Somto and his wife lived in the upstairs flat of a compound of four flats in Ikorodu. It was a decent place, with a shared gate, a small parking area and a landlord who lived in Ibadan and visited twice a year. For the first two years it was peaceful. Then a new tenant moved into the ground-floor flat on the left.
The man in Flat 2 parked his Camry wherever he liked, which was usually across the gate. He ran a large generator under Somto’s bedroom window until three in the morning, even when the power was on. His family poured washing water into the shared drain until it overflowed into the parking area. When Somto’s wife politely mentioned the drain, he told her that she should mind her own business and that people who could not afford their own compound should keep quiet.
Somto tried to be patient. He was a house fellowship leader in his church. He prayed about it. He knocked on the man’s door twice and asked, calmly, if he could please not block the gate. Each time the man said he would move the car “just now” and then went back inside.
One Monday at ten past six in the morning, Somto came down with his laptop bag for a seven o’clock client presentation in Ikeja and found the Camry across the gate again. He knocked. No answer. He knocked louder. He hammered on the door. When the man finally came out in his singlet, rubbing his eyes, Somto lost his temper completely. He shouted. He called the man a bush man with no home training. He kicked the Camry’s tyre. The man shouted back, and for five minutes the two of them stood in the parking area roaring at each other while the other tenants came out onto their balconies.
When the car was finally moved and Somto was in traffic on the Ikorodu road, his phone buzzed. One of the other tenants had filmed the whole thing and posted it in the compound’s WhatsApp group. Under the video someone had written: “Is this not the man who holds fellowship on Wednesdays?”
Somto watched it at a traffic light. He saw himself red-faced and shouting, kicking a car, while a small boy, the neighbour’s son, watched from a window. He had been in the right about the gate. He knew that. But looking at the video, he could not honestly tell which of the two men was the difficult one.
PunchlineThat is the danger this teaching addresses. Difficult people do not only make our lives hard. They have a way of making us into people we do not want to be.
Their behaviour does not write your script
Every one of us has difficult people in our lives. A colleague who takes credit for our work. A relative who criticises everything. A neighbour who ignores every reasonable request. A church member who argues about every decision. A customer who is rude whatever you do. We cannot choose whether we meet such people. We can choose how we respond to them.
That is the starting point of Paul’s teaching at the end of Romans 12. “Recompense to no man evil for evil” (Romans 12:17). Paul is writing to believers in Rome who would soon face real persecution, not just inconsiderate neighbours. Even so, he insists that the other person’s wrongdoing does not give us permission to do wrong in return. Their behaviour is their responsibility. Ours is ours.
This is one of the hardest truths in the Christian life, because our instincts work the other way. When someone treats us badly, we feel that the moral rules have been suspended. “He started it.” “You don’t know what she said to me.” “Anyone would have reacted like that.” Those statements may be true. But they do not change what God asks of us. Another person’s sin cannot become the excuse for our own.
There is something freeing in this as well. If my responses are determined by the other person’s behaviour, then he controls me. He decides whether I will be calm or furious, kind or cruel. Every time he blocks the gate, he gets to decide what kind of man I will be that morning. But if my responses flow from who I am in Christ, then he has no such power. I can be grieved by what he does without being governed by it.
Paul goes on: “Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:17-18). The phrase as much as lieth in you is important. Paul does not promise that peace will always be possible. Some people will not be at peace with you whatever you do. But your part is your part. Do everything that depends on you. Then leave the rest with God.
Slow to wrath
James gives a short instruction that is easy to memorise and very hard to practise:
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
“Swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” The order matters. Listening comes first. Speaking comes later. Anger comes last, if at all. Most of us, in a difficult moment, reverse the order. We are swift to wrath, swift to speak, and slow to hear anything the other person might say.
Then James gives the reason: “For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” Human anger, even when it is provoked by a real wrong, rarely produces what God wants. Somto’s anger did not move the car any faster. It did not make his neighbour more considerate. It did not protect his wife. It simply added a second wrong to the first, and gave everyone watching a reason to dismiss his faith.
This does not mean all anger is sin. Paul writes, “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (Ephesians 4:26). There is a proper anger at injustice, and Jesus Himself showed it. But Paul immediately adds a warning: “Neither give place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:27). Anger is a door. Left open, it lets in bitterness, cruelty and revenge.
Proverbs is full of practical wisdom here. “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger” (Proverbs 15:1). “A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards” (Proverbs 29:11). “The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression” (Proverbs 19:11). Notice the word deferreth. Wisdom delays. It does not respond in the heat of the moment. It waits until it can speak clearly.
In practice that might mean several small disciplines. When you feel the heat rising, stop and breathe before you answer. If you must reply to an angry message, write it, then wait until morning before you send it, and read it again first. If a conversation is escalating, say, “I don’t want to say something I regret. Let’s talk about this later,” and walk away. Pray in the moment, even a single sentence: “Lord, help me.” Small as they are, these are the ways a person learns to be slow to wrath.
Answer not, and answer
Proverbs contains a pair of verses that seem at first to contradict each other:
Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.
“Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.” Then, immediately: “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.” Which is it?
The verses were placed side by side deliberately. They teach that there is no single rule for dealing with a foolish person. Wisdom must discern which response the situation calls for.
The first verse warns against descending to the fool’s level. If someone is shouting insults, you do not shout insults back. If someone is spreading lies about you, you do not spread lies about them. If someone is being petty, you do not compete in pettiness. “Lest thou also be like unto him.” The danger of engaging with a difficult person on their terms is that you become like them. That is exactly what happened in the parking area. Somto answered folly with folly, and became, for five minutes, the same kind of man.
The second verse warns against a silence that lets folly go unchallenged. Sometimes a fool needs to hear the truth, clearly and plainly, so that he does not conclude that everyone agrees with him. “Lest he be wise in his own conceit.” There are times when you must say, calmly and firmly, “What you are doing is wrong, and I won’t accept it.” Silence in those moments is not wisdom. It is cowardice.
So the question in each situation is: what kind of answer will serve the truth here? Will speaking now help, or will it only feed the conflict? Is this a moment to correct, or a moment to walk away? Can I say this without becoming like him? Proverbs trusts us to think, pray and decide. It also reminds us that “It is an honour for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling” (Proverbs 20:3). There is honour, not shame, in being the one who steps back.
The example of Christ
Peter writes to Christian slaves who were being treated unjustly by harsh masters. It is hard to imagine a more difficult relationship. And he points them to Jesus:
For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.
“Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not.” Think of everything Jesus endured in the final hours of His life. He was falsely accused, mocked, spat on, struck, stripped and crucified. And He did not answer insult with insult. Before Pilate, “Jesus yet answered nothing; so that Pilate marvelled” (Mark 15:5). On the cross, He prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
Yet Jesus was not simply passive. When an officer struck Him during His trial before the high priest, He answered, “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?” (John 18:23). He named the injustice. He did not retaliate. Neither did He pretend that what was happening was right. Here is Proverbs 26:4-5 lived out. Sometimes silence. Sometimes a calm, clear word. Never revenge.
How could He do it? Peter tells us: He “committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.” Jesus entrusted Himself and His cause to the Father. He did not need to vindicate Himself in that moment, because He knew that God would vindicate Him. And God did, on the third day.
That is the key to not becoming difficult when others are difficult. You must entrust yourself to God. Paul says the same thing in Romans: “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19). To “give place unto wrath” means to step aside and leave room for God’s justice. You are not the judge. You do not have to make sure every wrong is punished. That is God’s responsibility, and He is far better at it than you are.
None of this calls for silence in the face of injustice or for remaining in danger. It calls you to stop carrying the role of avenger. When you let go of revenge, you are free to respond in ways that actually help.
NuggetAnother person’s behaviour does not remove your responsibility for your own. Entrust your cause to the One who judges righteously, and you will be free to answer evil with good.
Overcome evil with good
Paul ends Romans 12 with an extraordinary instruction: “Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head” (Romans 12:20). He is quoting Proverbs 25:21-22, which adds, “and the LORD shall reward thee.”
What does it mean to heap coals of fire on someone’s head? It is not a clever form of revenge, as though kindness were a hidden weapon for making your enemy suffer. Most interpreters understand it to mean the burning shame that unexpected kindness produces in a person’s conscience, a shame that may lead him to his senses and to repentance. When you repay evil with good, you leave the other person with nothing to fight against. Their own conscience begins to work on them.
Then the final verse of the chapter: “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). There are two ways to be overcome by evil. One is to be defeated by it: to let it crush you, silence you or drive you to despair. The other is to be infected by it: to let it make you as bitter, cruel or vengeful as the person who wronged you. Paul says neither need happen. You can overcome evil, and the weapon is goodness.
That does not mean being a doormat. Overcoming evil with good is an active, deliberate strategy. It means refusing to play the other person’s game and introducing something they did not expect. It means greeting the colleague who undermines you, praying for the relative who criticises you, doing your job excellently under a manager who belittles you, and helping the neighbour who blocks your gate when he is in genuine need. It is costly. It is not always rewarded quickly. But it is the way Jesus overcame the world.
Sensible limits on repeated conflict
Paul’s letter to Titus gives practical advice about one particular kind of difficult person:
But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.
“Avoid foolish questions... and contentions, and strivings.” Titus was leading churches on Crete, where some people loved to argue endlessly about genealogies and points of the law. Paul says these arguments are “unprofitable and vain.” They go round in circles and produce nothing but division. The wise response is to avoid them.
Then he speaks about a particular kind of person: “A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject.” The word heretick here translates the Greek hairetikos. In this context it does not mainly mean someone who holds a wrong doctrine. It means a factious person, someone who causes divisions and stirs up parties. Paul says such a person should be warned once, then a second time. After that, reject, which means have nothing more to do with them in that role, refuse to keep engaging.
Paul’s instruction concerns the life of a church, and it should not be stretched into a rule for cutting off anyone who annoys us. But the wisdom it carries applies more widely. Repeated, fruitless conflict is not a sign of faithfulness. There comes a point when you have said what needs to be said, more than once, and continuing the argument only makes things worse. Paul tells Timothy the same thing: “But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes. And the servant of the Lord must not strive” (2 Timothy 2:23-24).
Proverbs gives a vivid picture: “The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water: therefore leave off contention, before it be meddled with” (Proverbs 17:14). Once the dam is breached, it is very hard to stop the flood. And again: “Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out” (Proverbs 26:20). If you stop adding wood, the fire eventually dies. Some conflicts go on for years simply because both sides keep feeding them.
So it is right to set sensible limits. You may decide that you will not discuss a certain topic with a certain relative any more. You may decide that you will only communicate with a difficult colleague by email, so there is a record and less room for heated exchanges. You may decide to stop replying to provocative messages in the family WhatsApp group. These limits are not unloving. They prevent the same fruitless argument from consuming your peace and theirs.
When distance or outside help is needed
Sometimes, despite everyone’s efforts, two people simply cannot live or work together peacefully at close quarters. Scripture recognises this. When the herdsmen of Abram and his nephew Lot kept quarrelling over pasture, Abram took the initiative:
And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.
“Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee... for we be brethren.” Abram valued the relationship too much to let it be destroyed by constant conflict. So he proposed distance. “Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me.” And he did it generously, letting Lot choose first. Distance, in this case, preserved the relationship. Years later, when Lot was taken captive, it was Abram who went to rescue him.
Even Paul and Barnabas, two great servants of God, had a disagreement over whether to take John Mark on their second journey. “And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other” (Acts 15:39). They went separate ways. The work continued on two fronts. And later Paul wrote of Mark, “he is profitable to me for the ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11). Distance was not the end of the story.
Sometimes, too, what is needed is outside help. Jesus taught that when a brother sins against you, you should first speak to him privately. If he will not listen, take one or two others with you. If he still refuses, bring it to the church (Matthew 18:15-17). The principle is that private conflict that cannot be resolved privately should involve others who can help. When two women in the Philippian church, Euodias and Syntyche, could not agree, Paul did not simply tell them to sort it out. He asked a trusted fellow worker to “help those women” (Philippians 4:3).
In our setting, outside help might be a landlord, a residents’ association, a line manager, a human resources department, a family elder, a pastor or a trained mediator. Asking for that help is wisdom. A neutral third person can see what two people locked in conflict cannot.
And there are situations where the issue has moved beyond difficulty into danger. If someone is threatening you, harassing you, abusing you or anyone in your household, this is not a matter of patience and soft answers. Move to safety. Keep records. Seek qualified help, and involve the police or appropriate authorities where the law has been broken. Being slow to wrath never requires you to remain in harm’s way.
Are you the difficult one?
Before we leave this subject, there is a harder question to ask. Jesus said: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” (Matthew 7:3). It is remarkably easy to see the difficulty in others and miss it in ourselves.
Ask honestly: Am I the difficult person in someone else’s story? Do people around me walk on eggshells? Do I turn small disagreements into big ones? Do I need to win every argument? Am I quick to take offence and slow to forgive? Do I carry grudges for years? Most of us can think of at least one relationship in which we have been harder to live with than we like to admit.
It also helps to remember that many difficult people are carrying something we cannot see: grief, shame, financial pressure, illness, a painful childhood, a failing marriage. That does not excuse their behaviour. But it may soften our response. Compassion often begins when we stop seeing someone as a problem to be solved and start seeing them as a person.
And remember where you stood with God. “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). Every one of us was once difficult toward God: resistant, proud, ungrateful. He did not wait for us to become pleasant before He loved us. He sent His Son for us while we were still enemies. Grace received becomes grace extended. The patience God has shown you is the source of the patience you can show to others.
Punchline“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:9). Peacemakers bring the peace of God into conflict, because they have received it themselves.
That Wednesday, Somto did not lead the house fellowship. He asked another member to lead, and he sat at the back. Afterwards he stayed behind and told the group what had happened. “I was right about the gate,” he said. “But I was wrong about everything else.”
On Thursday evening he went downstairs and knocked on the door of Flat 2. When the man opened it, wary and ready for another fight, Somto said, “I want to apologise for Monday. I shouted at you and insulted you in front of your family, and I kicked your car. That was wrong. I’m sorry.” The man looked at him for a long moment, said, “Okay,” and closed the door.
The parking problem did not go away. So Somto and the other tenants wrote to the landlord together, calmly and with photographs. The landlord came from Ibadan, marked out parking bays, set rules for generator hours and the drain, and told the man in Flat 2 that further problems would affect his tenancy. Things improved. Enough, if not completely. Somto stopped knocking on the man’s door about the car. When there was a problem, he sent a short, polite message through the landlord’s caretaker.
About four months later, during a heavy downpour at five in the morning, Somto heard someone shouting in the parking area. The neighbour’s young son had a high fever and was struggling to breathe, and the Camry’s battery was dead. Somto came down with his car keys and drove them to the general hospital through the flooded roads. He waited until the doctor had seen the boy, then drove home and got ready for work.
The neighbour never said much about it. But from that week on, the Camry was always parked inside its bay, and when the two men passed in the compound, the neighbour nodded and said, “Good morning, Mr Somto.”
He was still a difficult man in many ways. Somto had simply stopped letting him decide what kind of man Somto would be.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Who are the difficult people in your life right now? How have they shaped your own words, moods and behaviour?
- When you are provoked, are you swift to hear or swift to wrath? What practical discipline could help you slow down?
- Think of a current conflict. Does Proverbs 26:4 or 26:5 better describe the response it needs: stepping back, or speaking a clear word?
- Is there a fruitless argument you need to stop feeding? What sensible limit could you set?
- Are you the difficult person in someone else’s story? What would it look like to take responsibility for your part?
This Week
Choose one difficult relationship in your life. This week, commit to three things. First, pray for that person by name every day, asking God to bless them. Second, decide in advance how you will respond the next time they provoke you: what you will say, or what you will not say. Third, look for one opportunity to do them good, however small, without expecting anything in return. If there is something you need to apologise for, do it before the week is over.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, when You were reviled You did not revile again, and when You suffered You threatened not; You committed Yourself to the Father who judges righteously. Teach me to do the same. Forgive me for the times I have let other people’s behaviour turn me into someone I do not want to be. Make me swift to hear, slow to speak and slow to wrath. Give me wisdom to know when to answer and when to stay silent, when to set limits and when to seek help. Free me from the need for revenge. Help me to overcome evil with good, and make me a peacemaker. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.