The People on the Other Side Are Still Israel

O children of Israel, fight ye not against the LORD God of your fathers.

2 Chronicles 13:12

Read 2 Chronicles 13. Focus on verses 4 through 18. Abijah addresses an opposing army as the children of Israel. Political division has placed Judah and the northern kingdom on different sides of a battlefield, yet his words recall a shared history before God. His speech names serious religious differences. Jeroboam's golden calves and replacement priesthood are not treated as harmless variations. Abijah appeals to God's covenant with David and the worship continuing in Jerusalem. Shared ancestry does not erase the question of faithfulness. Then the battle turns dangerous for Judah. An ambush places enemy forces behind them as well as in front. Judah cries to the Lord, and the text attributes their victory to reliance on him. This ancient battle must not become permission to identify our ordinary opponents with armies God has commanded us to defeat. There is another caution. Abijah's description of Rehoboam is his own speech within the account. Readers have already seen Rehoboam's harsh answer in chapter 10. We need not make every part of a royal speech the narrator's complete evaluation. A person can speak important truth while presenting family history selectively. That is familiar territory in family disagreements. Once people are divided, each side develops a version of events that protects its own household. We remember the insult and shorten the explanation of what happened before it. We use a group name in place of a person's name. Eventually, everyone across the disagreement becomes one undifferentiated problem. Truth matters, and some divisions involve genuine wrong. Remembering someone's humanity does not require saying their conduct is acceptable. It does require resisting the pleasure of making them less than a person so our own account feels cleaner. Abijah's address reminds us that conflict can exist among people who share more history than the present argument admits. The chapter's terrible loss of life makes that division grievous, even within its account of judgment and deliverance. Before repeating your side of a dispute, ask what you are leaving out. Can you name the wrong accurately without enlarging it? Can you remember that the people involved have lives beyond their place in your disagreement? A truthful account should withstand the return of their names, their history, and the details that make your own side less comfortable. Put It into Practice Privately retell a current conflict using names instead of dismissive group labels. Include one relevant fact you usually omit, and let it make your next conversation more accurate.

Which detail would complicate your preferred account of a disagreement without excusing the wrong that occurred?

Lord of truth, keep me from editing a conflict until my side appears faultless. Help me speak accurately about wrongdoing while remembering the people involved. Restrain my desire to make an opponent smaller. Amen.