Toxic people are much better at being toxic than we are at knowing how to deal with them. Toxic people enjoy conflict like a pig enjoys mud. They don’t want us to act like Christians; instead, they want us to do what they want us to do and and they revel in our desperate attempts to engage with them. As Jesus demonstrated, there comes a time to walk away. As Jesus said, “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces” (Mt 7:6). Spiritually dead people don’t recognize truth or love for what they are, and they derail us from our mission. Thus, we must determine not to waste our time on toxic people.

Now that we have explored the concept of toxicity and delved into how we can identify people who are toxic to us, we can explore the concept theologically, employing biblical-theological categories to understand the phenomenon and to craft a faithfully Christian posture toward toxic people.
As Gary Thomas writes in When to Walk Away, Scripture reveals at least three traits of toxic people: a murderous spirit, a desire for control, and a love for hatred. To Thomas’ three points we will add a fourth: an addiction to heart-theft. Taken together, these four traits provide Christians with a helpful theological categorization of the types of characteristics (Toxic People 102) and styles (Toxic People 103) we outlined previously.
A Murderous Spirit
The first category to be noted is a “murderous spirit.” Toxic people want to take you down and derail your mission. They want you cause you to feel shame, guilt, and discouragement. They enjoy making self-righteous and rash judgments and intend to discourage you with them. And, if you let them, they will systematically diminish, and finally destroy, your inner life. You cannot allow this to happen. Ultimately, Satan is the one manipulating toxic people to do his bidding. In essence, he is a murderer, and quite skillful at what he does (Jn 8:44).
A Desire for Control
The second category is a “desire for control.” Toxic people want to control you in some manner, if not entirely. If they can’t control you overtly, they will do so covertly through skillful manipulation. In so doing, they have become a tool of the Evil One. God doesn’t control us; this is seen clearly in the life of Jesus, who did not attempt to control those around him. Thus, when toxic people attempt to control us, they are assuming the authority of God but using the tools of Satan. They want you to bow to them, to be directed by them, instead of focusing on God’s will for your life.
A Love for Hatred
The third category is “a love for hatred.” People who love God are wired for humility, gentleness, and kindness (Col 3:12,14). Toxic people, however, are wired for anger, rage, malice, and deceit (Col 3:8-9). In fact, people who love God have a very difficult time understanding how a person claiming to be a Christian can be so hateful. Thus, we must realize that toxic people have an entirely different set of motivations and fears than healthy people, and that “normal” methods of interacting with them are ineffective and, in fact, counterproductive.
An Addiction to Heart-Theft
The fourth category is “heart-theft.” When a toxic person realizes he can’t control you overtly, he will seek to bully you covertly through manipulation. When a person engages in manipulation, she is trying to control you without your permission, and thus infringes on your autonomy.
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The call to biblical leadership is the call to serve our families. Accepting our positional authority and using it to firmly discipline our children is crucial for effective influence upon our children. Parenthetically, we don’t need to fear that wielding such authority will harm our relationship with our kids. Scripture assures us, We have had earthly fathers who disciplined us AND WE RESPECTED THEM. Firm discipline, in the long, run wins our kids’ respect. They will not respect a dad who just wants to be their play buddy. On the other hand, to maximize our influence there is no substitute for winning their hearts by caring for them well.

Some years ago, I found myself praying about whether I should pursue a DMin degree and write my dissertation on men’s ministry. But a rather sobering thought struck me. If my kids are in my home roughly twenty years and I live to be seventy, they are only going to be with me 2/7ths of my life. The price of pursuing the degree now will be paid by my 5 kids, who will get less time with me. I decided to put it off until 4 of my 5 kids were in college.
The years of greatest influence in our kid’s lives go by in a flash; so, dads whose kids are still at home, need to know how to maximize their influence, before their kids are launched into a world full of destructive worldviews. But it is not only Dad’s with kids at home who care about their influence. Even if our kids are already launched or have gifted us with grandkids, we also want to know how to maximize whatever influence we can have with both our adult kids and grandchildren. This episode examines God’s two-part design of the influence we wield as spiritual leaders of our home, positional influence and relational influence. In both cases, we must overcome false worldviews that undermine the way God wants us to lead our homes.
This is the third episode in our January series, Leading Our Homes Well in a Culture That Doesn’t Want Us to Lead. Last week we answered the first leadership question, “Where am I taking my family?” noting the biblical answer, to spiritual maturity as Christ’s disciples. Like Paul, home leaders say, One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus… Brothers, join in imitating me. (Phil 3:13ff). Today’s episode examines the second leadership question, which has to do with my relationship with my followers. “How do I use my leadership influence to motivate them to come with me?” The biblical answer to this question, once again, requires us to overcome strong cultural headwinds, i.e. worldviews promoted in the culture, which undermine a man’s leadership calling. We identify four.
A. False Worldview #1: Men Are Unnecessary
This view is rooted in feminism, egalitarianism, and the LGBTQ+ movement. A lesbian couple can parent as well as a heterosexual married couple. Men bring nothing unique to the process of raising children. Egalitarian-leaning, church-going men know their wives have more intuitive insight about kids than they do. When the kids ask permission to do something, their response is, “Go ask your mom.” Such men don’t wear the pants in their family.
Biblical View #1: Fatherhood Is Irreplaceable

Creation, itself, tells us that the nuclear family is not just a social construct. The biological fact that conception takes place in the context of husband and wife making love speaks volumes about the best environment for nurturing that child to healthy adulthood. In God’s obvious creation design, for a child to thrive, he needs a family built on mom and dad’s love for each other.
The family code sections of Ephesians and Colossians are significant. They address wives, then husbands, then children—commanding them to obey their parents. So, we might expect the next group Paul addresses to be parents; but it is not. How about mothers? No. It is striking that when Paul addresses the training of the children, he doesn’t mention mothers but gives commands to fathers. This pattern of responsibility began with Abraham, the Father of the Christian Faith. God said of Abraham, I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him (Gen 18:19). Perhaps fathers are specifically addressed because we inherited Adam’s passivity. He should have protected Eve from Satan and reinforced the truth of what God said.
Substantial research confirms that fathers and mothers discipline their children differently. Focus on the Family writes, “Dad takes an objective approach and provides his children with much needed instruction in the area of moral absolutes and the consequences of right and wrong actions. Mom, on the other hand, emphasizes compassion, empathy, relationship, and the importance of appreciating the uniqueness of each individual” (Online article, Mom and Dad Approach Discipline Differently). Both Mom and Dad are needed.

B. False Worldview #2 Teaches a Parent-Centered Approach to Children’s Discipline
In our narcissistic culture, it should not surprise us that some approaches to discipline are more about the parent’s feelings than the child’s behavior. It is reactive discipline. Here is an example. A dad on the playground says to his son, “Stop playing on the monkey bars.” But his son knows that this command means nothing. His father will not act until he has told the boy four or five times to stay off the monkey bars. So, the son continues to ignore his father’s command. The father, who is busy talking, yells at him again, but the son knows that his dad is not steamed up enough to act. Finally, the father reaches his limit and explodes,“You’ve got me really angry with you now. Get into that car.”
Instead of clarifying his instruction once, and then giving painful consequences for disobedience, this parenting approach is based upon the exasperation of the parent. Kids live up to whatever is demanded of them. The dad didn’t want to be bothered with the responsibility of being a good parent, but instead to continue his conversation. Furthermore, when my parenting is based upon how patient I feel, or how irritated or angry I am, punishment becomes random, and inconsistent, which provoke hot anger in a child. One moment, he gets away with murder, the next moment he barely steps across the line and is slammed with punishment. The dad trained his son not to obey until he started to get angry. He also made the issue HIS anger instead of the son’s disobedience. Good parenting isn’t rooted in how a parent FEELS but how a child BEHAVES. In fact, good parenting makes sure that the child understands that painful consequences for his misbehavior are NOT personal and do not interfere with the parent’s love for him.
Biblical View #2: Disciplining Children Is Part of a Training Plan for the Child. Paul Writes, Fathers, Do Not Provoke Your Children to Anger, but Bring Them Up in the Discipline and Instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4)

Here are four wrong approaches to discipline that provoke anger: 1) Inconsistent discipline, as we’ve seen. Consistent discipline trains a child to know what the boundaries are because the parents have thought them through ahead of time. It is not a seat-of-the-pants, reactive discipline. 2) Discipline that attacks a child’s character using the words, you always or you never instead of correcting behavior provokes anger. 3) Disciplining a child in public will wound his spirit. 4) Discipline that is more frequent than praise wounds our child, also provoking anger. Studies show that parents use critical words ten times more than they use words to praise their children. Mostly correction with little or no affirmation CRUSHES kids’ spirits and can lead to a rebellion.
In context, as Ephesians 6:4 continues, Paul implies that the alternative to provoking anger in our children is to exercise discipline in connection with the rest of the training plan for the child. Paul describes the plan: 1) bring them up: Dads are NOT to watch their children grow up but to actively raise them with intentionality 2) in the discipline: This Greek word is PAIDEA, from which we get pediatric. It means using consequences to train children. A father’s punishing authority is never to be used selfishly, or reflexively, but as part of a TRAINING plan. Paul continues, 3) and instruction (of the Lord): Instruction, means literally “to put into the mind.” This requires a plan for what biblical truths, godly qualities, and characteristics of Jesus we plan to impart to our kids.

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As image bearers, we were designed to behold wonderous things. Indeed, a continual perception of glory is necessary if we are to fulfill our role faithfully. To this end we must give our attention. According to this privilege, we must order our steps. There are no shortcuts or quick fixes. To be a vice-regent, we must ponder the songbird.

Ponder with me, the migratory behavior of birds—the beauty and wonder of avian flight patterns. Think, for example, about the bar-tailed godwit. Weighing just 10 ounces, it boasts the longest nonstop migration path of any bird. Every year, this stoic wader covers around seven thousand miles, flying from Alaska to New Zealand without pausing for food, water, or sleep. Ponder the ruby-throated hummingbird. In preparation for its biannual journey of two thousand miles, this colorful creature will feast for a week, doubling its bodyweight in fat. Then, flapping its wings approximately three thousand times per minute, it carefully manages the calories so as to arrive at the target destination without a hint of surplus podge. Muse upon the bar-headed goose. Though its migration path is relatively short, the journey from Mongolia to India involves a pass over the Himalayas. Thus, soaring to altitudes of 7,000 meters, this fearless member of the two-winged community must fly on only 10 percent of the oxygen available at sea-level.

These fun anecdotes (and many more) come to us courtesy of countless ornithologists who have worked tirelessly to understand their subject matter. The migratory behavior of birds is a fascinating field of study. At the same time, each discovery has been met with some fresh unknowns—questions about flight paths, the answers to which are hibernating in some far-away land. How do birds navigate across land and sea with such immense precision? Why do some birds fly clockwise, while others (from the same flock) counterclockwise? And why exactly do most songbirds migrate at night? Do they forgo the navigational advantages offered by light for a less turbulent atmosphere, cooler flying conditions, fewer predators, or all the above? As the collation of data persists, and new hypotheses abound, our curiosity only grows. The migratory behavior of birds is an awe-inspiring phenomenon to behold.
At this point, you may be double checking your URL. Like a sparrow confused, did you accidentally land on the wrong website? What relevance is bird migration to the pastor, seminary student, or average church member? Certainly, the annual routines of the great snipe do not impinge directly on your daily decisions. Whether a bird migrates to Africa or Australia does not change your choice of coffee in the morning. But such does not render the information irrelevant. The migratory behavior of birds is worthy of our contemplation. Why? Because it is an example of what might be termed serendipitous learning.
Pertaining to the incidental acquisition of knowledge, wisdom, or beauty, serendipitous learning is a unique kind of education. Rarely do we seek it (in any formal sense). And seldom do we anticipate its trajectory. We do not sign up for a class in serendipitous learning. Nor do we foresee its effect on our lives. Most often, this kind of instruction seeks us out. It overtakes and confronts us with the happy end of broadening our limited horizon and increasing our perception of the world. Two minutes ago, you were probably ignorant of the behavioral patterns of the godwit. Now you are not. You’re welcome.

Commenting on the value of serendipitous learning, Yuval Levin draws attention to its distinct form, and effect:
Among the most valuable benefits of living in society is the miracle of serendipitous learning: finding ourselves exposed to knowledge or opinion or wisdom or beauty that we did not seek out and would never have known to expect. This kind of experience is not only a way to broaden our horizons and learn about the ways and views of others, it is also an utterly essential component of what we might call socialization. Being constantly exposed to influences we did not choose is part of how we learn to live with others, to accept our differences while seeing crucial commonalities, to realize the world is not all about us, and at least abide with patience what we would rather avoid or escape.1
What is required for serendipitous learning? By virtue of its incidental nature, the question is difficult to answer. On the part of the student, we might simply say, an inquisitive mind. Indeed, a hunger for learning is perhaps the only prerequisite necessary to stand as the ready recipient of unsought out wisdom. (For this reason, it is often children who are the most frequent beneficiaries of serendipitous learning. Not yet saddled with responsibility, their minds prove fertile soil for beauty or the wisdom to seek a harvest.) But there is more. Beyond an inquisitive disposition on the part of the student, his environment must be rightly configured. Since the whole enterprise depends on a unique intersection of knowledge and the mind, society must play its part. There is an unstated yet necessary layout to the classroom of serendipitous education. And it is with respect to this detail that we begin to notice some problems.
Levin points to the deleterious effects of social media. Governed by algorithms that continually narrow our experience of the world, we are guaranteed to see only that which we already know and affirm. Levin writes:
Such algorithms are a particularly important source of this loss of serendipity online. They are designed to predict our preferences, and so to ensconce us in exposures and experiences we might have chosen, rather than ones we would never have known to want. They affirm us rather than shape us. Therefore, they are forms of expression more than means of formation. We might say that in moving large portions of our social lives from the streets of the city to the arena of social media, we move ourselves almost literally from a mold onto a platform.2
Our submission to these algorithms comes by way of the social media “feed”: a brilliantly constructed series that deceptively presents itself as a fully orbed picture of the world. And their effect on us can be seen by considering our response, the “post.” With the Alps, the pyramids, or Sistine Chapel as a backdrop, the twenty-something influencer submits the next selfie. Well-meaning, he intends to show something of his experiences. “Look at me!” “Better than a day in the office.” “#loveitaly.” In reality, he confirms that he is a product of his time. His perspective is narrow. And his interpretive grid meanders between self-affirmation and self-elevation. “The grandeur of the world is my backdrop. Unfathomable beauty is my stage. I stand at the center.”
Again, the blame for this ironic inversion cannot rest wholly with its proponent. Though not altogether naive, the egophile also is not as adamantly self-absorbed as we might suspect. Rather, he has been conditioned to think according to a particular logic. His virtual utopia continually upholds his convictions and shields him from all others. Thus, over time his perception of the world is one that only ever acquiesces to his thoughts. He is the focal point of all that goes on. When this is his reality, how else would he view the Great Wall except as a mere backdrop?