By Noel Thomason
SBS Head of School
Every so often, a story slips past our defenses and teaches us something we were not prepared to learn. It does not arrive as a sermon. It does not announce itself with weighty language or solemn warnings. It comes quietly, sometimes humorously, wrapped in imagination rather than instruction. And because our guard is down, the truth finds a way in sideways, settling in deeper than we expected.
One such moment occurs in The Princess Bride, not amid swordplay or spectacle, but in a dim cottage on the edge of despair. Westley lies motionless, poisoned, beaten, lifeless to every outward measure. Hope appears spent. The quest has failed. Love has lost.
Then comes Miracle Max. With comic precision and surprising gravity, he examines Westley and offers his now-famous diagnosis: “It just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead.” And then, with the logic of a man who knows death well enough to recognize its limits, he adds, “Mostly dead is slightly alive.”
That distinction changes everything. “Mostly dead” means hope is not gone. It means restoration is still possible. It means love has not yet been defeated. What follows is absurd and tender all at once, an act of persistence, sacrifice, and what the story unapologetically calls true love. Against all odds, life returns where death seemed final.
It is a whimsical scene, but it names something profoundly human. We know what it is to stand over something that feels lifeless: a relationship that has gone cold, a friendship thinned by silence, a marriage dulled by unresolved hurt, a trust that once existed but now lies still. Quietly, sometimes desperately, we wonder whether resurrection is still possible.
That question sits at the heart of Matthew 18. For generations, the Christian community has returned to this chapter when navigating life together. It is often spoken of as God’s desire for conflict resolution, not because it provides a mechanical formula, but because it reveals the culture of the Kingdom. Matthew 18 shows us how people who live under Christ’s reign are meant to treat one another when relationships fracture, trust erodes, and offenses inevitably arise.
Yet Matthew 18 does not begin where we often want it to begin. It does not open with confrontation steps or relational strategies. It opens with a question about greatness. And by the time Jesus finishes answering that question, we realize He has been redefining life, power, and love all along.
A Question That Reveals the Heart
“Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matthew 19:1)
The timing of the disciples’ question matters. They ask it after moments of glory, after seeing Jesus revealed in power and majesty. They sense momentum; something decisive is unfolding. Naturally, they want to know where they stand within it.
We understand this instinct because we live inside it. Our culture constantly measures worth by influence, recognition, achievement, and visibility. Even in Christian community, those instincts do not disappear. They simply learn a new language. We may not ask who is the greatest, but we quietly wonder who matters most, whose voice carries weight, whose contribution counts.
Our culture constantly measures worth by influence, recognition, achievement, and visibility. Even in Christian community, those instincts do not disappear. They simply learn a new language. We may not ask who is the greatest, but we quietly wonder who matters most, whose voice carries weight, whose contribution counts.
Jesus refuses to answer the question on those terms. Instead, He calls a child into the center of the circle. Without commentary or explanation, He places vulnerability, dependence, and humility right where ambition had been standing. And then He speaks words that quietly dismantle every ladder we are tempted to climb:
“Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)
This is not sentimental language. It is deeply disruptive. Children do not manage reputation. They do not posture for control. They do not rehearse arguments or leverage power. They receive. They trust. They live without the exhausting burden of self-sovereignty. They are not concerned with securing greatness; they are concerned with belonging.
Jesus begins here because conflict is rarely a technical problem. It is almost always a posture problem. Before He ever addresses sin, confrontation, or reconciliation, Jesus establishes culture. Matthew 18 is not primarily about what to do when something goes wrong. It is about who we are meant to be with one another all the time. Without that culture, any process we apply will eventually become hollow or harmful.
Why Jesus Starts With a Shepherd, Not a System
One of the most overlooked features of Matthew 18 is its order. After redefining greatness, Jesus does not move directly into correction. Instead, He tells a story, a story about a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to search for one that has wandered away. The placement is intentional. Jesus wants His listeners to understand that correction without compassion is not Kingdom correction. Accountability without love may achieve compliance, but it will never produce restoration. The shepherd’s pursuit is not driven by irritation or superiority. It is driven by care.
“If he listens to you,” Jesus later explains, “you have gained your brother.” (Matthew 18:15)
That phrase reframes everything. The goal is not to win. It is not to be proven right. It is not to protect one’s image or establish dominance. The goal is to gain a person. When restoration becomes the aim, conflict changes shape. Tone softens. Motives are clarified. Words are chosen with care. The shepherd does not pursue the sheep to shame it, but to save it. And those who follow the Shepherd are called to carry His heart into the most fragile places. Conflict approached with a shepherd’s heart becomes an act of love rather than a contest of power.
The shepherd does not pursue the sheep to shame it, but to save it. And those who follow the Shepherd are called to carry His heart into the most fragile places. Conflict approached with a shepherd’s heart becomes an act of love rather than a contest of power.
The Quieter Battle Beneath the Argument
Most conflicts announce themselves loudly, through words spoken too quickly or silence held too long. But beneath the visible disagreement often lies a quieter struggle, one we rarely name but frequently feel.
Who is in control?
Who will be vindicated?
Who gets the final word?
Conflict is rarely just about what happened. It is often about authority, about who reigns in that moment. This is why humility stands at the entrance of the Kingdom. Pride turns every disagreement into a courtroom. Humility turns it into a place of meeting. Pride seeks leverage. Humility seeks understanding. Pride keeps score. Humility opens the door to mercy. And it is precisely here that Jesus turns the conversation toward forgiveness, not as an abstract virtue, but as the defining mark of Kingdom life.
Forgiveness and the Ledger We Keep
Peter’s question feels practical, even generous. “How many times must I forgive?” Seven times seems sufficient. It suggests patience without naivety, mercy without foolishness. Jesus’ response—“seventy-seven times” is not an encouragement to keep count more carefully. It is an invitation to abandon the ledger altogether.
To explain why, Jesus tells one of His most unsettling parables: a servant forgiven an unpayable debt who then refuses to forgive a comparatively small one. The forgiven becomes merciless. And the story lands with such force because it exposes a truth we instinctively resist: Forgiveness is not merely emotional. It is economic.
When someone sins against us, something real is lost: trust, safety, dignity, peace. A debt is created. We may not name it as such, but we live as if it exists. That debt will be dealt with in one of two ways: collected or absorbed. We collect debts through resentment, withdrawal, punishment, and quiet judgment. We extract interest by rehearsing the injury, retelling the story, or holding the offense close as proof of our righteousness.
Forgiveness chooses a different path. It does not deny the debt. It cancels it by bearing the cost. This is why forgiveness feels unjust. It asks the wounded to relinquish what feels rightfully owed. It requires surrendering the moral high ground. And yet, this is precisely what Christ has done for us.
Forgiveness chooses a different path. It does not deny the debt. It cancels it by bearing the cost. This is why forgiveness feels unjust. It asks the wounded to relinquish what feels rightfully owed. It requires surrendering the moral high ground. And yet, this is precisely what Christ has done for us.
The Cross as the Pattern for Life Together
Christian forgiveness does not originate in personality or temperament. It originates at the cross. Jesus does not minimize sin. He carries it. He does not wait for repayment. He absorbs the debt Himself. He takes responsibility for what He did not owe. So when Scripture calls believers to forgive “from the heart,” it is not calling for forgetfulness or denial. It is calling for death—the death of our right to revenge, our demand for repayment, our insistence on being made whole at another’s expense.
This kind of forgiveness is cruciform. It costs something. And it is rarely a one-time act. Offenses have a way of resurfacing in memory, in imagination, in moments of stress or fatigue. Forgiveness often requires repeated burial. Each time the wound rises, we are invited again to place it on the cross rather than keep it alive. This is not weakness. It is the slow formation of Christlikeness.
Mostly Dead and the Possibility of Resurrection
Here, the Miracle Max scene quietly returns to the conversation. “Mostly dead” is not fully dead. It means life remains, even if faint. It means restoration is still possible. It means love has not yet been overcome. Many relationships are not beyond hope, but they are exhausted. They lie still, weighed down by unresolved conflict, cooled by unspoken resentment, weakened by withheld forgiveness. They are “mostly dead.”
Unforgiveness rarely announces itself dramatically. More often, it settles in quietly. It cools tone. It narrows the conversation. It creates emotional distance that feels reasonable, even justified. Over time, the relationship survives in name, but life drains out of it. It finds itself lifeless in a pit of despair. And yet, true love, the kind shaped by the Gospel, still carries resurrection power. Not because it ignores pain, but because it absorbs it and overcomes it. The Christian story is, at its core, a resurrection story. It insists that death does not get the final word, not in tombs, and not in relationships.
A Gospel-Formed Culture: Why Matthew 18 Matters
Christian community was never meant to be conflict-free. It was meant to be formative.
This is where Matthew 18 is so often misunderstood. We tend to approach it as a crisis-management chapter. Something to consult once tensions have already risen and emotions are already inflamed. But Jesus does not give Matthew 18 as an emergency protocol. He gives it as a way of life. It is not merely about resolving conflict; it is about forming a people who look like Him.
At its heart, Matthew 18 reveals that forgiveness is not an interruption to discipleship—it is one of its primary instruments. God does not sanctify His people in isolation. He does so in community, through relationships that require humility, patience, repentance, and grace. In other words, He shapes us through one another.
Forgiveness is not an interruption to discipleship—it is one of its primary instruments. God does not sanctify His people in isolation. He does so in community, through relationships that require humility, patience, repentance, and grace. In other words, He shapes us through one another.
This is why a gospel-forgiving culture is essential to a thriving Christian community. Without it, proximity becomes dangerous. Shared life turns brittle. Small offenses calcify into lasting fractures. But with it, even failure becomes fertile ground for growth. Jesus assumes that conflict will arise. The chapter does not ask if a brother sins, but when. The question is never whether tension will exist in Christian community; it is whether that tension will be redemptive or corrosive. Matthew 18 shows us God’s intention: that conflict, rightly handled, becomes a tool for sanctification rather than a trigger for division.
This is particularly significant in a community centered on formation, where children are not merely educated but discipled. One of the great gifts of a Christ-centered school community is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of coaching. Parents, teachers, and mentors walk alongside students as they learn to speak truth without cruelty, to receive correction without defensiveness, to forgive without denial, and to seek reconciliation without fear. In this sense, Christian community becomes a living classroom.
Parents play a crucial role here. Children do not learn forgiveness primarily from instruction, but from observation and guided practice. They watch how adults handle disagreement, how they speak about those who have hurt them, how they pursue reconciliation—or avoid it. When parents coach students through conflict rather than rescuing them from it, they participate in God’s sanctifying work. They teach their children that greatness in the Kingdom is not found in dominance or self-protection, but in humility, repentance, and grace.
When parents coach students through conflict rather than rescuing them from it, they participate in God’s sanctifying work. They teach their children that greatness in the Kingdom is not found in dominance or self-protection, but in humility, repentance, and grace.
This is how God disciplines His people, not harshly, but faithfully. Not to punish, but to restore. Christian discipline, when rooted in the Gospel, is never about shame. It is about love that refuses to leave a person where they are. It mirrors the Shepherd who goes after the wandering sheep, the Father who receives the prodigal, the Savior who absorbs the debt rather than demanding repayment. A community shaped by Matthew 18 understands this. It recognizes that forgiveness is not weakness, but strength rightly ordered. It knows that unresolved bitterness does not merely affect individuals—it reshapes the entire culture. It chooses, again and again, to reflect Christ rather than protect itself.
This is one of the greatest values of participating in a community like StoneBridge. Not that conflict will never arise, but that when it does, it becomes an opportunity to learn what greatness truly looks like in the Kingdom of God. It becomes a chance to practice resurrection. To see what is “mostly dead” restored through truth spoken in love. To witness, in ordinary relationships, the extraordinary grace of the Gospel at work.
When forgiveness is woven into the fabric of community life, people do not suffocate under pressure. They grow. They mature. They learn to breathe grace and to offer it freely to others. In doing so, they begin to look unmistakably like Christ.
A community shaped by Matthew 18 recognizes that forgiveness is not weakness, but strength rightly ordered. It knows that unresolved bitterness does not merely affect individuals—it reshapes the entire culture. It chooses, again and again, to reflect Christ rather than protect itself. This is one of the greatest values of participating in a community like StoneBridge.
A Culture Where Life Can Return
This vision of forgiveness is not abstract theology. It shapes families, friendships, classrooms, teams, and communities. Parents teach forgiveness less through instruction and more through modeling—through how conflict is handled, how offense is spoken of, how grace is extended when it costs something. Students learn greatness not by winning arguments, but by learning when to lay them down.
Those who have lived long enough know how heavy old grievances become with time, and how freeing it is to finally release them. A community marked by forgiveness becomes a place where people can fail without being discarded, be confronted without being crushed, and grow without fear. It becomes a place where what looks “mostly dead” is not written off too quickly. That is Kingdom culture.
So, Who Is the Greatest?
Jesus never answers the disciples’ question by naming anyone. Instead, He reveals a way of life. Greatness, in the Kingdom, belongs to those willing to become small.
… To those who cancel debts because theirs have been canceled.
… To those who absorb wounds because Christ absorbed theirs.
… To those who believe that what looks beyond saving may still be worth loving back to life.
The greatest are not those who stand tallest. They are those who stoop lowest. And in doing so, they make room for resurrection. True love still conquers death.
