messages, emails, and social media posts get written with the best intentions in mind but are read by others with the worst intentions in mind.

And so I try to keep in mind that the gap between what I’d most prefer and what is right is the opportunity the Lord gives me to rely not on myself but upon him. “Whoever speaks,” Peter wrote, speak “as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11). Moving up the ladder, especially when we struggle to do so, gives us an opportunity to bear the supernatural fruit of the Spirit, and not the works of the flesh.

Of course I need to mention a few caveats lest I get misunderstood. These guidelines work best for run-of-the-mill conflicts, the ones with a normal mix of hurt feelings, sharp words, bitterness, cynicism, silent treatment, pride, ego, and self-justification. All the normal stuff.

I’m not talking about extreme abuse or two people with diagnosable narcissistic personality disorders. I’m not talking about situations that can legitimately employ otherwise overused words like toxic and gaslighting. In these extreme cases, and other conflicts involving power dynamics beyond one’s control (like a boss-employee relationship), love for both God and neighbor might look different.

And sometimes, as I’ve gotten to know how God has wired people close to me, I’ve learned who prefers written communication first because it gives time to process. This intentional choice not to move up is, I hope, a kind and strategic move to accomplish the larger priority of moving closer to someone, just as a husband might buy flowers and leave a handwritten note, not to avoid moving up the ladder by saying in person that he’s sorry for being an idiot, but as the prelude to more.

However difficult, we need to remember that moving toward conflict is partnering with God in who he is and what he does. God himself moves toward us in our brokenness. “Adam, where are you?” he asked. We see the climax of God’s move toward us in Jesus as he dwells among us, lays down his life for us, and one day comes again bodily—the ultimate move to the top of the ladder of communication.

On that great resurrection day, all the redeemed will have every tear from every conflict wiped away, not merely through the encouragement of sentiments written down or even spoken words, but apparently it would seem the tears are wiped away through physical, embodied touch. “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” writes John. Then he hears a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 24:2–4).

Rather than seeing the ladder merely as a tool to resolve conflict or a way to become more personable, ultimately, this approach reflects the heart of Christ in his high priestly prayer (John 17) that his followers would be one, even as the Trinity is one.

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Benjamin Vrbicek is the lead pastor at Community Evangelical Free Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and the previous managing editor for Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He and his wife, Brooke, have six children. He earned an M.Div. from Covenant Theological Seminary. Benjamin is the author of Don’t Just Send a Resume and Struggle Against Porn, and coauthor of Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World. He blogs regularly at benjaminvrbicek.com.