#STRask - When Is It Time to Walk Away from a Conversation?

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

Questions about how to discern when it’s time to walk away from a conversation, and how to cope with people charging you with being prideful and legalistic when you’re doing your best to be humble, fair, and gentle while sharing the gospel and defending the faith.   How do you discern when it’s time to walk away from a conversation? If the person is hard-hearted, is it worth it to keep trying to sow seeds? When does it become “throwing pearls before swine”? I do my best to be humble, fair, and gentle when I share the gospel and defend the faith, but I’m still frequently accused of being prideful and legalistic, which is painful because I actually care very much about people’s souls. How do you cope with this when you have similar experiences?

This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel here for you on the hashtag STRASK podcast from Stand to Reason. That's a lot first time I heard that one. I like that. We're here for you at your service. Okay, Greg. Today we have a question from Jake. How do you discern when it's time? to walk away from a conversation. If the person is hard-hearted, is it worth it to keep talking

to try to sow seed? When does it become throwing pearls before swine? Oh, I'm glad they brought that passage up. It's in Matthew 7, because I think there is guidance there on this issue. I do spell this out a little bit in the tactics book. And the point that I make from that passage, Jesus says, judge not, lest you be judged, et cetera, et cetera, you know, the measure of judgment that you put on others shall be judged you. Then eventually, and he talks about hypocrisy there, take the log out of your eye before you're strained to get this back out of somebody else's. But then he says, don't throw your pearls before swine and don't throw what is holy to dogs

lest they turn on you and trample you to pieces, something to that effect. Well, there, I think, is a guide there a little bit. I actually don't think everyone deserves an answer. There was a book way back probably in the 60s, early 70s when I was a fairly new Christian that was as Apologetics book, very rare back then. It was called To Everyone an Answer. No, I don't disagree with the book and the idea is we have an answer for the challenges. That's important for us to have that.

But I don't think everyone deserves an answer to the challenges that they make. We have an atheist who contacts us regularly with all kinds of questions and they're quite snarky. And some I answer on my own show and some we just say, no, we're just taking pass because these questions don't even, and this questioner in this circumstance doesn't deserve an answer. considering the whole, you know, the atmosphere that the question is being asked in and the attitude that seems to be present. Sometimes she says, okay, to shrug it off and not even respond to it, not even answer. And there are times when I'll just let things go. And by the way, this is actually good counsel in relationships in general.

And that is that especially for people who tend to be a little defensive, which would I would fall in that category. You can let things slide if it doesn't, I mean, realistically, it doesn't look like it's going to bear any reasonable fruit. You could just let insult slide. You could just, you could snarky kind of comments or you could let that slide or at least step aside from the snarkiness and then respond to the content. This is something I always admired about Dennis Prager, the radio talk show host, a Jewish radio talk show host. because he seemed to be so adept at that, and I tried to adopt that style in my own engagement with people. And the passage there in Matthew 7, I think, is helpful. So actually, there's a

couple things here, and one of them is if you can, if somebody's being snarky and you could sidestep the attitude and respond graciously, this is really powerful, especially if other people are watching. And it has a tendency to defuse, even the person is being snarky. So that's one advantage. Another advantage is that it is virtuous. You know, maybe I should put that first. The second thing is, or the third thing now, it's virtuous. It's, it can pacify the other person, change the tone of the conversation, or you just let it play out and you walk away. I mean, with steamrollers, the steamroller tactic, that's the third move. If the person will not stop interrupting, you let them have the last word and say, and you

end the conversation. There's no reason to keep going. And that, I think, is the chapter where I talk about, not everyone deserves an answer. And if you have a sense that the other person, maybe you're overmatched, maybe not in terms of information, but in terms of forcefulness and attitude and cleverness of speech and rhetoric and all kinds of other noise from the other side, and you just can't make any progress there. You figure nothing that you say that is sound

will not be disparaged in a clever way, so it sounds like you're dumb or your view is dumb. So then just let it go. If it feels like, and now back to Jesus' words, he's about to turn on you, or she, about to turn on you and tear you to pieces. there's no reason we have to stand for that, in my view. Sometimes it's just entirely appropriate just to let the conversation die.

There's something I read on a regular basis of just a little saying, as it were, and it is about two people in conflict, and it's like having each person is on the opposite sides of a rope that has a knot in it. And the more each person pulls, the tighter that knot gets. And what the advice is, is if you just let go of your end of the rope, the knot is not going to get tighter. And then at some other time when you're not both pulling on the ends of the rope, you might be able to untie it. But if you're always pulling, that not gets tighter and tighter and tighter. It's good counsel for close relationships. It's a good counsel for circumstances like this.

if it appears that this person is not going to give any ground, and they're just going to fight back and fight back and fight back, well, it might be better in the moment to just drop your end of the rope and maybe look for another opportunity when there's more charity or more of a teachable attitude, or maybe that's never going to be in. You just walk away and leave them to the Lord, you know. I have one, I know you want to jump in. I have a saying here from scripture, I'm not sure it's a really proper application, but it helps me here. And this is Jesus, and what he says, as you probably know where I'm going with this, let the dead bury the dead. I mean, there are times when there is no use going forward, and in my mind I'm going, okay, whatever. And I'm thinking, let the dead bury the dead.

I'm not going to waste time in this circumstance. Now, could you be wrong if you want to keep pressing? Could that make a difference? maybe, but in any given circumstance, you have to make a judgment. And so if you want to keep pressing forward, you know, go ahead. But I'm simply saying you're not obliged to keep pressing forward in a circumstance that seems to be going nowhere, the knots getting tighter, and this person's about to turn in you and tear you to pieces.

Then it might be a good idea just to walk away. I was thinking about this. I generally persevere for a long time. I have a lot of patience and persistence, I guess, stubbornness where I keep coming back in conversations. But there have definitely been times when I have walked away and good conscience. And so I was trying to identify what are the things that turn it for me, that make it so I no longer am interested in engaging. And there are two specific things, I think, that in the past have clued me into the fact that I should just walk away. And the first one is when they are not hearing what I'm saying.

So I don't mind so much if people disagree with me. So I make my point. I make my argument and they say, well, here's why your argument's wrong. And then they come back with a response to my argument. I'm fine with that. But if I'm making my argument and then they come back with the exact same thing or say, you're an idiot, I can't believe you're so stupid that you are being so dishonest and blah, blah, blah. And there's no indication that they actually heard my argument.

Pretty soon I walk away because when someone's disagreeing with me, they're at least taking the information in, they're taking in the ideas. and they could think about them later, they could consider them later. But if somebody is giving no indication that they're even hearing the arguments, well, at this point, there's no point in giving an argument. So that's the first thing. And the second thing that will make me walk away is if, and it's similar to that one, it's if I cannot find any way to connect with them as a human being. So there's no sense of them acknowledging me as a human being in the conversation. it's more like they're in their own world and in their anger and in their own ideas about what they want to say. It's almost like they're not even aware I'm there. Or like they don't think I'm a real person. Or like they're not acting like a real person. Whatever it is, there's no human connection at all. So after a couple interactions, if that seems to be the case, then I will walk away. So I think those are the two times when I will give up on a conversation.

Okay, here's a similar question, Greg, from TR. Hi, I do my best to be humble, fair, and gentle when I share the gospel and defend the faith, but I'm still frequently accused of being prideful and legalistic. That's painful because I actually care very much about people's souls. Surely you have similar experiences. How do you cope with them? Oh, I have. I've been accused of being prideful.

Now, sometimes it was an accurate accusation. So I'm not disparaging TR here. I understand that when you are principled and virtuous, people respond with this kind of response, which is really nothing more than an ad hominem attacking the person rather than dealing with the issue. And sometimes it could be painful. And I understand that, especially if the people are close to you. But it's nothing more than an ad hominem in many cases. Now, of course, whenever this happens, I guess it's fair if you are being accused of being, what, arrogant or legalistic.

So this sounds like a, this sounds like an accusation coming from another Christian, non-Christian would be concerned about legalism per se. It's a religious category kind of thing. But then if you're being accused of that, it's fair to take, you know, personal stock and see if those are accurate descriptions, if there's arrogance, you know. Sometimes, and I think maybe in some of the cases in the past for me, people mistake confidence for arrogance. And if you're a very confident person and come across aggressively confident, because you have reasons to be confident in what you're saying, that might be dismissed as arrogance, which doesn't change the nature of the discussion itself in terms of the merits, you could be very confident and right. And you can even be very arrogant and still right. And so if the attempt is to dismiss the point that's being made, then that's a mistake on the other person's side. Sometimes, especially in religious circles, Christian circles, and I owe this insight to Frank Beckwith, the philosopher over at Baylor, and I wrote a book with him.

And Frank said when other people are losing a religious argument, they often trump you with spirituality. I'm more spiritual than you are. So you're trying to figure out a problem. He said, well, I don't put God in a box. You're putting God in a box. I'm not going to do that. Oh, so you're more spiritual than I'm. Notice they're not addressing whatever challenge or issue that's under discussion.

And maybe this is what's going on here. Oh, that's arrogant and legalistic. Okay. So I don't have to listen to your point. Now, what legalism is one of two things, characteristically, just FYI. One of them is seeking to be justified by law. And this is condemned in the New Testament, especially by Paul, in Galatians chapter 5. Yeah, that's right, Galatians 5. You who are seeking to be justified by law, circumcision is of no use to you. You've been separated from Christ. You follow from grace. Okay, that's Paul. Now, there's another type of legalism, and Jesus addressed that, and that is when we take human rules and we make them equal with God's

law. Okay? Here's the rule. You can't watch TV. Nope, that's our rule for our congregation, no TV watching. Well, the Bible doesn't say no TV watching or anything akin to that. We should be careful, arguably, but the point is that this is a rule that they've set up, and then you're measured by their rule rather than by God's rule. That's another kind of legalism. Okay. So if somebody says you're being legalistic, then the question is, am I guilty of either of those two errors? Sometimes when you are expressing the biblical requirement for holiness, people think you're being legalistic. And in that situation, you need to be careful. The, we are to be holy as God is holy. That's a verse. That doesn't mean that our salvation is earned by our holiness. It means that

the appropriate behavior or life style of somebody who says they follow Jesus is to follow him. Why do you call me Lord, Lord? And you don't do what I say to do. So occasionally the legalistic label would be pinned on somebody when they're just saying, this is what God wants for any Christian. And then, oh, you're being legalistic. So I just wanted to make those distinctions here. And one has to figure out, are any of those legitimate challenges or criticisms that are being laid on me? And if not, then, you know, understand that. It doesn't mean people aren't going to call you names, essentially is what it amounts to, to dismiss you, but that'll happen in the church just as much as outside of the church. Yeah, I see two aspects

to the answer to this question, and one of them is how kind of to interact with it when it happens, and the other is how to cope with it. And they kind of play with each other, I think. But in terms of how to interact, I think you're exactly right, Greg, that it's a chance to humble you and to consider if it's accurate. So this would be a good chance to maybe step away from the actual argument that you're having and say, you know, it is, it's really important to me that I not be arrogant and legalistic, but I'm not really sure what you mean by those terms. So can you explain to me more what you mean by that and what I'm doing? And because it's important to me to be like Jesus. So I don't want to be those things. But I want to understand what you mean by that.

Sure. Excellent. And then you can have a conversation about it because in our, I suspect, what you said about being confident will be interpreted as arrogance because this is a relativistic society. So if you're saying things are true, then that's going to be understood as arrogance. So if they say you're saying you're right, then you can have a discussion about, you know, truth and objective truth and reality. And the claim you're making is that things are true about spiritual things. So it just means you have to start farther back in your arguments all the way to objective truth about spiritual things rather than whatever it is you're discussing. So that's an opportunity to move that conversation back there. So that might help.

So what do you mean by that is the key question there? Back to basics, right? So now the question is, how do you cope with people being angry at you and coming back at you? And honestly, I get asking that question. I totally get that. It wears on you to have people constantly calling you names or being angry at you. So this is a really good question, and I think it's something we all need to think about a little bit more. And one of them, the first answer is just keep reminding yourself of the truth. You know, what's the truth here? The truth is their whole worldview is being threatened here. But what you're saying,

you're convinced it's true. And if what they're saying is false, you can at least take comfort in that. You can at least take comfort in the fact that their assessment of you is not correct. And one thing you need to remember is that when people do this to you, that doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong. And we know this is true because this is how they treated Jesus and all the prophets. So if they're treating you that way, don't automatically assume that what you're saying is false or that it's ugly or hateful or whatever it is they're charging you with because they said the same to Jesus. So you can expect that this will happen. So kind of expecting it to happen in the future and not being naive about that, that can help you go into this with your eyes open and ready to face these things. So I think even further, you can look at this as an opportunity to do two things.

And the first thing it's an opportunity to do is to be a parable of the gospel to others and to show them who Jesus is. as you mentioned, Greg, you respond. As Jesus responded, you don't respond in kind. You respond with grace. And this is actually revealing who Jesus is. And this is what Peter says in First Peter. He talks about how we're to imitate Jesus who did not respond to reviling by reviling others. And it says he kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. So Jesus continued to be. good. He continued to do what's right. He continued to be gracious, regardless of how he was being treated, because he was entrusting himself to the judge who is good and just. Titus three also talks about how we are supposed to respond to those who are reviling us with grace, because that's how Jesus responded to us. That's how he saved us. So we're to imitate him in that. So this is the opportunity you have in this situation to be a parable of the gospel. And secondly, it's an opportunity to show people Jesus value. Because no matter how much they malign you, if you don't give up Jesus,

you're saying that he's more valuable to you than the opposition is painful. And more valuable than their approval. That's also true. So you're showing his value to others. So you're showing who he is to others. You're showing his value to others. So if you can look at this in terms of having a purpose, because clearly Peter says this has a purpose. You're going through this for a reason. It's not something crazy when people are in opposition to you. It has a purpose. So if you can keep that purpose in mind, that can help you to endure. And then finally, I think you can leave the justice in God's hands. And as I mentioned, Jesus can kept entrusting himself to the judge who does what's right. In the same way, Romans 12 says

the reason why we can give food to our enemy when he's hungry, we can give him drink when he's thirsty is because God said vengeance is mine, I will repay. So by responding well with grace, you're not letting them off the hook. You don't have to worry about injustice being done. Justice will be done. You don't have to worry about that. So because we can leave that in God's hands, we are free to show grace. So all of these things, remembering that God will be just, remembering that this is an opportunity to show who Jesus is and to show his value to others, we can get through this a lot better. Now, I, long ago, I wanted to understand, because I was feeling this, because I was moderating comments on the Stand to Reason blog,

and it got pretty dicey at times. So I was reading all of these different books and stories about Christians who persevered in the past through all sorts of things. To help you answer the blog. I wanted to know how do they keep going? How did they not give up? How do they not get discouraged? And the one common thing that I found among all of them was their love for Jesus. And I honestly think that is what will keep you going.

I don't think anything else is going to be strong enough. If you have a love for the lost, eventually you're going to get angry at them. You're not going to care. If you love truth, eventually you're going to get tired of saying the truth. You have to love Jesus more than anything else. And so to increase your love for him, you need to see who he is. You need to be reading your Bible. You need to be reading about him.

You need to be thinking about him. You need to be praying. You need to be focusing your attentions on him so that you are willing to suffer for him. Because remember, one of the earlier things was you're showing his value. Well, if you don't see his value, it's really hard to reveal his value when people are being mean to you. So all of this, I think, comes down to knowing Jesus well. I've thought a lot about this because, you know what's funny? Just this morning, I was reading First Peter just this morning.

And I was thinking the way Peter responds to persecution and the way Paul responds to persecution is so different. So the ideas are the same. But Paul will give the truth and then he moves on. And Peter is so – it's like Peter understands the pain more of being opposed. And we see this – we see this in his life. We see that he turned away from Jesus because the pressure was so much. We see that he gave in to the Judaizers who were adding law, and Paul had to say, don't do that. Yeah, publicly, rebuke him, right.

So I suspect Peter probably was, I'm trying to think of the word. Maybe he was more empathetic. Maybe he saw things through other people's eyes a little more, and it was harder for him to do this. So he had to really think about it and to think about what would motivate us to keep going for those of us who maybe take it more personally. So this is why I love First Peter because I think he really goes into all of this so clearly and it's so helpful, which is, of course, what Jesus asked him to do. He says, when you come back, strengthen your brothers. Oh, interesting. And I think that's what this is.

And so, yeah. So I recommend if you're having trouble, memorize First Peter. So you're thinking about it a lot. And I think that will help. I hope that will help. Well, I think we're out of time, Greg. Thank you, TR and Jake. We appreciate hearing from you. And please send us your question. If you've had a question for a while, send that in on X with the hashtag STRS ask or you can go to our website at STR.org. Thank you so much for listening. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kogel for Stand to Reason.