A review and further exploration of this modest passage of three verses Scripture.
Dealing with a Sinning Brother“Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Matthew 18:15-17
Johnson on Restoration
In the previous post, Pastor
Kevin Johnson points out the proper uses and intent of the
Matthew
18:15-17 passage as well as aspects of its misapplication and
abuse. His first observation notes that the passage can be used as a
weapon to intimidate and control. He notes the problems that clergy
can pose when they insert themselves into the process of conflict
resolution among members, an abusive practice that insinuates that
clergy do need to police rank and file members of a religious
community which the Bible likens to a family. But he also redirects
us to note the loving mercy that the passage conveys as a way of
reestablishing communication and relationship in a close and caring
community of worship and faith.
He closes with Psalm
119 that highlights God's loving kindness with us, a disposition
that we should be inclined to show to others, especially those with
whom we share faith. This merciful disposition does not forgo or
dismiss justice in the process, but repeats and affirms the message
of the virtue of justice and righteousness. The passage also
distinguishes this merciful attitude from the wickedness and
oppression of men who oppose God's loving disposition towards His
own.
Johnson makes salient points that I've
heard echoed in the writings of others on the subject of the abuse
and misuse of Matthew 18.
Jon Zens on Priestcraft
In a similar, concise commentary
entitled When
Has Authority Gone Too Far, Jon Zens points out some
different specifics about the same observations made by Johnson.
Zens notes that artificial hierarchies have been created in the
Church and withnn some formal church governments which separate
believers from leadership and create a sense of superiority among
them. The New Covenant does not support this kind of distinction of
power but affirms the priesthood of all believers, denying if not
repudiating an authoritarian government within the church. I
appreciate Zens' ability to elucidate these types of matters
concerning the abuse of authority.
He notes a particular flaw in the
teachings of Jay
Adams concerning the process of Matthew 18 wherein Adams adds an
additional process into what I will call a model for addressing
serious sin into what appears clearly in the Bible passage.
Concerning the third attempt to confront someone who has sinned
against a member of his religious community, Adams declares that
religious leaders should intervene as opposed to the whole community
of members. Rather than approaching a person in sin that you hope to
persuade and win repentance with kindness and goodness in a non-threatening
manner by presenting the matter to one's peers along with you, Adams
believes that religious leaders should be employed instead if not in
place of the whole community.
Zens' footnote: Jay Adams, Ready to Restore (Pres. & Ref., 1981), 3-4, states that "laymen may counsel at the second level... but not at the third... At the third level, the officers, representing the whole church, forgive or excommunicate using the keys for binding and loosing."
Aside from the fact that this practice
is not clearly spelled out in Scripture and makes no such mention of
religious leaders at any point in the whole progression, it seems
reasonable that employing authority figures adds an additional threat
and potential fear of embarrassment and shame into the process. What
is meant to be a gentle process of friends pleading lovingly for
their friend to repent of sin that harms them and harms others, the
process automatically becomes a measure of discipline. Even when the
person in sin resists repentance, the passage of Scripture does not
mention taking anything before the religious leaders. I find their
mandatory addition to be punitive, making the repentance and
reconciliation process a matter of discipline, and it implies a sense
of permanence and commitment to a long-term consequence of formality.
I believe that if Jesus meant for those in sin to be brought before
councils within synagogues, just as he mentions a similar process of
abuse in Matthew Chapter 5, He could certainly also have clearly
defined a similar process in this passage. But He didn't.
I'm put in mind of wedding ceremonies
where a vow is taken before the friends and family of the bride and
group, not as a measure of discipline but so those closest to the
couple can help support their good behavior and their commitment to
one another. The process is one of support, love, and affirmation in
optimism and care, not a process which gives the witnesses there a
liberty to police the couple or to interfere in the marriage. If
those witnesses have concerns for their loved ones, they are
encouraged to admonish the couple to reaffirm and protect their love.
They are not there for punitive purposes. Likewise, I find the
Matthew 18 passage to be similar if not identical to this Christian
tradition of family and love.
Sidebar: I also bear a weight of concern over this instruction, for Jay Adams is the creator of the system of “nouthetic counseling,” a concept of Christian counseling that views emotional and mental problems as rooted in some sin or willful resistance of God's grace. As a clinical nurse who deals with so many people afflicted with post traumatic stress as a consequence of spiritual and other types of abuse, and as someone who can appreciate the physical cause of many mental health problems and illnesses, I don't have a very high opinion of nouthetic counseling (a term which derives from the Greek word for “admonishment”). Certainly, if someone has a problem with sin which creates other difficulties and problems as sin does, then such counsel is warranted. But I find that in problems with abuse, nouthetic counseling revictimizes real victims who quite often do nothing to warrant the harm done to them. So it deeply troubles me that Adams adds another layer of potential harm to broken people and to victims in addition to the inadequacies that I already note within his system of counsel. In certain cases, it seems to actually facilitate abuse, specifically spiritual abuse. (What if the corruption rests with those leaders who can apparently circumvent the role of the whole community?)
I also find it curious that Adams does not appear to have any formal, peer reviewed training in mental health, mental disorders or physical health, yet he has established a program which rivals and replaces mental health counseling. His fields of study and training include Divinity, Arts in Classics, Sacred Theology, and Speech (which I am inclined to think, as a terminal degree without prior training in clinical speech pathology, must be a program in rhetoric or homiletics). Again, as a clinical based and trained nurse, I find this all a bit disconcerting. Concerning matters of sin, I'm sure that nouthetic material can be helpful, but in terms of clinical disease and the physical and mental aspects of both physical disorders with mental health effects and neurophysiologic disorders, I have great concerns about the efficacy if not safety of nouthetic counsel.
D.A. Carson on Suppression of
Academic and Doctrinal Criticism
Another aspect of the abuse of the
Matthew 18 passage that Johnson notes concerns the Christian's
responsibility to speak out against injustice, naming names and
holding abusive religious leaders accountable for their loveless
actions. Johnson rightfully declares the manner in which Jesus
challenged and confronted the Pharisees of His day. In a similar
fashion, D.A. Carson also notes the duty of believers to address
doctrinal concerns publicly and how Matthew 18 can be used to
unfairly silence legitimate, academic and pastoral criticism of
doctrine. His Editorial
On Abusing Matthew 18 appears on the Gospel Coalition
website. (Considering my own history with
critics who are affiliated with the Gospel Coalition, I find
Carson's fine editorial to be a bit ironic.)
Carson concisely makes three points in
his post which I endeavor to summarize faithfully, though his
short blog entry deserves a thorough reading:
- The scope of the passage is limited to affairs within a local group and does not apply to people who are not connected through established relationships of love and trust, based on what is specifically written in the original text.
- The sin in question should be of such a magnitude that it warrants excommunication if the person fails to respond to pleas for their repentance. Subsequently, it must also be possible for the discourse to actually result in excommunication. (Therefore, if a person is not an active part of the same body of believers who worship together or if the person is not part of some working relationship with a group that actually has the power to shun them, the passage cannot apply.)
- The passage should not be used to advance a “gotcha” game wherein one scholar uses the passage to engage in what he describes as something I would call a petty exchange. (He uses the terms “narrow-mindedness,” “condescendingly,” “dismissively,” and “judgmentalism.”) Furthermore he notes that the passage should not be used to suppress legitimate discourse concerning doctrinal error and disagreement. He affirms, as Kevin Johnson did, that our Christian tradition requires us to debate, defend, and advocate orthodoxy.
The next two posts will
more specifically explore
Scripture pertaining to
the duty to defend victims, to seek justice and care for them,
and what process the
Christian should undertake to accomplish those tasks.
