The Man Who Robbed Him

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” — Romans 12:21 (ESV)

When the dust settled, there was no doubt about what had happened. The servant Taylor had trusted had not simply wandered off — he had deliberately stolen everything Taylor owned in China, around forty pounds’ worth of goods, a huge sum for a man living hand to mouth, and had fled with it to another city. And Taylor had a decision to make. It would not have been hard to go after the man legally. He could have set the authorities on him and had him punished.

But two things stopped him. The first was practical and a little bitter: even if the man were caught and punished, Taylor was unlikely ever to see his belongings again, so prosecution would mostly just satisfy the desire to see the thief suffer. The second thing mattered far more. This thief was a man Taylor had personally worked and prayed for — someone he wanted to see come to Christ. And Taylor had been reading, with this very man, the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says “resist not evil” and tells his followers to answer wrong in a way the world finds baffling. Taylor decided he could not preach those words on Monday and ignore them the moment they cost him.

So he made his choice openly: the man’s soul was worth more than forty pounds of luggage. Instead of a warrant, Taylor sent the thief a letter. In it he urged the man to consider what he had done, warned him about the state of his soul, and pleaded with him to repent and put his faith in the Lord Jesus. He answered the robbery with a gospel appeal to the robber.

Taylor never records that the man wrote back or was converted; he is honest about that. What he does record is what happened at his own end. When his Christian friends in England heard how he had responded, one of them was so moved that he sent Taylor a cheque for forty pounds — the exact value of what had been stolen. And that man became a regular supporter, the first of many gifts from the same source. Taylor is careful not to present this as a reward transaction, as if forgiveness reliably refunds your losses. He simply notes that in choosing the man’s soul over his own repayment, he lost nothing in the end that mattered.

Now, be honest about how alien this is. Everything in you, when someone genuinely wrongs you — steals from you, lies about you, betrays a trust — wants them to pay. Not to be helped. Not to be prayed for. To pay. And our culture will back you all the way: they deserve it, stand up for yourself, do not let anyone walk over you. Taylor felt all of that. He specifically says it would have been easy to have the man punished. He chose the harder thing not because he was a doormat, but because he genuinely wanted something better for the man than justice — he wanted him saved.

That is what Paul means by not being overcome by evil. When someone wrongs you, there are two possible outcomes for your own heart: either their evil turns you bitter, vengeful, and hard — in which case their evil has won twice, once on you and once in you — or you refuse to let it, and you answer with a good it cannot corrupt. Taylor would not let a thief turn him into someone who cared more about repayment than about a lost man.

You do not have to pretend the wrong did not happen; Taylor never pretended. You do not have to feel warm about the person. You have to decide who you are going to become as a result of what they did.

One thing to do: think of someone who has actually wronged you and whom you are quietly waiting to see get what they deserve. Do one concrete good toward them this week — pray for them by name, speak well of them, or reach out — chosen precisely because it refuses to let their wrong shape you into someone hard. Taylor mailed a letter of concern to the man who robbed him blind.