If you have spent any time in churches, it won’t be long before you find something offensive. Contrary to popular (Christian) belief, Christians can be just as rude, insulting and upsetting as the rest of the world. In a room full of sinners, though they may be battling sin, their sin will inevitably emerge from time to time.

And there are countless ways to be offended in church. Every week is a fresh opportunity to be irritated or upset by someone doing or saying something that we find objectionable. But it is a tiring existence to be constantly offended and in a perpetual state of outrage. I genuinely don’t know how some people manage to keep it up in all honesty – but keep it up they do!

But let’s assume for a moment that your offence is genuine. Let’s also assume that your offence is entirely legitimate and justified. Somebody has been a colossal pillock and everybody would agree. What are your options? As I judge it, you only have three. I will lay them out below and then highlight one common, but untenable and unacceptable, position.

Speak to them

The bible has some fairly clear counsel on this whole issue. In Matthew 18, hear what Jesus says: ‘If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother.’ Simple as that. Go and tell this person they have offended you and speak to them about why you are offended. This gives them the opportunity to repent.

Jesus also lays out some subsequent steps you can take if your discussion does not yield a fruitful response. But before you get to them, you must speak to the person. You may just find speaking to them about it leads to immediate repentance and the issue being addressed.

Forgive them

Of course, you don’t have to speak to them. Instead, you could just skip that and forgive them straightaway. Rather than raising the matter at all, you could simply let it go without all the hullabaloo of the conversation and the subsequent formal steps of church discipline. We may decide it would be less damaging, less divisive, less unpleasant and perhaps even that demanding justice isn’t really necessary because the matter isn’t significant enough to bother.

It is important to be clear what forgiving somebody actually means here. I have spoken before about the generally weak view of forgiveness that often prevails. At heart, forgiveness is to say that I count this sin against you no longer. It is to say I will not hold it against you nor seek further redress of any kind. It is to consider whatever debt there was to have been cancelled. If you have forgiven a person, the issue is finished, there are no further repercussions, it will not be raised again and you will not allow the matter to interfere with your ongoing relationship.

With that in mind, you can simply choose to forgive somebody without the hoo-ha. I do not believe the Bible demands unilateral forgiveness where there is no repentance; however, we are permitted to unilaterally forgive where there is no repentance should we choose to do so. And we often do if for no other reason than we reckon it will be less painful and difficult for us if we simply let the matter slide. This is something we do every time we just ignore a sleight, whenever we decide we won’t raise that thing, whenever we put away any thought of justice and simply let the matter be.

Sometimes we may simply choose to forgive the offence. We choose not to raise it but to let it go. We choose to not let it interfere in any way with our relationship because it simply isn’t worth it. This is a legitimate option for us when we feel offended, insulted or sinned against.

Submit or Leave

This (in my view) is not a legitimate first option. Your fundamental initial options are the two above. But let’s say you choose to speak to the person and they refuse to repent. Let’s also say you follow the subsequent steps Jesus outlines and the church determine that, actually, this person does not need to put anything right. As far as the church are concerned, the matter is now closed. As far as you are concerned, the matter has not been addressed adequately. What now?

Here you have two options. Option 1: submit to the decision of the church. Fundamentally, this is pushing you to take the second option above that you initially eschewed. In your own heart, despite no repentance forthcoming, you will submit to the church’s view and you will forgive the miscreant. Maybe the church is wrong and you are legitimately aggrieved, but the church has spoken, you are determined to submit to their view and so you forgive nevertheless. Such cases mean option 2 above would have saved a lot of heartache all-round but hindisight is, as they say, 20/20.

There is a second option here though. The church may have spoken but you may be utterly convinced they have gotten it wrong. You may even be so aggrieved at the thought of there being no satisfaction that you cannot forgive unless there is some repentance. If you are utterly unable to submit to the considered view of the church and its elders, your only recourse is to leave and find another church where you can.

Of course, this is no small matter. You at least need to ask yourself honestly why the considered corporate view of the church and its elders is definitely wrong and you are certainly right. The Bible is clear that the heart is deceitful more than anything else and it often causes us to seem utterly sure of what we want to believe over what is actually true. If we are wrong and just can’t see it, the chances of us taking our damage to another church and stirring up yet more trouble there is high.

But let’s just grant that the opinion of the one who feels wronged is objectively right. The church got it wrong. If you cannot submit to the considered view of the church, your only recourse at this point is to leave and find a church to whom you can entrust oversight of your soul. Sometimes the best thing to do is to leave quickly, quietly and without fuss so that you can be free of what you consider inappropriate authority and the church can be free to pursue its ministry without rancour.

The untenable option

There is an option that many choose to take that is (in my view) the only altogether unacceptable one. That is to refuse to submit to the considered position of the church, refuse to forgive the miscreant and yet to simultaneously refuse to find another church to whom they can submit. It doesn’t matter at this point whether you are in the right or not, this position is untenable.

To reject the authority of this church and yet seek to remain part of this church is a nonsense. It is a bit like those people who declare their house and garden an independent state whilst clearly existing within the nation state that actually exists. Just as such declarations of independence are either ignored as a nonsense or lead to actually being cut off from every part of the state you are in when you stop paying taxes, the same happens in the church. It is either seen to be a nonsense position or, such as you pursue it in reality, it ends up cutting you off entirely from the church to which you claim to still belong. The church simply ends up withdraws the signs of belonging from you so that you are seen not to belong in reality.

What is more, this position has little to no concern for the gospel. Even if you are in the right, what value is there in staying in a church and causing great division until everyone agrees you are right? Could you not save yourself and everyone else a lot of heartache by choosing to go elsewhere? You can still affirm your rightness but apart from the untenable position of remaining in a church you refuse to trust or submit yourself to. It is not the insistence on your rightness or the damage done to you that is ungodly – that may well be true and can be maintained elsewhere – but staying put where the church as a whole has disagreed yet refusing to submit to them is neither godly, helpful nor right.