Biblical Church Discipline, Part Seven

Matthew 18:15-20

In this seventh part of our series on Biblical church discipline, we finally get to the most extreme form of church discipline called excommunication. If you remember, this is what got us started on the subject. When we hit the fifth chapter of 1 Corinthians we found a description of excommunication in the church in Corinth. I decided not to preach only from that chapter because I thought you would be left with an incomplete understanding of church discipline. Excommunication is just a small slice of the complete picture. Therefore, in the first six parts I have been doing my best to lay out the complete picture of Biblical church discipline. If you do not read the whole series you will run the risk of misunderstanding the big picture and might take some things out of context.

For example, when I show you this picture (figure 1), what do you see? Some will say it looks like a swirling cloud; others will believe it to be the top of an ice cream cone from Dairy Queen. The chances are mighty slim that you would guess that it is actually part of Michelangelo’s portrait of God taken from the Sistine Chapel (figure 2). If you only see a portion of the white beard you will not understand the proper context and will miss the big picture. The same is true of this series on church discipline. While I believe each message in the series is helpful, one cannot discern the whole by looking at a few of its parts. I strongly encourage you to read or listen to all of the messages in order to gain a full understanding. You could say the same thing about any series, but because of the potentially controversial nature and relative importance of the topic of church discipline, I believe it is more important to catch each part of the whole.

This morning we move to Matthew 18. Most Christians think that this is the only text in the whole Bible that is about church discipline. Of course I don’t believe this is true as we have already looked carefully at four key texts before arriving at this passage. Let’s read it together.

^15 “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. ^16 But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ ^17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

^18 “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

^19 “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. ^20 For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”

Before we move on to the correct understanding of this passage, I think it would be helpful to list a few ways that this passage has been butchered by believers. There are four basic ways this passage has been misunderstood and misused—it has been used as a club, an advice column, a magic lamp and a Kumbaya song.

It has been used as a club by those wishing to engage in church discipline in a callous and harmful manner. Many churches have worked through the steps of Matthew 18 as if it were nothing more than a convenient legal document. When someone is caught in a sin, rather than work from a motive of restoration and love, these churches press forward through Matthew 18 with the express intent of getting rid of those they perceive to be troublemakers. It can be used in a manner like the Pharisees did when they dragged the woman before Jesus in John chapter eight. They said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. Now what do you say?”

We need to try and imagine this scene in detail. There was a large crowd gathered around Jesus waiting for him to begin teaching them. It was an outdoor classroom filled with a mixture of eager listeners and prideful scoffers. At that moment, in walks a large group of teachers of the law and Pharisees, all of them arrayed in their finest robes and religious garb. We are not given these details, but I cannot imagine these religious leaders would ever touch such a woman, so they probably had several Temple guards dragging the woman along behind them, much like a prisoner would be escorted by prison guards as they follow behind the prison warden. Just like the warden would never touch the prisoner, these religious men would never lay a hand on this woman. The one who speaks for the religious leaders tells Jesus that the woman was “caught” in the act of adultery. This could very well mean that she was literally stopped in the middle of the event. As she was being dragged to the Temple courts I can imagine her trying to wrap some kind of robe around her body in a vain attempt to cover her shame and nakedness. One can also visualize the scowls and mocking faces of the religious leaders as they looked upon this woman with all of the disgust they could possibly muster. One of their members was chosen to do the speaking and he began arguing his case like a bombastic, overpaid prosecuting attorney: In the law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. Now what do you say?” Can’t you just see the look of smugness on the attorney’s face? Not for a moment did he think he would walk out of this mock courtroom with defeat. They could not afford to lose this one, so they stacked every possible fact of the case in their favor. The defendant was present—still half-naked and trying to decide if she should hang her head even lower in shame, or else look up at Jesus and attempt to catch a glimpse of mercy on his face. The witnesses were present in the courtroom—in fact they not only had evidence of the adultery, they had actually caught this vile woman in the act itself! They were eyewitnesses of the crime. They knew they had powerful legal precedent on their side, which was drawn from both Leviticus and Deuteronomy, which stated that a woman caught in adultery must be executed by stoning. Of course they conveniently omitted the second half of the law which also commanded stoning for the man caught in adultery. No matter—they had one of the guilty parties and that was sufficient. The religious leaders had the defendant, eyewitnesses and Old Testament case law spoken from the very mouth of God. From a purely legal standpoint, their case was won before it ever started—and they looked like boastful winners.

This reminds me of the flag football game that Ryan, Jimmy Boisen and Caleb Aloisi played a few weeks ago. Their team was playing in the flag football championship against the same team that had soundly defeated them the prior week. The opposing team scored the first touchdown early in the first half and shot off to a 6-0 lead. By the middle of the second half their lead had climbed to 12-0. After they scored their first touchdown, the team began jumping up and down yelling, “We’re the best team—we’re the best team.” In their minds, they had won the game almost before it started. By the way, the final score of that game was 13-12—in our favor! Much like the overconfident fifth and sixth graders on the football field, these religious leaders would have been massively overconfident. If there had been such a thing as high-fives and chest bumps among Pharisees in the first century, these guys would have been doing just that. The thing we have to notice is that the religious leaders clearly did not care about the woman, but they also did not care about the Law of Moses. Their only motive was to trap Jesus and they were using the precious Law of Moses and this poor woman as the bait. In essence they were chanting in unison, “God said she must die…God said she must die—begone you adulterous sinner”

In a similar way, through the years many pastors and church leaders have used Matthew 18 as a Scripture club to beat their enemies over the head. Most of them did not care about the person they were disciplining nor the Scripture they used. They merely walked their opponent through the steps of Matthew 18 in a legalistic, uncaring manner, chanting in unison, “God said you must leave…God said you must leave—begone you pagan and tax collector.!!” This is spiritual abuse perpetrated by those who most ought to know better. I am ashamed to share the title of Christian with those who have carried out this kind of injustice, but more than anything else, God is saddened and angry at this twisting of his word for selfish gain. It is an evil of the highest order. We must understand that this is not what Matthew 18 is about.

Matthew 18 has been used as a club, but it is also being used as an advice column. I think the church has reacted to these abuses and the pendulum has swung the other way so far that most churches think that the church discipline laid down in Matthew 18 is a historical relic that is no longer applicable to the modern church. They may on occasion use it is a guideline for peacemaking, kind of like the type of advice you get from “Dear Abby” in her advice column, but it has essentially been stripped of it actual authority. Picture a letter sent in to Dear Abby.

The letter begins, “Dear Abby, I have a problem. There is a family at our church that keeps sitting in our pew every Sunday. They are kind of new to the church so they may not know that this is OUR pew, so I’m really trying to be patient, but I’m just not sure how to make it very clear that they have stolen our family’s pew. Signed, ‘Ticked off in Tallahasee’”. So Dear Abby reads the letter and prints her response the following week. “Dear Ticked off in Tallahasee. I can see that you really are in a pickle. It’s true—your family does have every right to your own pew. Let me give you a little advice from the good teacher Jesus. Jesus said that when we have a disagreement, we should first talk to the person in question. See if that doesn’t help solve your problem.”

The underlying problem with church discipline as an advice column is the issue of authority. Many people bristle at the thought of any kind of authority. We may have problems with authority at work. Even if we don’t verbalize our thoughts, we often go around either with a chip on our shoulder or else a grumbling spirit in our heart. We don’t like our boss always telling us what to do, we don’t like the government telling us what to do, so when it comes to the church, we automatically assume that there should not be anyone there telling us what to do. After all, they reason, a church is a place of grace and comfort, not a haven for oppressive authority.

Listen to this true story of one church that attempted church discipline. One of their elders was involved in something that was clearly sinful and needed to be addressed by the other elders. For some strange reason the meeting to officially confront this elder was not a closed meeting; they allowed one couple to attend who were not elders but who were best friends with the elder in question. The woman carried a backpack into the meeting, laid it at her feet and said nothing. As the meeting progressed and the issues were raised, eventually this woman picked up her backpack and dumped the entire contents onto the table—a pile of rocks. Then she picked up a big rock, shook it in front of the face of the elder chairman and screamed at the top of her lungs, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone!” She became so hysterical that her husband literally had to carry her out of the room, never to return to that church again.

Obviously this is an extreme example, but it illustrates the problem with authority. We have been talking for several weeks about how it is an act of love to help a brother or sister who is caught in sin. But too often the one trapped in the snare of the devil does not want to be released. They are not willing to confront their sin so they run to denial—but notice this, like the hysterical woman in our true story, such people do not deny the sin, they deny anyone else’s right to confront their sin. In other words they are not saying, “I didn’t do it” but rather, “What right do you have to question me?” You have to admit that Biblical church discipline is fraught with all kind of problems, but we should not be asking whether there are problems with church discipline. The right question to ask is, “Is it Biblical”. For the past seven weeks we have been answering this question with an affirmative “yes”. There is Biblical church discipline and there is unbiblical church discipline, just as there is a Biblical view of Jesus and an unbiblical view of Jesus. The reality of false teachings about Jesus must not stop us from teaching truths about Jesus. In the same way, because church discipline is abused and misunderstood does not mean we should abandon the actual Biblical truth. If you conclude that formative and corrective church discipline are Biblical, then we can have the confidence to move forward.

Now to our third misuse of Matthew 18—as a magic lamp. I am specifically referring to v. 19, Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. Many Christians have viewed this and other similar verses as a type of magic lamp. If you rub a magic lamp a genie pops out and grants you three wishes—whatever your heart desires. In a similar way, we can view God like a magic lamp—if we rub him the right way he will give us what we want. And what could be more plain than this verse? If two Christians agree about anything God will answer our prayer. It even sounds like a magic lamp Bible verse, but the problem is that this verse has been ripped from its context. The agreement of two Christians is about the steps of church discipline found in the previous verses. This whole passage from verse 15 to verse 20 is all about church discipline. If you have a NIV Bible you cans see that this section is called “A Brother Who Sins Against You” and includes through verse twenty. Now I don’t think we should rely on these section headings because they are not an inspired part of the Biblical text, but at least this section title should give us a good hint that we cannot separate v. 19 from the rest of the section. Whatever v. 19 means, and we will get to it next time, it must be understood in the context church discipline, not ripped from its context.

Finally we get to our last misuse of this passage—those who want to use it as a Kumbaya song. I am referring to v. 20, For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” I must have heard this verse quoted nearly a hundred time sin my life and it was always misquoted. It is usually quoted when a small group of Christians are drinking coffee together and enjoying the genuine Christian fellowship. Finally one of them comments on the Christian fellowship and says, “Well you know, the Bible says that wherever two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, he will be with us.” It’s like sitting around a campfire and singing Kumbaya—there’s a lot of heat and even relational warmth, but not much light of understanding. We say things like, “Ah, isn’t this nice? See how God unites us together because we are gathered in his name.” Don’t get me wrong here—unity in Christ is a powerful and wonderful thing. Right now Brittney is beginning to experience Christian unity with fellow believers throughout several Asian countries. I guarantee you that when she comes home, her testimony will include something like this. “It was the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced, for when I met Christians living in mud huts in Indonesia and believers living in high rise apartments in Japan, even though we could not speak to one another, we all felt this incredible sense of unity.” This sense of unity that we experience with believers in foreign countries and drinking coffee together with a few friends, is nothing less than a foretaste of Heaven. When this happens we are peeling back the curtain of eternity and gazing into the majesty of spiritual union in Christ. I never want to diminish this reality in the slightest way, all I am saying is that we cannot use this verse as a prooftext for this experience of Christian unity. The promise of prayer in v. 19 is not about Jesus as a magic lamp and the promise of Jesus’ presence in v. 20 is not about a warm Kumbaya song. Rather, both verses are strictly about church discipline.

We have come to the end of this message and all we have accomplished today is to examine four misuses of Matthew 18. I have spent all of my time telling you what Matthew 18 does not mean and not telling you what it does mean. Sometimes we have to do this kind of thing to finally arrive at a genuine Biblical understanding. This passage has been used wrongly in so many ways for so long that had I tried to give you the correct interpretation first, your mind would have been swarming with many of these wrong interpretations and that would have blocked our progress. Think of it kind of like what the New Orleans missions team did last Spring. They did not begin to build a new frame around the old, rotting house. First they had to tear down and clear out the old before the new could be built. In the same way, we have spent our time today deconstructing rotten interpretations of this important passage so that next time we can build a strong frame around it.

Rich Maurer

October 22, 2006