Church Discipline

An interesting conversation came up when I was part of a debriefing process with a team that is just coming off of a year long ministry tour. The initial question was about what would be your perfect church, and what that would look like. Somewhere along the way the discussion of church discipline and excommunication came up. One person discussed the Matthew 18 model. It seemed to be discussed rather easily to the person, someone sins in the church, confront them, bring witnesses and then if they still don’t agree bring them in front of the church and then if that does not work excommunicate (the individual eventually withdrew the word excommunicate, trying to find a less harsh word to use).

                This led to a dialogue about when and where, how and why people could or should be withdrawn from community. This led me obviously to wrestle with 1 Corinthians 5 as well and the nature of judgement and discipline in the church. This has led to more questions that answer, but I think that the questions may reveal some answers.

                I am not entirely convinced that the Matthew 18 model is how to deal with all sin. First of all it deals with a wrong against another, an affront between two people. Not a noticed sin and judgement from the church (Though this model is usually sited for use against ‘sinners’). Rather this model seems to be reconciliation between to factions rather than a sinner’s witch hunt. Not a model of accusation, rather a form of peace.  It is also interesting to see where this model is located in the script, it precedes the model of forgiveness (which is quite vast) and it follows the lost sheep parable (as well as a metaphorical model of resisting temptation*).  Maybe there is a reason to the order of script in that there is a correlation between trying to trying to live right, grace, reconciliation and forgiveness. Maybe we have misused this scripture to not pursue holiness but rather rightness. How I was taught the application of this verse was stated if I had something wrong with another Christian, not if I had been wronged. This is a big step, it moved away from the personal to the theological. Instead of being a tool to fix relationship it now became a tool to separate; the right (which was me, of course) and the wrong (which must be everyone who disagrees with me).** 

                I must concede that this model makes a good model to follow for sin, but we might be stretching it a bit far in terms of discipline in the church to include sin that does not include reconciliation between individuals wronged (which raises questions of the nature of sin). One verse that instantly comes to mind that counters a total execution of this model is the example of trying to take the speck out of your neighbours eye while you still have a log in yours.^ Maybe taking in context of the entire script most are unable to judge others, rather we only know we have had injustice received against us. There are many questions that still remain for me. Like what does Jesus mean when saying to treat them like a pagan or a corrupt tax-collector when yet he seemed to enjoy the company of both sorts of people. Does this allude to Pauline teaching in that Christians should settle injustices amongst themselves instead of suing each other? If this model does not include all sin how do we deal with sin as a church?

                Sorry I forgot to address 1 Corinthians 5, which is another instance of judgement in the church. I will address that in another post, sorry for delay. (And the ramblings)

 

 

 

*I am aware that this model uses hyperbole and was probably spoken in a comedic tone, which may have been to mock some of the current teachings of the day.

** A little bit of sarcasm, hope you caught it.

^ (Mat 7: 3-5, Luke 6: 41-42)