Church Discipline: The Form, The Attitude, The Reasoning, and The Goal
I am positive the Bible runs counter to every culture in the world. Yet it is how it runs countercultural to America that interests me most. Here at REO, we’ve written about many of them. One that I have not touched thus far due to a nasty connotation is the issue of church discipline. What happens when the church finds out about a marital affair, or a porn addiction? Or that someone has been lying habitually? Or dealing with anger in sinful ways?
I realize that even our good churches historically have botched this aspect of theology and practice quite badly at times. And that has caused us to treat the concept of church discipline as a profane term. An ugliness to be avoided both in speech and action. I add that I believe my current church in Chicago has actually done this quite well biblically speaking. Thanks almost entirely to the other elders I have worked with. This doesn’t change the fact that we significantly and rampantly misunderstand this issue . And hence, many Baptist and Evangelical churches practice it poorly. If at all.
Why Is This So?
I fear churches avoid discipline for a minimum three reasons. First, people so often in recent church history have executed it with so little grace and without reconciliation in mind that it conjures up images of gossiping, self-righteous church members and leaders and scarlet letters. Second, on the opposite end, some churches simply do not judge the behaviors of their membership. Either through a warped view of grace, because of the fear of man, or a huge overlap of both, they never confront for any reason. These first two demonstrate how easy it is to live in extremes—and not in the tension of balanced biblical interpretation and application. In this case, grace and truth1.
And thirdly, the current American church culture bends to segregating your church life and your personal life. So that church is just a place to worship an hour a week and blend in. And not a place to live in transparent, confessional community with other believers every day.
None of these things are remotely biblical.
Today I want to deal with it head on and with as much wisdom as I can. And as alluded to above, I do not come at this with mere head knowledge. Other men of God have led me and together we have traversed the fire. By the grace of God we understand this area of theology to some level. Having said that, while the best teaching and preaching involves illustrations and personal experiences, I will obviously be avoiding that today out of prudence and common sense. At least for the most part.
A simple interpretation of a few Bible passages will be enough to start. And these interpretations—and not my own war stories—will be most effective in helping others. Jesus and Paul, the main source material for the NT for this topic, both speak very plainly about it.
With these two men in mind, here are four crucial aspects to confronting sin in the church, according to the inspired New Testament authorities:
The Form: Four Steps of Increasing Severity
In Matthew 18:15-18 Jesus gives a very basic and practical model to follow when a fellow believer has sinned. First, confront them personally. If they do not listen, take another Christian with you. If that doesn’t work, take it to the church. And then if they still do not listen then “treat them as an unbeliever (Gentile, pagan) or tax collector”.
There is a lot to unpack there and some of it is open to interpretation. But I’ll try to be succinct. Disagreement here is welcomed below in the comment section (as well with any part of this). The first two steps are pretty simple so I’ll skip to the third one. Our church has interpreted “the church” as this being the step when the elders get involved. Not the church at large. Not only does the latter seem impractical in our culture, it is our aim to show as much grace and patience in keeping things private until absolutely necessary.
I hasten to add here that my church does not practice these steps with a “one and done” approach. Meaning we may have several conversations at each step with the person caught in sin, as we try to figure out the truth. And how best to serve the person, either through some type of church discipline or counseling or something similar.
Once the fourth step comes, then there is no choice. If the offending person shows no willingness to repent or even to meet with the church to present their side, then the person is removed from membership. And the church must be notified.
What exactly does it mean to “treat them as an unbeliever or a tax collector”? Well in some way I believe it means you consider them as someone who is not a Christian. Because they cannot be if they are living in unrepentant sin. Especially after being shown that much grace. That part seems pretty straightforward.
And after that? Well, this is where it can get dicey. And part of this discussion is affected by how we view certain passages on the topic. I once had a disagreement with another elder at my church about how to treat a person at the fourth step, as far as how to interact with them. Based on 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 I was adamant that this person needed to be cut off and left to their own selfishness as punishment. No association with them would be biblical. Another elder more graciously advocated for trying to win them back through relationship. Since that is what our church does with unbelievers. Isn’t that the ultimate end to treating them as a pagan or tax collector? Could Paul and Jesus be in conflict here?
We discussed it for a long time. I admit the other elder was closer to the truth than I was. But we both moved some towards the middle. We established that the way we would go about it would be to try to maintain a relational connection if possible (in our experience people in stage four often do not want to have any communication with the church), but only to try to win them back with loving and graceful truth. Essentially by evangelizing them.
But this does not mean we simply hang out with them as we would any other lost person. Meaning, just to be a friend. I share Jesus with the lost friends I have but not in an aggressive way every time we are together. Sometimes we just get together to watch a baseball game. I may work Jesus into the conversation, but it is not always the main point in the meeting. That is a crucial difference between a Step Four unbeliever and an unbeliever who has never been a part of the church. The former needs to be approached with restoration as the primary goal of the meeting. That is at least where my church landed.
The Attitude: Humble Self-Awareness
In Galatians 6:1, Paul says that when we confront someone in sin (no matter which step I would think) it has to be with humility. This can be shown through our word choices and the whole of our nonverbal communication. Though I am sure what humility looks like will change from person to person. It obviously is not weak or passive or apologetic in this context. But it absolutely should communicate to the sinning party, “I am not better than you. Sin could entangle me just as easily as it has entangled you.”
Self-righteousness has no place in church discipline. And it is my firm belief that if a Christian is living face down before God in worship, preaching the Gospel to themselves, and seeking forgiveness from God and others daily, then when it is time to confront, they will be able to practice Galatians 6:1 correctly. Isn’t this what Jesus taught in Matthew 7:1-3 as well?
The Reasoning: Protect the Body from Death
Paul gives a significant amount of teaching on church discipline in 1 Corinthians 5. But for this article, I want to zero in on one of his major points. We practice church discipline and are willing to put people out of membership for a reasonable end: if you do not take sin out of the church, it will spread throughout the church like gangrene in a diseased foot will spread to the rest of the body. Amputation can absolutely be the most gracious thing to keep a body healthy. He uses the illustration of yeast in bread but the point is the same; the sin of one person can corrupt the whole church if not extracted.
That is just the nature of sin and humanity. If a person sins without repentance and the church lets them stay, other members will experience inclination to fall into similar temptations. So by removing the unrepentant former member from the church community, you are actually doing something entirely gracious—you are protecting God’s bride. Who is supposed to be presented to him as radiant and without spot or wrinkle. This is of course primarily because the blood of Christ makes the church clean. But repentance keeps her clean. A lack of repentance, even by a single individual, can potentially ruin the whole body. Churches must be willing to seem ungracious to that one so that they are being gracious to all.
The Goal: Reconciliation, Always
Perhaps the biggest sin of Pharisee-ism is that its self-righteousness makes reconciliation impossible. No matter the teaching in the New Testament, I cannot help but comprehend this topic as one where reconciliation with the one caught in sin and the church as the goal of every step. There is no room in our church discipline for “You messed up so you don’t belong here.” Quite often in my experience, people do not say this to the sinning person’s face; they just gossip them out of the church. Gossip is about as perpendicular to healthy confrontation, humility and reconciliation as it can be. And as such Paul lists it with the worst sins in New Testament (Romans 1:29; 2 Corinthians 12:20).
Instead, we need to be actively seeking reconciliation and restoration with the person caught in sin. That is what Jesus was teaching by giving the steps he gave in Matthew. It seems obvious to me that just looking at those four verses (vs. 15-18) you can see grace being shown by giving the person numerous chances to repent and by giving their sin privacy. But by looking at the larger context of Matthew 18, it becomes even more obvious how essential it is to see the guilty person as someone to forgive if they repent. In 18:21-35, Jesus teaches that we forgive over and over and over precisely because God has forgiven us far more than others have offended us.
Additionally, I believe Paul dealt with the offending man from 1 Corinthians 5 in his second Corinthian letter. And taught to welcome him back into fellowship. Now, I must assume that the man had repented because I do not think you can have reconciliation without repentance. You can forgive without it, but reconciliation takes two people: A forgiving victim and a sorrowful offender. But the fact Paul advises to forgive and accept the man from 1 Corinthians 5 is powerful when you consider how repulsive his sin was.
I could write much more on church discipline but part of why REO exists is to foster discussion and not presume to present the final, authoritative word on subjects like these. So we welcome feedback even in the form of disagreement below.
- Which are not true opposites and need to work together, and that is basically the point of this whole article ↩
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This is great stuff! Every church should put this into practice.
Highly relevant at all times, but especially today. Outstanding, well-designed, and loving, while firm. The part about protecting the body from death was particularly presented well.
Thank you Lytle gentlemen. Your perspectives matter to me greatly. And I’m thrilled to have ended up at a church that taught me this stuff. We have weak areas but the courage I have seen from men and women of God in the last 17 years has astounded me.
I love the light hearted stuff REO puts out but it is the way you guys approach weightier matters like this that I most appreciate. Your theological tales probably don’t get as much outward response but it serves the purpose of broaching topics that are being ignored, which hopefully leads to consideration in our churches.
I think of the recent Houston chronicle investigation into the SBU (which would have been just as damning for any denomination, we’re all guilty) and think how different it would be if we weren’t afraid of church discipline. I think in part we are shell-shocked. If the SBU has practiced proper church discipline they would be investigated for their harshness and antiquated notions. That’s an uncomfortable spot to be in but it’s much better to suffer for the right reason and perhaps rescue souls than to suffer for neglect of what should have biblically been done anyway.
That should have been SBC. That’s what I get for trying to type coherent thoughts on my phone while sleepy 🙂
Thank you, Faron. I appreciate you reading and commenting on here, on both types of topics.
Much needed in the American church today. When Eddy was pastoring, we followed these biblical steps with a church member. When we had to present it to the church and remove him from church membership, the response (led by a man who had taught Sunday school for 30 years ) was “Jesus would NEVER do that!” What?!! He spoke these words in Matthew 18! How far our churches have fallen……
Thank you for this article.
Wow that’s a shame. We definitely live in the “Non-Offensive” Jesus culture. We at REO even dealt with that back at Christmas.
Good stuff again, Gowdy. I think your final reason why church discipline doesn’t seem to be practiced like it should could merit it’s own post by itself. So many of us just wear our church hats an hour or two a week-myself included most of the time. It’s a place we go to to spectate with like-minded folks and participate in sentimental worship. There’s little to no connection between our church lives and our real lives. I think we take God’s name in vain so much more this way than in uttering the word g—–n.
Great comment! 1 – I totally agree about how we do church. “Like-minded” and “Sentimental” do strike me as key adjectives to go with “an hour a week”. I don’t even know how to get out of that mindset, that the Sunday worship service is supreme and everything else is secondary. I think my church does a decent job pushing daily community but it is still obvious some people never get beyond that one day a week You-won’t-get-to-really-know-me superficial ‘community’.
And 2 – I love the interpretation of “take God’s name in vain”. When I was in college we learned that the “take” verb is the same as “to wear” (or can be) and it really changed how I see that command. It is saying “GD” but it’s also a whole nother level of how we take on the name, as we would a piece of clothing that everyone sees on us when we are in public. And when we take it on without doing it justice we are breaking that commandment. That is an excellent point to me.