Hurt between two women who love God can linger for years. The way back begins with humility and with what you choose to remember about her.
By EEW Magazine Online Inspiration Editors
Paul pleaded with Euodias and Syntyche, two women who had labored beside him for the Gospel, to be “of the same mind in the Lord.” (JDawnInk/Getty Images/Illustration by EEW Magazine Online)
Anyone who has fallen out with a sister in the faith knows how hard it is to stop replaying what happened. The sharp words come back at the worst moments. The slight gets retold to a friend and repeatedly rehearsed in your mind. Over time the hurt grows until it is hard to remember anything else about her. You still see her at church, across the sanctuary or at the next table during a fellowship dinner, and the whole thing comes rushing back each time.
A friendship built on prayer and years of shared ministry starts to feel like one long grievance.
Paul’s letter to the Philippians tells a story like that. Euodias and Syntyche were two women in the church at Philippi who had worked alongside Paul to spread the Gospel. He calls them his fellow laborers and says their names are in the book of life. Then something came between them. The Bible doesn’t say what happened. It does show how seriously Paul took it.
Near the end of his letter, in front of the whole church, he appeals to each woman by name: “I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord” (Philippians 4:2). He sides with neither of them. He asks a trusted co-worker, his “true yokefellow,” to “help those women” (Philippians 4:3).
When Paul asked Euodias and Syntyche to be of the same mind, he had already shown the church what that mind looks like earlier in the letter. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” he wrote (Philippians 2:5).
Christ was in the form of God, yet He “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant.” He “humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:7-8). He laid down what was rightfully His so that people estranged from God could be brought back. Paul describes that work in 2 Corinthians 5:19: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”
In a falling out, that mindset overrides the need to be proven right. It might mean making the first call, or listening without preparing a defense. Paul spells it out earlier in the same chapter: “in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves” (Philippians 2:3). The road back for two estranged sisters ran through that same humility.
A falling out between sisters in the faith can leave a woman replaying the same hurt for years. (VolodymyrKozin/Getty Images/Illustration by EEW Magazine Online)
Paul could ask that humility of Euodias and Syntyche because both had labored faithfully beside him. His plea fits a rift between two women who love God, want to do His will and mean well, yet have lost their way with each other. A woman who repeatedly wounds others finds no cover in it, and no one is asked to keep absorbing that harm in the name of unity.
A few lines after his plea, Paul gives the church a verse many believers know by heart: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)
The word translated “think” is logizomai. It describes careful, deliberate thought, the kind that weighs something and reaches a conclusion. The same word stands behind “not imputing their trespasses” in 2 Corinthians 5:19. Paul uses it again in 1 Corinthians 13:5, where love “thinketh no evil.”
God reconciled the world without holding its trespasses against it, and love lets go of wrongs. Philippians 4:8 tells believers what to hold in mind.
When read in the context of verse 2, Paul’s list gives a sister a different way to think about the woman she has fallen out with. What is true about her, apart from the worst assumption? What is just, honest and lovely? What is of good report? For Euodias and Syntyche, part of the answer was years of laboring together for the Gospel. Those years were worth remembering too.
The same story plays out in churches now. Women who sang in the same choir for twenty years stop speaking. Ministry partners split, and sometimes the dispute spills onto social media, where everyone is invited to choose a side. Paul’s example points everyone else in the room toward helping. For the women at the center, his counsel is to let go of what love would no longer hold against her.
Paul’s counsel to two estranged sisters closes with a promise of God’s presence. (stellalevi/Getty Images/Illustration by EEW Magazine Online)
Verse 9 closes the thought with action and a promise: “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.”
Scripture never says whether Euodias and Syntyche made peace. Their names remain in the letter, still listed among those who labored in the Gospel. The counsel Paul wrote a few lines after their names reaches every sister who is tired of carrying an old hurt.
Think on what is true about her, and take the humble step Christ showed the way to. The God of peace shall be with you.
