Biblical Church Discipline, Part Two
1 Corinthians 5:1-13
When
I started this series on church discipline two weeks ago, a few people made
comments to me. One person said that they had never heard a single sermon on
this subject. Another said that they were looking forward to the series. I was
glad for their comments because I could tell that both of them had caught the
vision—that Biblical church discipline is necessary for a healthy church, and
without it, any church, ours included, will suffer. A lack of church discipline
will have a negative effect on our authentic spirituality and loving community.
This in turn drags down our fruitful evangelism. It is a necessary topic, but is
it is so misunderstood and so rarely practiced. Worse yet—some associate church
discipline with the most grievous sorts of punishments, something like these
pictures of torture!
Stated again, my goal by the end of this series is to
remove all of the negative associations of church discipline and establish the
Biblical necessity of understanding and practicing church discipline. By the
way, I want to make sure that all of your questions are answered about this
topic. If you think of a related question, please use the sheets in your
bulletin to submit your questions. I will answer them within the series or else
do a Q&A at the end of the series. Also, please remember that this is part of
our study in 1 Cor. 5. This chapter gives a small slice of the totality pf
church discipline. I felt it was important to give you the whole picture and not
just this one part.
Two Types of Church Discipline
I have been saying all along that church discipline is
intensely Biblical so before we go any further we should establish its Biblical
basis. The paradigm I use for church discipline comes from 2 Timothy 3:16.
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting
and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped
for every good work.” Every Christian should have this verse memorized. It
is one of the preeminent verses about inspiration and authority of Scripture—and
it is also the paradigm for church discipline. In this verse we find four
descriptions about the usefulness of Scripture: teaching, rebuking, correcting
and training in righteousness. These four uses can be divided into two basic
types of church discipline. The first type is formative church discipline and
includes ‘teaching’ and ‘training in righteousness’. The second type is called
corrective church discipline and includes the other two uses of ‘rebuking’ and
‘correcting’.
Formative church discipline is what should be happening all
the time. If all Scripture is useful for teaching and training in righteousness
then it follows that every sermon I preach should have the goal of formative
church discipline. Church discipline should really be called “church discipling”
because that is what is taking place. You are learning and being formed into the
likeness and image of Christ. When we model a godly life to our children we are
practicing formative church discipline. Our 13 year old nephew from Atlanta is
quite the baseball player. He is a pitcher and last year his all-star team was
in the playoffs for the little league state championship. His coach told him
that he should be hitting at least 50 wiffle balls off of a tee every day in
order to strengthen his batting swing. This is in addition to all of the pitches
he throws as well. This is good baseball discipline. He may not want to be a
great baseball player, but he knows if he wants to excel he needs that level of
discipline. All athletes need discipline to succeed and we admire them for it.
The same should be true in the church.
Formative church discipline—the teaching and training in
righteousness—should be happening all the time. Most of us don’t mind be taught
and trained, in fact, we often seek our training and teaching. We enjoy learning
new things and we like to acquire new skills through training. We have grown
accustomed to teaching and training in righteousness. These two primary uses of
God’s word are the hallmark of our churches, but the problem is that we don’t
like the other two uses of Scripture—rebuking and correcting. We like to be
taught but we don’t like to be rebuked. We like to be trained but we don’t like
to be corrected. Rebuking sounds so harsh and unloving to our modern evangelical
ears. Rebuking sounds like a “holier than thou” attitude. It seems too
authoritative. But we must ask ourselves, is all of Scripture God-breathed and
useful fpr rebuking and correcting? We know Scripture is useful for teaching and
training, but is it equally useful for rebuking and correcting? If we say no, we
have just eliminated 50% of the usefulness of Scripture. If we say no, we may as
well pick up our scissors and start slicing out the parts of Scripture we don’t
like. But if we say yes, Scripture is useful for rebuking and correcting, then
we must make sure we are willing to allow ourselves to be corrected and rebuked.
If someone pulled you aside after church and lovingly rebuked you, would you be
willing to receive it? Of course you should ask yourself if what the person said
was according to Scripture, but would you be willing to examine your heart and
life for evidence of truthfulness of their rebuke. And, if after finding
evidence, would you be willing to repent of your actions and then thank the
person for loving you enough to tell you about it? If you cannot answer an
affirmative yes to this question, then you are flat out denying the usefulness
of God’s holy Scripture.
This is the Biblical paradigm for all church discipline—All
Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and
training in righteousness. Not only are these four uses Biblical and useful,
they are inseparable. What I mean is that you cannot be trained and taught
unless you are also rebuked and corrected at the same time. Let’s assume one of
your children was an excellent tennis player and you wanted to find a top notch
tennis coach to train your child. What is that tennis coach going to do during
tennis practice? Will he only teach and train during the lessons and never
correct bad form? A good coach will do both simultaneously and seamlessly. He
will teach and correct, teach and correct. If your child’s backhand is a mess,
the coach will teach the proper form and then correct your child each time they
don’t get it right. If the coach didn’t do this, it would be impossible to train
them in the skills of tennis. Now what if you were watching a tennis lesson and
you didn’t like to see your child corrected by the coach, so you go up to the
coach and say, “Excuse me, you may not be aware of this, but my little Billy has
a very fragile self-esteem. Could you please just teach him and refrain from
correcting him all the time?” If the coach was just in it for the money he might
say, “Sure, whatever you say,” but if that coach had any principles at all, he
would immediately turn and walk away and you would never see him again. Training
and correcting are inseparable. You cannot not train unless you also correct.
Obviously how you correct is vitally important and when it comes to church
discipline how you do it is foundational to the process. If it is done without
love as a motive and method, then more harm than good will result.
We will talk in detail about how to do church discipline is
a later message. But for now we are focusing on the fact that training and
correcting are inseparable components. Let me give you an example from one of
our ministries at Grace and then a powerful Biblical example. As you know, our
church is sponsoring a Bible quiz team that meets on Wednesday nights for
practice. It is quite a dynamic group because each time I have been there it
seems like more and more kids are coming. I have observed how Jim and Angie
Boisen coach these young teams of children and teens. In case you don’t know how
it works, the quiz team members sit on the electronic pads and when a question
is asked, the jump up from their seats. A little light indicates who jumped
first and then are give the chance to answer the question. If they answer the
question right they earn so many points. In that sense they are rewarded for a
correct answer, but if they get the question wrong, Jim and Angie respond by
saying, “What’s wrong with you kid—don’t you ever read your Bible!” Of course
they don’t say that. For each wrong answer they clearly state that the answer
was an error. I think this is a technical term in Bible quizzing that indicates
a wrong answer, then they give them the correct answer and always add an
encouraging word of “good job” or “good try”. As coaches of the quiz team, Jim
and Angie give a three-part response to each incorrect answer: indication of an
error, the correct response and an encouraging word. They really do a good job
at coaching but the important thing to note is that correction is inseparably
tied to their training. Would you want a Bible quiz coach who never corrected
wrong answers? Question: In Acts 9, who heard the voice of Jesus on the Damascus
road?” Then little Sally jumps up, her light goes off and she answers “Moses”.
“Good answer Sally! That’s 20 points for your team.” No thanks—I don’t want a
coach like that, do you?
Now for the Biblical example from Hebrews 12.
And you have forgotten that
word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
“My son, do not make light of
the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes
you, 6 because the
Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”a
7 Endure hardship
as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by
his father? 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes
discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9
Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we
respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our
spirits and live! 10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while
as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in
his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but
painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for
those who have been trained by it.
In this short passage the word discipline is mentioned no
less than seven times. Discipline is the key to this passage, especially the
Lord’s discipline. Here are several quick principles we can glean.
1. Discipline comes from the Lord
2. Discipline is an act of love given only to true
believers
3. Discipline should be received as a gift from our loving
Father
4. Discipline is not pleasant (sometimes it’s punishment)
but it brings good results—righteousness.
Now here is the interesting part. The original word for
discipline is paideian. But when we look at the word for training in 2 Timothy
3:16, guess what? It’s the exact same word. The same word can be translated
either as discipline or training, depending on the context. Therefore we
conclude that discipline is a form of training and training is a form of
discipline. Interestingly, the Greek word for child is paidarion, from the same
root word as discipline and training. So what do we do with children? We train
and discipline them. What does our loving heavenly Father do with his children?
He trains and disciplines them.
So if church discipline is so necessary and so Biblical,
why do most churches completely neglect it? Why do Christians run in fear when
they hear it spoken? As I said last week, some of this stems from the abuses of
church discipline. Abuses such as I mentioned last week, in no way deserve the
title of “church discipline”—they are abusive and unbiblical. But that is only
part of the problem. Much of the fear of church discipline comes form our
consumer mentality of church. We are increasingly becoming an evangelical
culture where the church’s main purpose is to make us feel good. The church
should be a safe place of refuge from the storms of life, but it should also be
a place where we hear the truth—even if it hurts at times. Even if it is, as
Hebrews says, unpleasant at times. The church should be a place where the
afflicted are comforted and the comfortable are afflicted, but we like church
better when the afflicted are comforted and the comfortable are made more
comfortable.
This quote from A.W Tozer says it well.
"One of the great spiritual dangers
inherent in Protestantism is the fact that there is no discipline involved.
Anyone in our churches is pretty much free to do anything he wants to do. If he
does not like the one church he only has to cross the street and go to another."
"If he does not like the preacher, he
can leave and soon be attending a church where he is quite pleased with the
preacher and with the music and with the atmosphere. You see, he is demanding
Christianity without discipline. He is refusing to acknowledge that the
Christian faith makes its own demands of obedience to God and humility of
spirit." (A.W. Tozer)
This short video clip illustrates this all-too common
mentality (Me Church video: can be viewed
here)
Now compare this perspective to all of the “one another”
examples in the New Testament.
These ‘one another’ passages start out nice and easy…
Love one another
Encourage one another
Be kind to one another
Show hospitality to one another
Then gradually they start to get a little harder…
Live in harmony with one another
Serve one another
Then they begin to get downright difficult…
Forgive one another
Submit to one another
Instruct one another
Exhort one another
These one another passages teach us that we are not alone
in our Christian walk. They remind us that being a Christian is inseparable from
being part of a local church. Being a Christian means that we will rub shoulders
with people who are learning to love Jesus but need lost of training and
discipline along the way. Is Scripture useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and training in righteousness? Be careful how you answer that
question because the health of our church and the honor and glory of Jesus
Christ are affected by your answer.
Rich Maurer
September 10, 2006