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The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict

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The Peacemaker is the most helpful guide I have found to assist Christians in resolving conflict. It takes an uncommonly Biblical approach, leading one through a process designed to foster reconciliation, to God's glory. One is instructed in ways to "get the log out of your eye"; to "go and show your brother his faults," and to "go and be reconciled." These principles are applied to a variety of situations: third-party conciliation, forgiveness, confession, church discipline, self-examination, conflict assessment, and more.

Sande continually reminds his readers that conflict is a great opportunity to see the Gospel lived out in radical ways. By this God is glorified in ways the world cannot explain. This must be the focus of all peacemaking: "whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (I Cor. 10:31).

While Sande provides an abundance of practical techniques for implementing his understanding of Biblical principle of peacemaking, these by themselves cannot accomplish what is needed. The methods only provide opportunities for reconciliation, but true reconciliation is always a heart issue. In the end, all of Sande's steps and procedures must happen through faith alone in Christ alone. Apart from him we can do nothing (John 15:5). And simply going through the motions, however precisely, cannot serve as a substitute for the work of the Holy Spirit, who alone can apply Christ's work of reconciliation to us. Conflict may cease on the surface, and hostilities can be contained or sublimated, but true reconciliation cannot happen apart from the Holy Spirit giving the parties a growing experience of what Christ has done to reconcile us to the Father (2 Cor. 5:18-20).

Since teaching the Peacemaker c.e. series in 2000, I have seen these concepts at work in the life of our church family. I stock extra copies of the "Peacemaker Pledge" pamphlet on our fellowship table on Sundays and in my office. I have been amazed at how this tool can often humble people and redirect the focus of their concerns from their own agenda to God's glory.

But I have also seen the Peacemaker materials misused. People can go through the steps of Sande's book explicitly and methodically, but the focus can be misdirected from God's glory to the person's own hurt. If one starts from a self-righteous place it can poison all the steps of Sande's book.

This is a reminder that we cannot engineer what we desire, but are completely dependant on the Lord's grace for true reconciliation. The only One capable of real peacemaking is "the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep" (Heb. 13:20).

This book is absolutely the best book I have read on interpersonal conflict management. Sande presents Scripture after Scripture to support his directives to diffuse disharmony among brothers and sisters in Christ. Having served as a pastor for twenty years and having seen my share of church spats, this book would have been extremely helpful years ago.

I highly recommend this volume to all pastors, congregational leaders, and other believers who are seeking a biblical response to conflict in the church. The author also has a website that offers various key concepts of this book in brochure form. The church today could use more works like this one.

Ken Sande is an engineer, attorney and conciliator. This book provides practical advice for reconciliation between parties who are in conflict. Most of the advice consists of basic communication skills such as listen to the other person, agree in areas that you can, try to understand from the other person's perspective, etc.

He also follows the Biblical steps for resolution of conflict such as overlook minor conflict, go to the other person directly, get one or two others to go along and finally tell it to the church. His points on overlooking conflict are very good and this is not something that is taught frequently, if at all, in many churches today. The methodology for mediation and arbitration can be helpful and Sande especially touches on ethical responsibilities to avoid exposure to liability.

Born-again Christians will probably have some difficulty with the theology in the book. Sande is a lawyer, not a theologian. His definition of Christianity seems very broad. He quotes Justice Anthony Scalia, a member of the Roman Catholic church, as an authoritative figure on the role of Christianity and conflict/litigation. At times, it seems Sande views anyone associated with a church as a Christian. Perhaps he is intentionally broad in order to make the book accessible to as many people as possible. He does not seem to believe that conversion brings about a change in a person in that "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." There is no discussion of the influence and power of the Holy Spirit to make Christian fruit including peaceableness which is not something we try to do in our own strength.

In addition, Sande does not seem to see a change from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Thus, when dealing with many issues such as litigation, he relies heavily on O.T. scriptures. He ends up with the view that Christians can and should sue one another in certain circumstances and thus sees some scriptural commands as more of a suggestion than a command. He does state that the church should be involved in a conflict between Christians before litigation occurs and that appropriate discipline may be necessary but does not specifically address excommunication from the church. He also does not address the scriptural requirement that if someone acts in an evil way, we are not to resist him or her but are required to go further and bless him or her.

All in all, the practical advice is very good. I think you just have to sort through the religious discussions carefully and, of course, test everything against scripture.

Sande's book is valuable for the church pastor, layperson, business person, parent, or anyone in a position of authority.

Among the important points Sande covers include:

1. Trusting in the Lord to help you resolve a conflict.
2. When to forfeit your rights and when to stand up for them.
3. Examine your own attitude before confronting others.
4. Principles for dealing with yourself and allowing God to transform you.
5. Principles on confronting others in love.
6. How to apply Matthew 18:15-20.
7. Forgive others as God has forgiven you.
8. Overcoming evil with good.

A highly recommended read, you do not need to be a pastor or high-powered business executive to benefit from this gem!

This book was written by a Christian who is also a lawyer with insight into human nature -- ie his christian worldview strongly informs his understanding of psychology rather than vice versa.

The book is littered with biblical references, perhaps 10 per page, and when you go to look them up you find that they are not trite or the 'standard christian answer' but that they add insight to the problem. I never knew the bible had so much to say about the issue. Rather than acting as out-of-context prooftexts for a pet theory, the conclusions clearly follow from the text.

Though his modern day examples generally involve large conflicts on the verge of a lawsuit (the clients the author takes on), there is much which applies to lesser conflicts at work, with family, or, in my case, during the first year of marriage.

Ken Sande--a lawyer, active church member, and professional reconciler--has written a book intended to be read by Christians who are currently in conflict, or imagine that they will be involved in a conflict at some point in the future (all of us).

Sande attempts to shift the mental paradigm of his reader from a "I must look out for my rights and win this argument" attitude to a "I, who am sinful, must seek to do God's will and look out for that guy's interests as well as my own." To this end, Sande basically walks one through a recognition that we are all sinful, so there's no room to artificially build ourselves up, he advises sincere kindness as a way to disarm your "opponent," and strongly and frequently recommends churches get involved in disputes between Christians.

This reader can appreciate Sande's constant advice to not to file law suits. Sande, being a lawyer, writes that legal action ends up costing more time, effort, money, and friendships than one normally expects at the outset. For both practical reasons and as a form of obedience to God, Sande advises and helps Christians through the reconciliation process.

To be honest, the paradigm has not totally shifted for me yet. The practical illustrations did help me to picture what Sande's advice looks like in "real life," but at times the dialogue and such still seemed awkward, sugar-coated, and overly evangelica. Similar to an episode of "Seventh Heaven." However, the illustrations were not intended to captivate, but rather to illustrate. In all, recommended for Christians.

This is the most practical source available to help individual Christians follow Christ in resolving conflicts. The focus is on individual peacemaking, but the principles are applicable to any context. It is based heavily on scripture, and is full of examples from Sande's experience as an attorney and mediator. Step-by-step guidance is given for conflict assessment, self-examination, confession, confrontation, third-party conciliation, church discipline, reconciliation, forgiveness, and more. The Peacemaker's Checklist in the appendix summarizes the book content into a practical format. Sande is executive director of Peacemaker Ministries. He regularly conciliates business, family, employment, and church disputes and serves as a consultant to church leaders. Ken conducts seminars throughout the United States on biblical conflict resolution.

Ken Sande provides an exciting vision of how God's covenant of peace can extend throughout the Christian community. Moreover, Ken's highly practical advice can help resolve conflicts in every family, church, school, workplace, and government. People who apply Ken's teachings will appreciate more fully why our Lord promises blessings to peacemakers. Every church should consider teaching classes based on Ken's book so that church members everywhere can more actively sow in peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.

This book is truly a masterful expositional work. Ken Sande explains the ministry of reconciliation all believers have been given (II Corinthians 5:18 ) in such a way that the reader comes away with a feeling of empowerment to use scripture as a guide for the everyday problems encountered by a believer. Ken Sande's work in The Peacemaker truly can change the way that a believer views conflict and even God's word.

The truth contained in Sande's work is such as can only come from a faithful reading and exposition of the word of God. A resource manual so full of scripture, it as if Sande is saying to the reader, "this is not my idea, it comes from the word of God." Throughout his book Sande gives the reader citations to God's word and other Godly individuals as those individuals point the reader back to God's word. Such a faithful use of Scripture is what is missing in so many other "Christian" books.

Sande's book is so different from other such "Christian" books because Sande does not start from an idea and use scripture to support that idea, rather, his entire thesis is: "God's word tells us this is how we must resolve conflict so this is what we should do." This is such a refreshing view of Scripture. God's word is not something we must use to support our creative theses, but rather it is to be used for "teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness." (II Timothy 3:16) That is why The Peacemaker is such a powerful work, it is merely an exposition of what God's word says about the "ministry of reconciliation" we have been given.

The Peacemaker is completely submitted to the sufficiency of Scripture to resolve all of the problems inherent in life. This is the Biblical view of conflict. Sande even discusses complicated Scriptures such as 1 Corinthians 6 and explains, using Scripture, what the verse means and how it applies to believers in their situation.

Throughout the entire book Sande makes it clear that Peacemaking works in all situations. He makes only one real distinction in types of conflict and the approach to resolve them, the difference of conflict with a believer with an unbeliever. The Peacemaker is very clear to indicate that believers should always seek to glorify God and that the steps of personal conflict resolution are clearly the same in both classes of conflict. Sande makes clear, however, that the expectations of the other party must be lowered when dealing with an unbeliever (the believer must always approach his responsibility in the same way). For instance, it is necessary to confess of your sins and contribution to the conflict; however, when dealing with an unbeliever,forgiveness cannot truly be granted because an unbeliever has never experienced God's forgiveness. Also, one cannot expect a true confession to come from an unbeliever and, if it does, they have probably come to know the Lord and the category of conflict changes.

The other major difference when dealing with unbelievers is that the "assisted peacemaking" steps are different. An unbeliever is not under the authority of the church; therefore there is not an appeal that can be made to the church. However, Sande makes an interesting observation that the believer must still seek the counsel of his church when appealing to a legal right that is in conflict before turning the unbeliever over to the authority of the state. This is a very important observation, because the Bible gives the church judicial authority over believers. Even though a right may be legal, it may not be biblical and the believer must seek the counsel of his church before proceeding against an unbeliever.

The Peacemaker leaves the reader feeling empowered to incorporate God's word into even the most common of everyday occurrences - conflict. This opens the door to how God in His word has given his people practical guidance on all aspects of life. This book causes you to view conflict as an opportunity rather than a hindrance. It truly breathes life into the words of James: "[c]ount it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds..." (James 1:2)

Outstanding, Biblically sound advice - practical and doable according to our willingness to submit to God's authority and His loving wisdom. Very well organized - easy to read (don't forget to read all scripture!)