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Because You Asked

Jun 25, 2017 | Rev. Nick Doyle

Dealing with Difficult People

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3 types of people

The Wise: (Psalm 90:12; Proverbs 3:35; 9:9-12; 10:21; 11:12; 14:33; 15:7; 15:21 James 1:5; 3:17. Eph5:15-17)

The Foolish: (Psalm 14:1; 53:1; 107:17 Proverbs 1:7; 17:25; 18:2; 18:6-7; 29:11 Matt 7:26)

The Evil/Wicked (Psalm 5:4; 34:21; 37:1 Proverbs 6:12-18; 28:1 Micah 2:1 Job 8:2)

Wise people want to know the truth, learn from it, and change.

Foolish people want to argue over the truth, not change, and remain stuck.

Evil people hate the truth, refuse to change, and cause harm to others.

You cannot deal with everyone in the same way

Dealing with a wise person

Wise people learn from their own experience and the experiences of others. They take what they have learned and the make it a part of themselves.Then they deliver results from that experience base.

When truth presents itself, the wise person sees the light, takes it in, and makes adjustments.

Wisdom is the stance that people take in which that are open to hearing truth, so when it comes, they listen to it and make necessary changes to align with that truth.

Does the Bible saying anything about wisdom?

Proverbs 12:15 “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.”

Proverbs 18:15 “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge."

Proverbs 19:20 “Listen to advice and accept instruction.."

Dealing with a foolish person

The fool tries to adjust the truth so he does not have to adjust to it.

The goal is to avoid ownership of the feedback, which would require them to take responsibility and change.

The result is they constantly inflict collateral damage on others, do harm to the business or family, and everyone else feels the effects

Does the Bible saying anything about Fools?

Proverbs 18:2 A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.

Proverbs 26:19 “the fool is the man who deceives his neighbour and says, “I am only joking!”

Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 10:23 “Doing wrong is like a joke to a fool, but wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding.

It’s time to quit talking about the problem and time to have a different kind of conversation.

Dealing with an Evil person

“For some people, it is a big step to realize that there are people in the world who hurt you—not unintentionally the way a foolish person does but because they want to. But it is true. There are some people whose desire it is to hurt others and do destructive things. And with them, you have to protect yourself, your company, your loved ones, and anything that matters to you. They actually want to bring you down.”

Does the Bible saying anything about an evil person?

Proverbs 6:12-16 A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord; therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.

Micah 2:1 Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand.

2 Thessalonians 3:2 And that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.

A pattern exists when there are problems but they do not stand alone as isolated issues or occurrences. Instead, you can link many occurrences together to see that this person made a mistake on the big project because she didn’t get organized or do her research. And this is just one more example of many times when she has done the same or similar things. It is not a specific, onetime problem. It is a pattern that we can recognize and now almost count on. It is recurring.

 

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