There is much practical wisdom in the Torah about how to deal with conflicts. Leviticus 19:17-18 states:
Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.
Similarly, Proverbs 19:11 contends:
A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.
These passages form the basis of how my family handles offenses. In our home, if someone offends you, there is an acceptable response and an unacceptable response. The unacceptable response is to “hate your brother in your heart” (Lev 19:17). This can be manifest in two ways: First, by seeking revenge—getting back at the person and hurting them as much as they hurt you. This is taking the offense and hurling it back at the person. A second way of responding with hate is to bear a grudge. Here, the person keeps everything inside. The pressure builds up. It eats away at the person and poisons their heart. Bearing a grudge is self-destructive and is as unacceptable as revenge.
Both of these expressions of hate are off limits in our family. How then can a person who is offended respond? What is acceptable?
I advocate postmissionary Messianic Judaism. As I read Scripture and consider the destiny of the Jewish people and Messianic Judaism, I reach conclusions different from standard missionary practice. One area where I differ is in my understanding of what it means for Jews, including Messianic Jews, to repent.
Wesleyan theologian R. Kendall Soulen highlights something the mission culture misses:
According to the biblical witness, God’s work as Consummator takes enduring shape in the history that unfolds between the Lord, Israel, and the nations. Accordingly, human sin is never merely the sin of the creature against the Creator-Consummator. Human sin is also always the sin of Jew and Gentile, of Israel and the nations.1
God sees us not as generic individual human beings, but always as Israel and the nations, which Soulen terms part of the “theological grammar of the Bible.”2 Jews and Gentiles have distinct covenant responsibilities and pathways of obedience. For example, Paul enjoined his Gentile converts not to submit to ritual circumcision, yet he circumcised his protégé Timothy.3 Timothy had a Jewish mother, and being circumcised was an appropriate path of obedience for him, but not for Gentiles. For this reason, Paul steadfastly refused to circumcise Titus, a Gentile.4