By bro Lee Tian Seng
How should a couple begin to solve a conflict in the family? Usually, conflicts and problems cannot be resolved because one partner or both partners refuse to give in or attempt to work together to solve them. One partner often takes an “I am right, and you are wrong” stance. So, this partner does not see why he or she should be the one to take the first step to resolve the problem or to give in.
The way to resolve a conflict is love, and that’s what the Bible teaches. When there is love in marriage, couple will try to understand and forgive each other. However, many have mistaken ideas about love. They will often say, “We just do not love each another anymore.” This is said from the perspective of feeling, because when there is constant conflict in marriage, couples tend to get disconnected emotionally, and do not feel close to each other. However, that is not what the Bible teaches about the duty of husband and wife to love each other.
Ephesians 5
25 - Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.
28-29 - So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.
Titus 2:4 - That they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children.
God commands us to love our wives or husbands. It says “husbands ought to love their own wives” and “women to love their husbands.” It is a matter of the will, not just a feeling. So, we can choose whether or not to love, but God said that we should love, and it is not based on our feelings.
If a couple love each other, they will not be selfish or seek to hurt each other, but they will work together to resolve their conflicts
1 Corinthians 13:4-5 - Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil.
Romans 13:10 - Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Love should not be just in word but also in action (1 John 3:18). It also requires us to give sacrificially. The Bible teaches that husbands are to love their wives, just as Christ loves the church (Eph 5:25). Jesus Christ demonstrated His love by dying on the cross for our sins.
Romans 5:8 - But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
When couples have the right understanding of love, that is, it is their duty to love each another, they should not be selfish, they should not hurt each another, they should love in action, and they should give sacrificially, then they are ready to solve their conflicts. All conflicts can be resolved with love, just as God has resolved the conflict of sin by love for all man.
John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19 - Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.