I received an email from a kind and
gentle pastor past week who wrote to me about the use of Matthew 18
as a model for church discipline. The passage does talk about sin,
and as he put it, the offended person doesn't necessarily need to
take the offense all the way through the process, requiring that a
matter be taken before the congregation. The passage does present a
model for confronting another believer about sin over which they do
not repent, and if a church leader needs to confront one of their
parishioners, this is certainly a good model which lays out
principles for doing that. As Pastor Johnson noted, however, he sees
it as more of a matter of principles as opposed to a formal
procedure.
I think that the subtle difference between using it in the right way and using it in the wrong way have to do with the focus for its use. Is it used because of loving concern for a sinner, pleading for them because of the harm of sin, or is it used primarily to punish sin like the Pharisees did?
I think that the subtle difference between using it in the right way and using it in the wrong way have to do with the focus for its use. Is it used because of loving concern for a sinner, pleading for them because of the harm of sin, or is it used primarily to punish sin like the Pharisees did?
I also heard this same question from
another well-educated reader whom I greatly respect:
Thinking about Matthew 18, I just realized something that I have never considered. I'd like to know your thoughts on this.
I have always heard of Matt 18:15-17 as referring to church discipline – i.e., the proper steps to follow in order to remove someone who refuses to repent from church membership, as in Paul's command to the Corinthians to "Expel the wicked person from among you" (1 Cor 5:13). I suppose this is because the third step in the process, after having first gone to the person on-on-one, then with a witness or two, is to "tell it to the church."
If the person refuses to listen to the church, the final step is to "let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector." The usual interpretation I've heard of this is that the church is then to remove the offender from membership, thereby saying to the person and to the world that he is not to be considered a fellow believer unless he repents.
Some churches are more heavy-handed in their approach to church discipline than others. Grace-minded Christians usually consider the overall intent as redemptive in nature -- the goal of removing someone from membership is not just to keep the church "pure", but it is done in the hope of bringing about repentance in, and ultimately restoration of, the offender.
I agree with the concept of church discipline for this purpose in general, although I think we tend to approach it from too much of an institutional mindset rather than a relational and organic one. We treat it as if we were kicking someone out of a club, when we should see it more like a family who is setting boundaries in their relationships with a fellow family member who is engaging in self-destructive behaviors.
But what I am really starting to wonder if the Matthew passage has anything to do with church discipline at all. I looked at the Greek for the passage, and I was struck by the fact that the phrase "let him be to you" (esto soi) is singular rather than plural. That is, it doesn't say "let him be to you (plural, the church collectively), like a heathen and a tax collector" but it says "let him be to you (singular, the one who was sinned against) like a heathen and a tax collector."
Thus, it seems to be describing this pattern:
Someone sins against me personally.
While there are passages that deal with the concept of church discipline (particularly 1 Cor 5), this passage doesn't appear to be one of them. In fact, it seems pretty obvious that Paul wasn't following Matt 18 in his approach to the church disciple he called for in 1 Cor 5, as he condemned the man's public sin in a public way and called for a public response, with no possibility of first going to the person individually, since Paul was writing from another location.
In short, I am starting to think that it is an error to use Matt 18 as a pattern for church discipline, or as a reference to anything other than how an individual should handle a personal offense.
What are my thoughts? My first one is that I'm glad that I don't have to discern all this all by myself, and the second is that I'm glad that I'm not a pastor or elder! It calls for so much wisdom, and the ramifications of actions on behalf of the Church are profound, especially when handled improperly and without love.
These emails both prompted me to think
about the term “church discipline” itself, one that has become a
highly loaded term for me personally. I come from a background in
my adult life wherein Matthew 18 was used as a purely
punitive measure, though as a child growing up, I observed
others using the principles differently. It might classify as discipline, but I didn't think of it as such. In writing about the abuse
of these three little verses, I may have given a lopsided view of
their meaning. They do give us principles or what we might think of
as tools that we can use for dealing with both sin and offenses,
teaching us to deal assertively with people. If you have a conflict
with someone, take the high road and go directly to them, especially
before you go to others to gossip under the guise of talking in order
to feel justified and righteous. People tend to avoid the unpleasant
experience of the personal confrontation by avoiding confrontation
altogether, but this Scripture prompts us to go to the source to deal
with it in a way that is fair to the person in sin and the person who
is concerned for them.
The letter of what is written lays down
these principles, and the spirit of what is written is one of sober
contrition, undergirded by love. I think that to get the letter of
it right, you must have the correct spirit of it also.
Going Soft on Sin? God forbid!
Some may take this view as a
demonstration of what some of my fellow Christians call my personal
“antinomianism”
(literally, “against the law”) believing that by showing
compassion to those who sin, that I reject righteous living and moral
law by not balancing grace with personal responsibility. Some also
say that because I associate with sinful people who are not
evangelical Believers and do not shun them, I do not resist sin.
Considering that so much has been said here on this blog about
showing compassion to others in their sinfulness to draw them to
repentance through kindness, I wanted to add a word of balance. As
imperfect beings, I think it's unreasonable to demand perfection of
ourselves and others, but we should aim to live up to the standard of
perfection, too.
We are called
to be holy and are held up to a standard of the holiness of
Jesus, and the Apostle Paul states that this working out of these
matters is a process of fear
and trembling. Sinning is a sober matter. When we sin as
believers, I think of it as showing a lack of attentiveness to what
Jesus did for us. We should want to honor Him by “hitting the mark”
out of love, honor, and holy respect for Him, and “missing
the mark” (the literal translation of sin) could almost be seen
as a disrespect for what Jesus did for us. In our humanity, we take a
cavalier attitude to what Jesus did for us, and we tread on Him.
Something I find precious in the liturgical church setting which
speaks of this respect for Christ's sacrifice is the act of the
pastor during the Eucharist when he finishes the communion wine. My
parents always joked that this was because the priests were drunks
and didn't want to waste good wine, but it is necessary in the ritual
as a show of respect for the Blood of Jesus. Symbolically, not a drop
of it is ever wasted and never falls to the ground as something that
is ineffective, so the minister partakes of the excess.
I also think of the idea of the fear of
the Lord. I once heard a college professor explain the fear of the
Lord in this way. She said that she thought of the analogy of what it
would be like if you actually had the opportunity to sit down with
Jesus to eat a meal. You would dress the table in fine linen and
prepare the best food, and you would want all to be perfect, all
possible because of the gifts and resources that God supplies to
you.. If during the dinner, you spilled the red, red, wine on that
pristine, immaculate, fine linen tablecloth, how would you feel? I
think that my desire to be perfect, in a meal and in an evening of
perfection would crush my heart if I ruined it. I would also be
undone in my embarrassment, as it would be one of the last things
that I would want to see happen or that I would want to do. She said
that this is what she thought of when she thinks of the “fear of
the Lord.” The consequences of “missing the mark” are not
condemnation, but they are a show of our humanity when we most want
to offer God perfection. Getting to that place is a life-long process
that we never complete in this life.
In wrestling with a particular sin of
my own, I really had to learn how to view the dangers of that
particular sin. Right brained creature that I am, I needed a picture
in my head to help me really commit to overcome this sin which
actually still comes quite easily to me. I chose to view that sin as
something as deadly to me as a rattlesnake. I actually liked the
analogy, as a rattlesnake gives you a warning to allow you a chance
to respond – resisting sin which will then flee. Snakes hate direct
confrontation and will seek to slither away instead, save when they
are ready to overcome their prey. I found the “Don't
Tread On Me” symbolism helpful also, because it spoke to me
to respect the power of sin, one to be resisted. Reticence to sin not
only speaks to my relationship with God, but it is also the ultimate
toxin, a truly deadly thing. Even from the beginning of the Book of
Genesis, sin requires death. I have heard some
ministers speculate that God have dressed Adam and Eve – not in
tanned skins – but in fresh and bloody skins of the animals that
died in their stead to cover their sin of disobedience. Without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin (Hebrews
9:22).
An Example of the Spirit of Matthew
18:15-17 in Context
I attended a very small church as I was
growing up, and everyone knew one another pretty well. I couldn't
have been more than eight years old, and I suspect that I was even
younger as I watched our pastor deal with a really problematic sin in
one of our members. I don't know the details about how things
unfolded, and if I did, I don't know that I would remember what
happened when. In fact, I probably went for decades without thinking
about it, and at one point, forgot all about it.
The matter concerned our Sunday School
Superintendent whom I saw every Sunday morning, standing in the
basement of the old church after we joined together as a group to
sing and pray before scurrying off to our individual kids' classes. I
loved this sweet man who was there every week, and I saw that he had
real joy in his heart and love for God. I remember on one of my
birthdays, he was the one who gave me a little gift, and I felt so
honored as he lead the singing of our Assemblies of God version of
“Happy Birthday.” (“...Every day of the year, may you find
Jesus near...”) I knew that the man meant it. He was very
sanguine and engaging, and I found him to be very genuine.
Apparently, he had a problem with
alcohol, and I believe that everyone in our small congregation knew
of his history. He may have given a testimony about it when he became
a believer. At some point, he fell back into drinking, and the church
(primarily the pastor) did all that he could to encourage him to be sober. I don't know whether he came to church drunk at some point or exactly what
happened. I remember my mom explaining when I asked what had happened to
him, long after I first missed seeing him in the back of the
gathering area in the basement on Sunday mornings. She told me with sorrow about his terrible problem with drinking that he had not overcome, and I had the impression that everyone was very patient with him. I know that they did not require that he leave the care of the church, but I suspect that he was not permitted to remain in that post he held.
What I do remember vividly is the
experience of watching my pastor weeping with him. Our pastor was
very involved with individuals, and he would talk with children and
parents about the problems they faced, pulling them out of Sunday
School to talk with them in the pastor's study. I saw the pastor meet
with this man, and I saw them both weep together many times. I remember seeing
my pastor weep for the first time at the altar with this man, a
memorable moment. The only other adult male that I'd seen cry up
until that point was my godfather who wept at his daughter's funeral.
I remember thinking that this was a kind of death – the death of
high expectation as it collapsed into disappointment for this fine man who struggled so
– a man we all loved. We were all wounded.
Setting the Bar for Matthew 18:15-17
When I think of Matthew 18, I think of
this Sunday School superintendent whom we all loved. In Christ, we
are all members of one another, and his struggles were our struggles
as a Body. We shared them, and we were concerned for his soul and his
well being. I never understood that the church or the pastor
understood that they were trying to eradicate sin in order to keep
the church pure or because they were offended because of his
behavior. It was a tragic thing. I cannot get the image of my
weeping, loving pastor out of my head. He set a high standard in my
mind for all who would follow. About a decade later, I saw the same
kind of caring love when confronting sin in the person of my mentor,
Michael Hanks. He was tough on conduct, but he confronted sin in
humility and in love. I think that both these men looked past the
error in others and could see the best in the person – that they
could see and appreciate and believe in the goodness of promise in
others, even when those people couldn't see it for themselves. Love
hopes and believes good things about people, and love covers those
sins. It doesn't mean that the sins are ignored, but these men dealt
with sin in a spirit of love that I've seen in few other Christian
leaders.
We can't wink at sin, and we should
treat it soberly – like a poison that brings forth death. We cannot
allow mercy to come in before justice has done its work, otherwise we
will never give due honor to what is right and true, and we will
become calloused to truth and justice. But once justice has been
established in love, looking past the wrong to see the possibility of
goodness in others that comes about through and in Christ, then the
kiss of mercy can bring comfort and restoration. We can't forgo one
to get to the other, just because the process of justice can be
painful and difficult because we don't want to hurt one another.
Can Matthew 18 be a guide for how to
discipline someone? I still bristle at the term in that context, but
perhaps that is semantics. I guess that the subtle difference I see
is that the most important thing in the process should be love and
concern for the brother who is in sin and resists repentance, not one
of “setting everyone straight” in a spirit of cold discipline.
Many talk of being “Matthew 18'ed” and of being called
before their church leaders in a process that is adversarial. When
approached as a legal process, the eradication of sin becomes more
important that the heart and well-being of the person who is in
serious error and whose eternal soul is threatened.
What is the focus? The soul of a
beloved friend or the “purity” of the church? Both are important,
but what does this passage really speak about in context? My examples
taught me that it was a process of drawing a loved one away from
peril. I don't see much of that kind of love anymore. I haven't seen
it done well in almost thirty years. I hope to see that kind of love
lived out again, and I have faith that I will.
Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
1 Peter 1:22-23
More to come about
the “publican,”
forgiveness,
reconciliation,
and Peacemaker
Ministries.
