Winning the Argument but Losing the Witness

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."  (John 13:35)

I had to put a stop to a conversation recently. Not because I disagreed with what was being said—I can handle differences of opinion just fine—but because of how it was being said. As the words kept coming, dripping with contempt for those on the other side of the issue, I could feel my own temper rising. And I knew if I responded the way my frustration wanted me to, I would be no better than the person speaking. So I shut it down. Not because I couldn’t argue, not because I had nothing to say, but because if I had stayed in that moment any longer, I would have said something that would not have represented Christ.

Yesterday, someone who had witnessed the exchange asked me if I had been angry when I cut the conversation short. I didn’t hesitate to answer—I was furious. But my anger wasn’t about the opinion being shared. Everyone is entitled to their own perspective, and I can respect that. My anger was over the sheer vitriol coming from someone who claimed to follow Christ. The words weren’t just passionate—they were cruel, dismissive, and utterly devoid of grace. And the thing is, if I had let my anger control my response, I would have done the exact same thing. I would have harmed my own witness just as much as they were harming theirs. So I chose to put a stop to the conversation.

That’s something too many people forget—our witness is always on display. Every time we open our mouths, every time we type a comment, every time we share a post dripping with sarcasm or spite or condemning those who think differently, we are showing the world what kind of Christian we really are. And I don’t mean the kind of Christian we claim to be when we’re at church on Sunday morning. I mean the kind we prove ourselves to be when we’re frustrated, or when we’re debating, or when we’re staring at someone who we think just doesn’t get it.

It doesn’t matter how right we think we are. It doesn’t matter how strongly we feel about an issue. If we speak with arrogance instead of humility, if we respond with scorn instead of love, we aren’t standing up for Christian principles—we’re trampling them. Jesus never told us to compromise the truth, but He also never gave us permission to treat people with cruelty just because we disagree. Somehow, people have convinced themselves that if they’re on the “right side” of an issue, their tone doesn’t matter. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

The person you’re arguing with? They’re made in God’s image. The person whose beliefs frustrate you to no end? Still a child of God. Whether they acknowledge it or not isn’t the point—our job is to treat them as someone valuable in God’s eyes because they are. The minute we start seeing people as enemies instead of individuals Christ died to save, we’ve lost sight of what it means to follow Him.

I ended that conversation because I knew my witness was at stake. Not my reputation, not whether I won or lost an argument, but my ability to represent Christ well. And I have to believe that matters more than getting in the last word. Because at the end of the day, people may forget what we argued about, but they won’t forget how we treated them. They won’t forget if we made them feel like nothing. They won’t forget if we showed them grace when they didn’t deserve it. And I’d rather be remembered for that than for proving a point or being right.

So the next time we’re tempted to lash out, to match someone’s hostility with our own, to say that biting thing we know will cut deep, we need to ask ourselves: Is this worth my witness? Because if the answer is no, then the best thing we can do is walk away.