Picture a small landlord, a retired teacher we will call Mrs Grant, standing in the doorway of the flat she built over her garage. The tenant is gone. She left at night, sometime last week, without a word. The rent is three months behind. There are holes in the wall where a television bracket was pulled out, the kitchen cupboard doors are hanging, and somebody has taken the curtain rods.
Mrs Grant still has the woman’s number in her phone. She also has her cousin’s number, and her church’s WhatsApp group, and a pretty good idea where she now works. For a few minutes, standing there, she drafts in her head the message she could send to all of them.
Most of us have stood in some version of that doorway. The builder who took the money and did half the work. The neighbour who moved the fence post a metre onto your side. The brother who quietly sold his share of the family land and kept everything. Property brings out the best in people, and sometimes the very worst, and when we are wronged over something we worked so hard for, the urge to hit back can feel almost holy.
The instruction that sounds impossible
Paul wrote to a young church that was facing real hostility: “Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else” (1 Thessalonians 5:15, NIV).
Notice the word strive. Paul does not pretend this comes naturally. It takes effort, sometimes effort sustained over months. And notice the scope: not only good for each other, meaning people in the church, but for everyone else. That includes the tenant who disappeared.
Refusing revenge is not the same as doing nothing
This matters, because some believers hear “don’t retaliate” and think it means “don’t respond”. It does not. Paul is ruling out paying back: the shaming post, the damage done in return, the rumour passed along, the plan to make them suffer the way you suffered. He is not ruling out justice.
Mrs Grant can photograph the damage. She can keep the tenancy agreement and the rent records in order. She can write a calm, factual letter asking for what is owed and, if necessary, take proper advice about recovering it through the right channels. She can decide, prayerfully, how much to pursue and how much to release. All of that can be done without contempt. The difference between justice and revenge is often not what we do but the spirit we do it in, and whether we are willing to leave the final reckoning with God.
Paul says as much in another letter: do not take revenge, but leave room for God’s judgment (Romans 12:19). That is not weakness. It is a deliberate handing-over of a weight that was never meant for us to carry.
What pride has to do with it
Revenge usually grows from a wounded sense of our own importance. How dare she do this to me, after I gave her a chance? There is truth in that feeling. She did wrong. But pride takes that truth and turns it into a right to punish. Humility says: I have been wronged, and I have also, at other times, wronged people who did not pay me back. I have been shown mercy. I can show some.
Peter reminds us that love covers over a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). Covering does not mean pretending nothing happened. It means refusing to keep the wound open, refusing to broadcast it, refusing to let it become the story we tell about ourselves.
Doing good to the one who left
What could “striving to do good” look like for Mrs Grant? Perhaps it means sending that calm letter rather than the angry message. Perhaps it means praying for a woman who, for all she knows, left at night because something in her life was collapsing. Perhaps it means, when the next person asks for a reference, telling the truth without adding cruelty. Perhaps it means repairing the flat and renting it again, with wiser checks this time, instead of deciding never to trust anyone.
None of this makes the loss disappear. The money is still owed. The cupboard doors still need fixing. But she will walk out of that doorway as someone the wrong did not remake in its own image.
For reflection
- Is there someone who wronged you over a house, land or money whom you are still quietly trying to pay back?
- What would it look like to pursue what is fair without carrying revenge?
A short prayer
Lord, You know what was done to me and what it cost. Keep me from paying back wrong for wrong. Give me wisdom to seek what is fair, courage to let go of what I cannot recover, and a heart that still wants good for the one who hurt me. I leave the final judgment with You. In Jesus’ name, amen.
This article is general information only and is not financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Please speak to a qualified professional about your own circumstances.
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