Review
I. Elements of Church Discipline - Part One
A. The Place of Discipline - The place of discipline is the assembly of believers-- the church (Mat. 18:17).
B. The Purpose of Discipline
1.) Prevention – The fear of sinning
2.) The other purpose for church discipline is restoration.
C. The Person of Discipline
Discipline is not just for church officials; it’s for everyone, including those who lead in the church.
In fact Galatians 6:1 tells us exactly who should do it: “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual restore such an one.” Those who are walking in the Spirit, who are obeying the Word, and who are in fellowship should restore the fallen brother or sister.
D. The Provocation of Discipline
When does discipline start?
It starts every day as one goes before the Lord in prayer and during the study of the Scriptures.
2.) Discipline also starts when we sin against a brother or sister or a brother or sister sins against us.
There are two ways a fellow believer’s sin can affect you—directly and indirectly.
II. Elements of Church Discipline - Part Two
A. The Process of Discipline
Step One - Examine Yourself. (Self-Discipline)
The self-controlled Christian is someone who knows when to seek help himself rather than waiting for others to offer it. He is self-disciplined and, as a result, self-controlled even in that.
To be self-controlled does not do away with the strength and wisdom the Spirit gives through His Word. Self-control is the fruit of the Spirit (i.e., the result of the Spirit's work) in a believer.
It is the Spirit’s work to make the Christian a sturdy, dependable person to who others turn for encouragement and help.
As was mentioned in part one, self-discipline or self-examination is accomplished as one goes before the Lord in prayer and meditation of the Scriptures and adjusts or conforms his life to the precepts of the Word of God.
Step Two - Tell Him His Sin Alone. (One-on-One)
In step one--self-discipline, no one else is involved; the believer deals with his sin alone before God.
If, for example, he has sinful thoughts relating to another person, he doesn’t reveal them to that person (“I’ve been lusting after your car” “I’ve been wanting to knock you upside your head.”) he handles them in confession and repentance before God alone.
With step two we begin to consider the ways in which a Christian seeks help through the use of discipline. This begins the first of those stages of church discipline in which others participate. It is the stage where one believer confronts another about what he believes to be the other's sin.
Mat 18:15 "And if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
The offended party at this point may be wondering, "Why do I have to go? I wasn't the one who did the damage, I was the one that was hurt." There are two answers to this question:
(1) The first being that the offender may not obey Matthew 5:23-24 and cause further tension between himself and his brother.
Mat 5:23 "If therefore you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
Mat 5:24 leave your offering there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.
(2) The second reason is that the offending brother may not even realize that he offended anyone.
Step Three - Take Some Witnesses (One or Two Others)
Mat 18:16 "But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED.
How often should an offended person go to another person before moving on to step 3 in the disciplinary process? Is it a matter of the length of time, or the number of times? Neither. In Matthew 18:16 the operative phrase is "if he won't listen to you."
Notice similar commands in verse 17:
Mat 18:17 "And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax-gatherer.
This does not imply that you have been to him but once and, upon his refusal to listen, you move on.
No. The refusal must be a genuine one. This means that if, in the heat of the battle, he will not listen to reason, you will wait until he has had time to cool off and then try again. Perhaps you will want to try several times before stepping up the process.
Always remember the goal of church discipline is restoration. The people you take with you if you must proceed to step 3 all must have the same objective in mind of gaining back your brother.
Verse 16 says, " BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED."
The witnesses are initially to be silent witnesses, listening to both sides. They may very well find the brother or sister who asked them to be present to be in the wrong. Or they may walk away finding the offender to be unrepentant.
But in the end if the offender refuses to listen to them, then they proceed to the next step. How many times do they approach the offender before they go to the next step? As with the previous step, they should try to determine whether or not his refusal is a genuine one. –“if he refuses to listen…”
Step Four - Tell The Church.
Mat 18:17a "And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church..."
This step falls under what our chart refers to as formal church discipline. Jay Adams categorizes it this way because the church as an institution becomes involved in the process only after the first three steps have failed.
Progressing from step 3 to step 4 is also a major transition. The church now officially administers church discipline. A brother under official discipline is in a danger zone and should be told so.
The hope and expectation is that discipline never reaches the formal stage. Unfortunately, the words "church discipline" usually suggest to people's minds that the church is officially taking action to remove someone.
That is not the way that effective, regularly occurring discipline works; ordinarily, in a church that is comfortable with it, discipline achieves its objectives at stage 2 or 3. So often when someone is put out of the church for failure to repent of open, public sin, it is because there was a failure to exercise informal discipline at an earlier point before the sinful act became a habitual practice that had to be met with formal discipline.
Another point needs to be made here. Sometimes it is necessary to skip all the proceeding steps because of the nature of the problem that necessitated the discipline. For example in the case of incest mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5, the matter originated at the official level because the offense was so open and apparent to everyone. Notice 1 Corinthians 5:1:
1 Cor 5:1 It is actually (generally, commonly) reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife.
How does one "tell it to the church?
"Telling it to the church" means telling it to those who are part of the body of Christ and more specifically those who are members of the local assembly.
At this point, the world has no right to know about the matter. This means that it is not a good idea to stand up in the middle of a worship service (where there is a mixture of believers and unbelievers according to 1 Cor. 14:23-25) and declare what has happened. Like that group in Randallstown picketing against their pastor.
This means that one must tell the church either at a closed meeting of its membership (those who are baptized and are thereby under its care and discipline), duly called by the elders in a decent and orderly manner for that purpose, or one does so by telling the elders in their capacity as representatives of the church.
Frequently in the Old Testament when God wished to speak to Israel as a whole, He summoned and addressed the elders, who then conveyed His message to the people (cf. Ex. 3:15-16; 19:3,7).
This is probably the meaning of "tell it to the church": tell it to the church by telling it to the elders.
The Elders' Part - At this point the elders are informed of the brothers reluctance to repent, step 4 of church discipline is initiated.
The elders should not immediately call for a closed-door meeting of the church. Good judgment on the elders' part would call for them to seek to persuade the brother or sister to forsake the sin, before telling the congregation.
When do the elders tell it to the local assembly? The elders tell it to the local assembly when the so-called brother "refuses to listen" to the elders.
The Congregations Part - The elders inform the congregation that the brother or sister is under church discipline for a particular problem. This is essential if they are to obey Paul's command to "mark (KJV)" the person (2 Thess. 3:14). “…take special note of him…”
mark - "to make or put a sign on him."; to identify him.
Why is the congregation told to mark him? As we will find out later, the congregation is obligated to pray for an offender and counsel him or her to repent. It is also commanded not to have fellowship with the offender.
The elders announce to the membership either through letter (which should be destroyed after reading) or closed meeting, with as little detail as possible, the nature of the problem. The elders may say something like this, "Joe is under discipline for failing to repent of his insistence that his wife should obtain an abortion."
At this point the congregation should do two things:
1.) No longer fellowship with him as if nothing were wrong (2 Thess 3:14-15).
2.) Seek to counsel him to repentance (Gal. 6:1).
1.) No longer fellowship with him as if nothing were wrong (2 Thess 3:14-15).
The congregation may know longer fellowship with him as though nothing were wrong. They are told, "Don't mix or mingle, with him" (2 Thess. 3:14; 1 Cor. 5:9,11), "withdraw from him" (2 Thess. 3:6; the word translated "withdraw" means "stand aloof; keep away from"), and "don't eat" with him (1 Cor. 5:11).
All these commands say one and the same thing: the congregation must regard the so-called brother (1 Cor. 5:11) "as a brother" (2 Thess. 3:15), but as one whose status is in question. (There is some doubt about whether he is really a brother, because he fails to heed the admonitions of the brethren and the authority of Christ exercised by His officers in the church; by the time the entire congregation begins its task, he has gone very far in his willful disobedience.)
How does a member withdraw from an offender? If the sinning member calls you and says "Let's go out for a bite to eat or see a movie", etc., you must respond by saying something like this, "I'd like that very much, but I have been informed that you are under church discipline and have not repented. I'd rather spend that time talking to you about the problem instead."
"not to eat" means two things:
(a) that normal fellowship is broken. Eating with another, in biblical times, was the sign of fellowship;
(b) that the offender is forbidden to partake of the Lord's Supper because, according to 1 Cor. 10:16-17, partaking is "communion" or fellowship, the very thing prohibited at stage 4.
If he refuses to heed the officer and their admonitions, Paul says that he must be removed from table fellowship and all other forms of normal fellowship in order to "shame" him into repentance (2 Thess. 3:14)
Step Five - Treat Him as an Outsider.
When we crossed the boundary between informal and formal discipline as we moved from step 3 to step 4, we crossed a great divide that separates very treacherous from even more dangerous territory. As we now proceed from step 4 to step 5, the final step of church discipline, we take an even greater leap. All steps prior to the present one were taken within the kingdom of God; now we move from the kingdom of light into the kingdom of darkness.
We've been cautioned all through this series that the entire process of church discipline is a restorative one. We will find out now that in some cases the member does not become restored.
The Bible teaches that both wheat and tares grow within the church, that is, both believers and unbelievers are functioning within the visible church (Matthew 13:38). There is no way by which we can separate all the wheat from all the tares; that is the job of the angels at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (Matthew 13:39).
Yet church discipline is a sort of first fruits in that process. Paul wrote to Timothy,
1 Tim 5:24 The sins of some men are quite evident, going before them to judgment; for others, their sins follow after.
It is with reference to those whose sins become apparent that church discipline deals. It is not a process of separating all the tares from the wheat, but of separating from the church both tares and those who look like tares because of an unrepentant lifestyle.
Church discipline is one of two ways--the other being apostasy--in which the church makes a "judgment" about those who have a false profession of faith. John tells us:
1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us.
What this means is that those who leave the church, renouncing Christ, make it evident that though at one time they were a part of the visible body, they were never saved; they never belonged to the invisible church.
Yes I know that a genuine Christian may also leave the church in a fit of anger or in a time of crisis without rejecting Christ. If he is a genuine Christian, we may conclude from John's words that he will return in repentance to the church.
But unregenerate persons, who were within the outward, organized, church but not really "of" the inner, saved body of Christ, unless they are converted afterward, will not return. Something like this is what happens in church discipline.
We are living in a day when church discipline is not practiced in most churches.
People are not being held accountable in a personal way for keeping the Word of God. I’m not talking about a lack of good preaching—you can get good preaching in many churches, on the radio and cable TV. I’m referring to follow-through.
* I’m called to discipline myself in the Word of God I hear—“be ye doers of the Word, not hearers only.”
* I’m called to tell my brother his sin in private.
* You may be called to confront a brother or sister about sin in their lives.
* You may hear from me one day that a brother is unrepentant and you who are spiritual will need to go to him
* One day you may be exhorted to withdraw from a so-called brother or sister
* You may one day be confronted about sin in your own life.
Do you know Jesus?
