“You understand that the Bible is very clear on this, right? It’s wrong to leave your wife for another woman.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think you get how hard our marriage has been. I’m sure she would prefer to be married to someone else. All she does is criticize me. She never wants to be physically intimate. It’s been a long time since we were in love, if we ever were. Plus, this other woman is my soul partner. I can’t imagine God means for us to miss out on that just because our timing of meeting one another was off by a few years.”
“I’m sorry the marriage has been difficult. Still, you profess to being a follower of Jesus, and Jesus would never leave His bride. Would you say you’re following Jesus now? That you’re a Christian?”
“Of course I’m a Christian! I don’t follow Him perfectly. Do you? You’re the one who has always taught me we’re saved by grace, not works. But now I feel like you’re being a little judgmental. Didn’t Jesus say, ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone’?”
Hard Conversations
Maybe you, too, have had such a conversation. My first experience with public church discipline began with a private conversation just like this one. I had known the fellow church member for a little while. We would go running together and occasionally share meals. Then one day he informed me over lunch that he had decided to give himself to his favorite sin. We discussed what the Bible said about the sin. He agreed the Bible explicitly opposed it, but then he said, “God told me it was okay.” I replied, “No, He didn’t.” Yet his mind was made up.
A few days later I brought another friend. Together we challenged our fellow church member. The response was the same. God had said his sin was okay.
We then involved our church’s elders; they received the same reply.
Several weeks after that, the elders informed the congregation of the circumstances and gave them a couple of months to pray for the man and to encourage him to repent. He never did.
Sadly, two months later the elders led the congregation in voting to remove the man from church membership and the Lord’s Table as an act of discipline. He was “excommunicated” or ex-communioned.
What is Church Discipline?
This whole process is called church discipline. What is church discipline? It’s correcting sin.
Sometimes the discipline process starts loudly and publicly, as when a church learns of a member’s sin because it shows up in the news. Typically, it starts privately and informally, growing to include the whole church only when necessary. In its final, formal, and public stage, church discipline involves removing a church member from membership in the church and participation in the Lord’s Table. People often refer to this final step as excommunication, as in ex-communion.
That final step of discipline or excommunication doesn’t mean a church consigns someone to hell. It doesn’t have that power. The final step doesn’t even mean the church is declaring with certainty that someone is a non-Christian. A church does not possess Holy Spirit X-ray vision eyes to see into a person’s soul. Rather, the final step simply means that a church no longer affirms a person’s profession of faith.
After all, to receive someone into church membership through baptism is to affirm their profession of faith. It’s to say, “Yes, we believe Joe is a Christian, and we will affirm his membership in the body of Christ through the Lord’s Supper” (1 Cor. 10:17). The final step of discipline, therefore, means just the opposite: “We no longer affirm Joe’s profession, and therefore we remove him from membership.”
Which means, church discipline doesn’t require a church to forbid someone from attending its weekly services, unless there are extenuating circumstances such as the threat of physical harm. The weekly gathering is usually open to the public, including nominal Christians and non-Christians (see 1 Cor. 14).
Step One _________________________
Previously, I said that church discipline starts privately and informally. Jesus tells us to do it that way: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother” (Matt. 18:15). There might be times when you need to get counsel from a pastor before confronting a brother or sister for sin. There might be times when you need someone to confront sin on someone else’s behalf, as with a woman who feels unsafe confronting a man who has made inappropriate advances. Yet ordinarily, Jesus wants us to refrain from gossip and confront sin privately, quietly, directly, lovingly.
Suppose you think church member Joe has lied to you. The best thing to do is ask Joe directly about the lie. Don’t accuse him. Instead, give him the benefit of the doubt and ask questions. Explain to him you’re having difficulty reconciling what he said with the facts. Then give him the opportunity to explain. Maybe you’ve misunderstood.
Your motive when correcting sin, of course, must always be love — not just love for the individual under scrutiny but for other church members, non-Christian neighbors, and, of course, Christ Himself.
Step Two _________________________
If the first conversation goes poorly and you remain convinced your friend is sinning, then you might follow up with another conversation or two. Yet soon enough, you’ll need to take the matter to step two. Jesus set it up this way: “If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses” (v. 16).
Here, Jesus invokes a courtroom principle from ancient Israel (see Deut. 19). Church discipline should not succumb to mob justice. It requires due process. We must presume Joe’s innocence until proven guilty. It might be that the other two individuals you bring don’t agree with you that Joe has lied. They might say you’re being too critical.
Step Three ________________________
Suppose, however, that they agree with you, yet Joe remains recalcitrant. That brings us to step three. Jesus explains: “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church” (v. 17a). This step need not occur immediately following step two. Often, a group of pastors and connected members might spend months seeking an individual’s repentance before telling the church. This third step is a last resort, taken only after conversations have been exhausted and the person in sin refuses to repent.
Typically, the pastors or elders who possess oversight over the congregation are the best people to lead this process. They, too, should heed Jesus’ instruction about two or three witnesses. This means they should never stand in front of their congregation armed with little more than “best guesses” or interpretations of a person’s heart. Rather, they should only bring facts that everyone agrees upon — everyone except, perhaps, the unrepentant church member.
Church leaders don’t need to expose every detail of every sin, particularly when they might embarrass other members or involve sexual information that could cause people to stumble. The whole church is not a jury, called to pore over the facts and debate the matter late into the night. They should ordinarily trust the elders’ recommendation. Yet enough information should be given to allow the congregation to make a decision patiently and with integrity. More on this below.
A clear biblical example of this relationship between leaders and the congregation occurs in 1 Corinthians 5. Paul raises the subject: A church member is sleeping with his father’s wife (probably a stepmother). He tells the church to remove him (vv. 2, 5), after declaring that he has already passed “judgment” on the man himself (v. 3).
But notice: That doesn’t mean the deed is done. He wants the church to follow his cue. After all, he won’t always be looking over their shoulder, and he wants them to know how to handle such situations on their own. Therefore, Paul calls them to pass the same “judgment” (v. 12), and to do this when they are “assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus … with the power of our Lord Jesus” (v. 4).
Step Four _________________________
Once the church has been given sufficient time to pray for an individual and to encourage him or her to repentance, the church leaders should raise the matter again. Assuming Joe has not repented and continues in his lying, the elders must play the part of Paul: expressing their judgment and calling upon the church to make the same.
In my own congregation, that sounds like this: “The elders recommend that the congregation remove Joe from membership for unrepentant lying as an act of discipline. This comes as a motion from the elders.” The congregation then has the opportunity to discuss the matter and ask questions. Finally, a vote is taken. If the vote passes — usually two-thirds or three-fourths is required, but church constitutions vary — the church will treat the person as an outsider. Again, Jesus explains this final step: “And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (v. 17b).
In case that word “vote” sounds too much like modern democratic thinking, we must keep in mind that democratic mechanisms were commonly used in the ancient world — everywhere from ancient Greece to the Roman republic to the Jewish communities at Qumran. Paul, too, describes the use of majority decision-making in the Corinthian church in a matter of discipline. Perhaps referring to the man mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul observes, “This punishment by the majority is enough.”
Somehow the church knew that “a majority” affirmed someone’s discipline, suggesting a minority did not. Did they take a vote? Perhaps. Or perhaps a majority simply arrived at a consensus after conversation.
So, what sins rise to the level of discipline? Is the purpose of church discipline loving restoration? See Part 2 of this article, “When Does a Sin Rise to the Level of Discipline?” on our website, www.baptistcourier.com.
— Editor’s Note: A version of this article was originally published at The Gospel Coalition. Jonathan Leeman (Ph.D., University of Wales) is editorial director for 9Marks Ministries in Washington, D.C.