30 Sermon Illustrations on Church Discipline

The ancient councils and synods, as is noted by the ecclesiastical story, when they deprived any bishop, never recorded the offence, but buried it in perpetual silence. Lord Bacon.

Two nuns of the sisterhood of St. Scholastica, though in other respects exemplary, and faithful to their religious profession, were much given to scandal and vain talk. Which being told to St. Benedict, it displeased him greatly; and he sent to them a message, that if they did not refrain their tongues, and set a better example to the community, he would excommunicate them. The nuns were at first alarmed and penitent, and promised amendment; but the habit was too strong for their good resolves. They continued their vain and idle talking; and, in the midst of their folly, they died, and, being of great and noble lineage, they were buried in the church near the altar. And afterwards, on a certain day, as St. Benedict solemnized mass at that altar, and at the moment when the officiating deacon uttered the usual words, "Let those who are excommunicated, and forbidden to partake, depart and leave us," behold! the two nuns rose up from their graves; and in the sight of all the people, with faces drooping and averted, they glided out of the church. And thus it happened every time that the mass was celebrated there; until St. Benedict, taking pity upon them, absolved them from their sins, and they rested in peace.

— Mrs. Jameson

The following fact occurred in the family of a pious minister, who had then a revival in his congregation.

"Electra," said her mother to a little daughter of two and a half years old, playing on the floor, "bring me that apple, my dear." She looked at her mother and said, "No," with indifference, and resumed her play. Her mother rejoined, "bring me that apple instantly;" and was answered, "I wont." Things now became in earnest; and after several more orders and refusals, the case was resigned to the father, who was present and observed the scene. With a tone of authority and yet benevolence, he reiterated the mandate, "Take that apple to your mother, my child!" Electra arose and All perceived the wisdom and fitness of Mr. Bulkley's advice, and resolved to be governed by it. The consequence was, all the animosities subsided, and harmony was restored to the long afflicted church.

In the town of —, in the State of New-York, there lived a man who occasionally drank to intoxication. He was a professor of religion; and as private admonitions proved ineffectual, he was at length brought before the church. The evidence of his intemperance was clear and unquestionable; but that he might not be condemned without the privilege of defence, he was you meet any person in the road in a worse habit of body than yourself, would you think you had reason to be enraged at him on that account; pray then, what greater reason can you have for being incensed at a man for a worse habit of mind than any of yourselves?"

His wife, Xantippe, was a woman of a most fantastical and furious spirit. At one time, having vented all the reproaches upon Socrates her fury could suggest, he went out and sat before the door. His calm and unconcerned behavior but irritated her so much the more; and in the excess of her rage, she ran up stairs and emptied a vessel upon his head; at which he only laughed, and said, "that so much thunder must needs produce a shower." Alcibiades, his friend, talking with him about his wife, told him he wondered how he could bear such an everlasting scold in the same house with him: he replied, "I have so accustomed myself to expect it, that it now offends me no more than the noise of carriages in the streets."

Some ministers would welcome the method described below for our churches at home:

Some interesting new methods and agencies are noticed in the _Baptist Missionary Magazine_ as having been introduced into the missionary church at Sinwaugan, Philippine Islands. A band of policemen has been instituted to see that all the members of the church attend the services on time. These policemen hunt up delinquents, and if they can not give good reasons for their absence, bring them to church. In the church they keep order among the throngs of children who attend.

John Howard Yoder feels that the disciplinary passage, Matthew 18:15-20:

"...gives more authority to the church than does Rome, trusts more to the Holy Spirit than does pentecostalism, has more respect for the individual than humanism, makes moral standards more binding than puritanism, is more open to the given situation than the 'new morality.' If practiced, it would change the life of churches more fundamentally than has yet been suggested by the currently popular discussions of changing church structures."

________

John H. Yoder, "Binding and Loosing," Concern, Feb 1967, p. 2.

#1512

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Reviving an ancient practice, churches are exposing sinners and shunning those who won’t repent.

________

On a quiet Sunday morning in June, as worshippers settled into the pews at Allen Baptist Church in southwestern Michigan, Pastor Jason Burrick grabbed his cellphone and dialed 911. When a dispatcher answered, the preacher said a former congregant was in the sanctuary. “And we need to, um, have her out A.S.A.P.”

Half an hour later, 71-year-old Karolyn Caskey, a church member for nearly 50 years who had taught Sunday school and regularly donated 10% of her pension, was led out by a state trooper and a county sheriff’s officer. One held her purse and Bible. The other put her in handcuffs.

The charge was trespassing, but Mrs. Caskey’s real offense, in her pastor’s view, was spiritual. Several months earlier, when she had questioned his authority, he’d charged her with spreading “a spirit of cancer and discord” and expelled her from the congregation. “I’ve been shunned,” she says.

Her story reflects a growing movement among some conservative Protestant pastors to bring back church discipline, an ancient practice in which suspected sinners are privately confronted and then publicly castigated and excommunicated if they refuse to repent. While many Christians find such practices outdated, pastors in large and small churches across the country are expelling members for offenses ranging from adultery and theft to gossiping, skipping service and criticizing church leaders.

The revival is part of a broader movement to restore churches to their traditional role as moral enforcers, Christian leaders say. Some say that contemporary churches have grown soft on sinners, citing the rise of suburban megachurches where pastors preach self-affirming messages rather than focusing on sin and redemption. Others point to a passage in the gospel of Matthew that says unrepentant sinners must be shunned.

CAUSING DISHARMONY

Watermark Community Church, a nondenominational church in Dallas that draws 4,000 people to services, requires members to sign a form stating they will submit to the “care and correction” of church elders. Last week, the pastor of a 6,000-member megachurch in Nashville, Tenn., threatened to expel 74 members for gossiping and causing disharmony unless they repented. The congregants had sued the pastor for access to the church’s financial records.

First Baptist Church of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a 1,000-member congregation, expels five to seven members a year for “blatant, undeniable patterns of willful sin,” which have included adultery, drunkenness and refusal to honor church elders. About 400 people have left the church over the years for what they view as an overly harsh persecution of sinners, Pastor Jeff Noblit says.

The process can be messy, says Al Jackson, pastor of Lakeview Baptist Church in Auburn, Ala., which began disciplining members in the 1990s. Once, when the congregation voted out an adulterer who refused to repent, an older woman was confused and thought the church had voted to send the man to hell.

Amy Hitt, 43, a mortgage officer in Amissville, Va., was voted out of her Baptist congregation in 2004 for gossiping about her pastor’s plans to buy a bigger house. Her ouster was especially hard on her twin sons, now 12 years old, who had made friends in the church, she says. “Some people have looked past it, but then there are others who haven’t,” says Ms. Hitt, who believes the episode cost her a seat on the school board last year; she lost by 42 votes.

Scholars estimate that 10% to 15% of Protestant evangelical churches practice church discipline -- about 14,000 to 21,000 U.S. congregations in total. Increasingly, clashes within churches are spilling into communities, splitting congregations and occasionally landing church leaders in court after congregants, who believed they were confessing in private, were publicly shamed.

In the past decade, more than two dozen lawsuits related to church discipline have been filed as congregants sue pastors for defamation, negligent counseling and emotional injury, according to the Religion Case Reporter, a legal-research database. Peggy Penley, a Fort Worth, Texas, woman whose pastor revealed her extramarital affair to the congregation after she confessed it in confidence, waged a six-year battle against the pastor, charging him with negligence. Last summer, the Texas Supreme Court dismissed her suit, ruling that the pastor was exercising his religious beliefs by publicizing the affair.

Courts have often refused to hear such cases on the grounds that churches are protected by the constitutional right to free religious exercise, but some have sided with alleged sinners. In 2003, a woman and her husband won a defamation suit against the Iowa Methodist conference and its superintendent after he publicly accused her of “spreading the spirit of Satan” because she gossiped about her pastor. A district court rejected the case, but the Iowa Supreme Court upheld the woman’s appeal on the grounds that the letter labeling her a sinner was circulated beyond the church.

Advocates of shunning say it rarely leads to the public disclosure of a member’s sin. “We’re not the FBI; we’re not sniffing around people’s homes trying to find out some secret sin,” says Don Singleton, pastor of Ridgeview Baptist Church in Talladega, Ala., who says the 50-member church has disciplined six members in his 2½ years as pastor. “Ninety-nine percent of these cases never go that far.”

When they do, it can be humiliating. A devout Christian and grandmother of three, Mrs. Caskey moves with a halting gait, due to two artificial knees and a double hip replacement. Friends and family describe her as a generous woman who helped pay the electricity bill for Allen Baptist, in Allen, Mich., when funds were low, gave the church $1,200 after she sold her van, and even cut the church’s lawn on occasion. She has requested an engraved image of the church on her tombstone.

GOSSIP AND SLANDER

Her expulsion came as a shock to some church members when, in August 2006, the pastor sent a letter to the congregation stating Mrs. Caskey and an older married couple, Patsy and Emmit Church, had been removed for taking “action against the church and your preacher.” The pastor, Mr. Burrick, told congregants the three were guilty of gossip, slander and idolatry and should be shunned, according to several former church members.

“People couldn’t believe it,” says Janet Biggs, 53, a former church member who quit the congregation in protest.

The conflict had been brewing for months. Shortly after the church hired Mr. Burrick in 2005 to help revive the congregation, which had dwindled to 12 members, Mrs. Caskey asked him to appoint a board of deacons to help govern the church, a tradition outlined in the church’s charter. Mr. Burrick said the congregation was too small to warrant deacons. Mrs. Caskey pressed the issue at the church’s quarterly business meetings and began complaining that Mr. Burrick was not following the church’s bylaws. “She’s one of the nicest, kindest people I know,” says friend and neighbor Robert Johnston, 69, a retired cabinet maker. “But she won’t be pushed around.”

In April 2006, Mrs. Caskey received a stern letter from Mr. Burrick. “This church will not tolerate this spirit of cancer and discord that you would like to spread,” it said. Mrs. Caskey, along with Mr. and Mrs. Church, continued to insist that the pastor follow the church’s constitution. In August, she received a letter from Mr. Burrick that said her failure to repent had led to her removal. It also said he would not write her a transfer letter enabling her to join another church, a requirement in many Baptist congregations, until she had “made things right here at Allen Baptist.”

She went to Florida for the winter, and when she returned to Michigan last June, she drove the two miles to Allen Baptist as usual. A church member asked her to leave, saying she was not welcome, but Mrs. Caskey told him she had come to worship and asked if they could speak after the service. Twenty minutes into the service, a sheriff’s officer was at her side, and an hour later, she was in jail.

“It was very humiliating,” says Mrs. Caskey, who worked for the state of Michigan for 25 years before retiring from the Department of Corrections in 1992. “The other prisoners were surprised to see a little old lady in her church clothes. One of them said, ‘You robbed a church?’ and I said, ‘No, I just attended church.’”

Word quickly spread throughout Allen, a close-knit town of about 200 residents. Once a thriving community of farmers and factory workers, Allen consists of little more than a strip of dusty antiques stores. Mr. and Mrs. Church, both in their 70s, eventually joined another Baptist congregation nearby.

About 25 people stopped attending Allen Baptist Church after Mrs. Caskey was shunned, according to several former church members.

Current members say they support the pastor’s actions, and they note that the congregation has grown under his leadership. The simple, white-washed building now draws around 70 people on Sunday mornings, many of them young families. “He’s a very good leader; he has total respect for the people,” says Stephen Johnson, 66, an auto parts inspector, who added that Mr. Burrick was right to remove Mrs. Caskey because “the Bible says causing discord in the church is an abomination.”

Mrs. Caskey went back to the church about a month after her arrest, shortly after the county prosecutor threw out the trespassing charge. More than a dozen supporters gathered outside, some with signs that read “What Would Jesus Do?” She sat in the front row as Mr. Burrick preached about “infidels in the pews,” according to reports from those present.

Once again, Mrs. Caskey was escorted out by a state trooper and taken to jail, where she posted the $62 bail and was released. After that, the county prosecutor dismissed the charge and told county law enforcement not to arrest her again unless she was creating a disturbance.

In the following weeks, Mrs. Caskey continued to worship at Allen Baptist. Some congregants no longer spoke to her or passed the offering plate, and some changed seats if she sat next to them, she says.

Mr. Burrick repeatedly declined to comment on Mrs. Caskey’s case, calling it a “private ecclesiastical matter.” He did say that while the church does not “blacklist” anyone, a strict reading of the Bible requires pastors to punish disobedient members. “A lot of times, flocks aren’t willing to submit or be obedient to God,” he said in an interview before a Sunday evening service. “If somebody is not willing to be helped, they forfeit their membership.”

In Christianity’s early centuries, church discipline led sinners to cover themselves with ashes or spend time in the stocks. In later centuries, expulsion was more common. Until the late 19th century, shunning was widely practiced by American evangelicals, including Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists. Today, excommunication rarely occurs in the U.S. Catholic Church, and shunning is largely unheard of among mainline Protestants.

LITTLE CONSENSUS

Among churches that practice discipline, there is little consensus on how sinners should be dealt with, says Gregory Wills, a theologian at Southern Baptist Theological seminary. Some pastors remove members on their own, while other churches require agreement among deacons or a majority vote from the congregation.

Since Mrs. Caskey’s second arrest last July, the turmoil at Allen Baptist has fizzled into an awkward stalemate. Allen Baptist is an independent congregation, unaffiliated with a church hierarchy that might review the ouster. Supporters have urged Mrs. Caskey to sue to have her membership restored, but she says the matter should be settled in the church. Mr. Burrick no longer calls the police when Mrs. Caskey shows up for Sunday services.

Since November, Mrs. Caskey has been attending a Baptist church near her winter home in Tavares, Florida. She plans to go back to Allen Baptist when she returns to Michigan this spring.

“I don’t intend to abandon that church,” Mrs. Caskey says. “I feel like I have every right to be there.”

[see also HolwickID #18397 for a Baptist response]

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #16395]

Church discipline is a crucial aspect of a local church body’s health and obedience to Scripture and its goal is the restoration of a wandering believer, author, speaker and professor Don Whitney said June 26 at the 26th annual Southern Baptist Founders Conference.

Citing a recent article by the Wall Street Journal on church discipline [see HolwickID #13444] that depicted it as merely a method seeking to kick people out of the church, Whitney said church discipline instead is a loving act and is demanded by Scripture in texts such as Matthew 18:15-20 and 1 Corinthians 5.

“The goal is to restore a believer to righteousness,” Whitney said. “We want to bring them back, to heal the breach, to restore them in love.

“The need for church discipline is inevitable. Don’t think your church will never need to practice discipline. Sooner or later, God will test every church, every minister in this matter of discipline. You will come up against the opportunity and go into the desert or you will follow God.”

Whitney serves as associate professor of biblical spirituality and senior associate dean at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. The founder of the Center for Biblical Spirituality (www.biblicalspirituality.org), Whitney is the author of several books including “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life” and “Spiritual Disciplines within the Church.” He has served in pastoral ministry for 24 years.

Matthew 18:15-20 sets forth three clear steps in the process of church discipline, Whitney said: first, confront the errant sinner in private; next, confront him again, this time taking along two or three witnesses; and finally, if those two steps do not bring him to repentance, take the matter before the entire church body.

The church should formally remove the erring person from the fellowship only after he demonstrates a persistent refusal to repent of his sins, Whitney said, adding that the first two steps might occur numerous times before the final, most drastic measure is necessary. Withdrawal of fellowship requires approval by the entire church, he said.

“We treat them as a lost person because they continually act like one,” Whitney said. “This is the ultimate effort to restore them and to bring them back. We give them every opportunity to respond to their sin in repentance as they ought to respond. We don’t have the right to treat them un-Christianly or in an uncivil way; we are to love them and seek to evangelize them.

“But the goal should be reconciliation. You cannot over-emphasize the goal of winning your brother back.”

God promises to support those churches with His presence that are obedient to the command of Christ to lovingly discipline wayward members, Whitney said.

Whitney said a local church should begin to discipline a member when:

• Christian love is violated by serious personal offenses.

• Christian unity is violated by those who form factions and destroy the peace of the church.

• Christian law is violated by those living scandalous lives.

• Christian truth is violated by those who reject essential doctrines of the faith.

There are at least three errors to avoid when practicing church discipline, Whitney said: inconsistency, severity and leniency. Whitney pointed out that Southern Baptist churches in the 19th century regularly practiced restorative church discipline, but it gradually faded in the 20th century.

“A lot of people think church discipline takes place when you make the pastor mad and then he gets you kicked out of the church,” he said. “But the Bible makes it clear that it is for the good of the individual and the spiritual health of the church body. J.L. Dagg famously wrote, ‘When discipline leaves a church, Christ goes with it.’

“Historically, the three marks of the church have been said to be the preaching of the Gospel, the ordinances and church discipline. If these historic marks of the church are indeed necessary, what do we think about the vast majority of churches today who do not have the last mark?

“This is a Christological issue, a Lordship issue. This is about Jesus Christ as Head of the church and His rule over our lives. God help us for His name’s sake.”

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #6834]

At a time when traditional Baptist church government, known as congregational polity, has fallen out of favor in some churches, a number of Southern Baptist thinkers met at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary to discuss the issue.

In varying ways, they said the traditional model remains viable -- and biblical.

“Congregationalism may not be attractive, efficient, well-understood, well- practiced, easy, universally believed in or loved or impervious to distortion,” Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., said in his address. “But, my friends, congregationalism is biblical.”

In a panel discussion, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson went even further in both his judgment of and support for congregational polity. “Congregationalism is a terrible form of church government,” the Texas seminary president said, “but it is light years ahead of whatever comes in second.”

James Leo Garrett Jr., distinguished professor emeritus of theology at Southwestern Seminary, defined congregational polity as a form of church government in which “final human authority rests in the local or particular congregation when it gathers for decision-making. This means that decisions about membership, leadership, doctrine, worship, conduct, missions, finances, property, relationships and the like are to be made by the gathered congregation except when such decisions have been delegated to individual members or to groups of members.”

Garrett presented a case for congregational polity drawn from his study of biblical scholarship on passages in Matthew, Acts and 1 and 2 Corinthians. Beyond the various Baptist conventions, 35 different Protestant denominational bodies in the United States practice some form of congregational polity, he noted. The intention of congregational polity, Garrett added, was for the congregation to govern itself under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and with the leadership of the Holy Spirit rather than under the authority of any ecclesiastical body.

Congregational polity, Dever noted, assumes that every church member is indeed a believer, a concept known as regenerate church membership. John Hammett, associate professor of systematic theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina, echoed Dever's emphasis on regenerate church membership. He illustrated that Baptists historically in the South practiced church discipline more often than any other denomination. Under that system, any member who acted outside the bounds of Christian behavior and refused to repent when confronted by the church could be removed from membership.

Church discipline all but came to a halt in the 20th century, Hammett said, as the teaching of “soul competence” by influential Baptist scholar E.Y. Mullins (1860-1928) replaced the historic Baptist doctrine of church competence, placing far more authority in the individual than the church.

Hammett noted, “It's hard to imagine that the pervasive presence of this individualistic doctrine of soul competence, in the absence of the idea church competence, did not play a significant role in prompting individual church members from asking questions like this, 'Who am I to call another person to be disciplined?’ 'Who am I question someone entering the church,' rather than asking, 'What must we do as the church to assure this brother and protect the church?'“

Malcolm Yarnell, associate professor of systematic theology at Southwestern Seminary, said Mullins' idea of soul competence was a response to the dangers people faced in the early 20th century, including Nazism, communism and other kinds of dictatorship around the world.

“We were very concerned to protect people, and the way to do that was to protect the rights of the individual,” Yarnell said. “Mullins took over current political ideology and current business terms and introduced them into Baptist thought and said, 'This is how Baptists have always believed.'“

Hammett outlined an historic view of church polity in which Christ gave the authority to rule to the church as a corporate body, who then entrusted much of that authority to the pastor. The pastor is then accountable to the church body. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, addressed how pastors should exercise the authority granted to them by the local church.

The biblical model for how a church should interact with a pastor, Land said, is identical to the instructions the Bible gives to husbands and wives.

“When the Bible talks to the husband, it says, 'Love your wife as Christ loved the church. Give yourself in service to your wife and always put your wife's needs above your own needs,'“ Land said. “When the Bible talks to the wife it says, 'Put yourself under the authority of your own husband as unto the Lord.'“

In keeping with that model, Land said pastors should not abuse their authority and that church members should follow their pastors whenever possible.

“When a church calls a man to be their pastor, they are saying, 'We are exercising our autonomy under the Lordship of Christ, and we believe that you are God's man to be our under shepherd and to lead us and we are going to follow you. Even when we would prefer plan B, we are going to go with plan A unless in conscience we cannot,'“ Land said. “There is no such thing as a great, God- honoring church which is pastor-led and not deacon- and people-supported. ... There is also no such thing as a great God-honoring church which is deacon- and congregation-led.”

Alvin Reid, professor of evangelism at Southeastern Seminary, noted that congregational polity must be employed with a sense of purpose if a church is to fulfill its mission to reach the lost.

“[Congregational] polity can lead to a form of individualism in which, just as it was at the end of the Book of Judges, everyone does what is right in his own eyes,” Reid said. “Congregations which drift along led by a 'good old boy' system of a vocal few perpetuate a form of church life which most pleases them, sternly resists change and decreasingly concerns itself with pleasing God.”

Reid said he believes congregational polity should be used to build consensus about the church's purpose rather than to preserve the status quo on non-eternal matters.

“Christianity at its heart is not a monument to be preserved, but a movement to be advanced,” Reid said, asking, “Should the red carpet, robed choir and pipe organ of the 1950s and '60s stand ossified and unchanged for years to come?”

Rick Durst, vice president for academic affairs at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in California, said that in implementing congregational polity, Baptists would do well to develop a biblical understanding of conflict. In contrast to the modern assumption that conflict is the end of one's ministry, he said the nature of church life in the New Testament epistles and Acts reveals that Christians have always had to deal with differences of opinion. He went on to say that honest disagreements can and should lead to growth and the advancement of a church's mission.

“Could you learn to see conflict as a gift from God?” Durst asked.

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The decline of church discipline is perhaps the most visible failure of the contemporary church. No longer concerned with maintaining purity of confession or lifestyle, the contemporary church sees itself as a voluntary association of autonomous members, with minimal moral accountability to God, much less to each other.

The absence of church discipline is no longer remarkable -- it is generally not even noticed. Regulative and restorative church discipline is, to many church members, no longer a meaningful category, or even a memory. The present generation of both ministers and church members is virtually without experience of biblical church discipline.

As a matter of fact, most Christians introduced to the biblical teaching concerning church discipline -- the third mark of the church -- confront the issue of church discipline as an idea they have never before encountered. At first hearing, the issue seems as antiquarian and foreign as the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials. Their only acquaintance with the disciplinary ministry of the church is often a literary invention such as “The Scarlet Letter.”

And yet, without a recovery of functional church discipline -- firmly established upon the principles revealed in the Bible -- the church will continue its slide into moral dissolution and relativism.

Evangelicals have long recognized discipline as the “third mark” of the authentic church. Authentic biblical discipline is not an elective, but a necessary and integral mark of authentic Christianity.

How did this happen? How could the church so quickly and pervasively abandon one of its most essential functions and responsibilities? The answer is found in developments both internal and external to the church.

Put simply, the abandonment of church discipline is linked to American Christianity's creeping accommodation to American culture. As the 20th century began, this accommodation became increasingly evident as the church acquiesced to a culture of moral individualism.

Though the 19th century was not a golden era for American evangelicals, the century did see the consolidation of evangelical theology and church patterns. Manuals of church discipline and congregational records indicate that discipline was regularly applied. Protestant congregations exercised discipline as a necessary and natural ministry to the members of the church, and as a means of protecting the doctrinal and moral integrity of the congregation.

As ardent congregationalists, the Baptists left a particularly instructive record of 19th-century discipline. Historian Gregory A. Wills aptly commented, “To an antebellum Baptist, a church without discipline would hardly have counted as a church.” Churches held regular “Days of Discipline” when the congregation would gather to heal breaches of fellowship, admonish wayward members, rebuke the obstinate, and, if necessary, excommunicate those who resisted discipline. In so doing, congregations understood themselves to be following a biblical pattern laid down by Christ and the Apostles for the protection and correction of disciples.

No sphere of life was considered outside the congregation's accountability. Members were to conduct their lives and witness in harmony with the Bible and with established moral principles. Depending on the denominational polity, discipline was codified in church covenants, books of discipline, congregational manuals and confessions of faith. Discipline covered both doctrine and conduct. Members were disciplined for behavior which violated biblical principles or congregational covenants, but also for violations of doctrine and belief. Members were considered to be under the authority of the congregation and accountable to each other.

By the turn of the century, however, church discipline was already on the decline. In the wake of the Enlightenment, criticism of the Bible and the doctrines of evangelical orthodoxy was widespread. Even the most conservative denominations began to show evidence of decreased attention to theological orthodoxy. At the same time, the larger culture moved toward the adoption of autonomous moral individualism. The result of these internal and external developments was the abandonment of church discipline as ever larger portions of the church member's life were considered off-limits to the congregation.

This great shift in church life followed the tremendous cultural transformations of the early 20th century -- an era of “progressive” thought and moral liberalization. By the 1960s, only a minority of churches even pretended to practice regulative church discipline. Significantly, confessional accountability and moral discipline were generally abandoned together.

The theological category of sin has been replaced, in many circles, with the psychological concept of therapy. As Philip Reiff has argued, the “Triumph of the Therapeutic” is now a fixture of modern American culture. Church members may make poor choices, fail to live up to the expectations of an oppressive culture or be inadequately self-actualized -- but they no longer sin.

Individuals now claim an enormous zone of personal privacy and moral autonomy. The congregation -- redefined as a mere voluntary association -- has no right to intrude into this space. Many congregations have forfeited any responsibility to confront even the most public sins of their members. Consumed with pragmatic methods of church growth and congregational engineering, most churches leave moral matters to the domain of the individual conscience.

As Thomas Oden notes, the confession of sin is now passé and hopelessly outdated to many minds. “Naturalistic reductionism has invited us to reduce alleged individual sins to social influences for which individuals are not responsible. Narcissistic hedonism has demeaned any talk of sin or confession as ungratifying and dysfunctional. Autonomous individualism has divorced sin from a caring community. Absolute relativism has regarded moral values as so ambiguous that there is no measuring rod against which to assess anything as sin. Thus modernity, which is characterized by the confluence of these four ideological streams, has presumed to do away with confession, and has in fact made confession an embarrassment to the accommodating church of modernity.”

The very notion of shame has been discarded by a generation for which shame is an unnecessary and repressive hindrance to personal fulfillment. Even secular observers have noted the shamelessness of modern culture. As James Twitchell comments, “we have in the last generation tried to push shame aside. The human-potential and recovered-memory movements in psychology; the moral relativism of audience-driven Christianity; the penalty-free, all-ideas-are-equally-good transformation in higher education; the rise of no-fault behavior before the law; the often outrageous distortions in the telling of history so that certain groups can feel better about themselves; and the 'I'm shame-free, but you should be ashamed of yourself' tone of political discourse are just some of the instances wherein this can be seen.”

Twitchell sees the Christian church aiding and abetting this moral transformation and abandonment of shame -- which is, after all, a natural product of sinful behavior. “Looking at the Christian Church today, you can only see a dim pentimento of what was once painted in the boldest of colors. Christianity has simply lost it. It no longer articulates the ideal. Sex is on the loose. Shame days are over. The Devil has absconded with sin.” As Twitchell laments, “Go and sin no more” has been replaced with “Judge not lest you be judged.”

Demonstration of this moral abandonment is seen in mainline Protestantism's surrender to an ethic of sexual “liberation.” Liberal Protestantism has lost any moral credibility in the sexual sphere. Homosexuality is not condemned, even though it is clearly condemned in the Bible. To the contrary, homosexuals get a special caucus at the denominational assembly and their own publications and special rights.

Evangelicals, though still claiming adherence to biblical standards of morality, have overwhelmingly capitulated to the divorce culture. Where are the evangelical congregations that hold married couples accountable for maintaining their marriage vows? To a great extent, evangelicals are just slightly behind liberal Protestantism in accommodating to the divorce culture, and accepting what amounts to “serial monogamy” -- faithfulness to one marital partner at a time. This, too, has been noted by secular observers. David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values remarked that “over the past three decades, many religious leaders ... have largely abandoned marriage as a vital area of religious attention, essentially handing the entire matter over to opinion leaders and divorce lawyers in the secular society. Some members of the clergy seem to have lost interest in defending and strengthening marriage. Others report that they worry about offending members of their congregations who are divorced or unmarried.”

Tied to this worry about offending church members is the rise of the “rights culture” which understands society only in terms of individual rights rather than moral responsibility. Mary Ann Glendon of the Harvard Law School documents the substitution of “rights talk” for moral discourse. Unable or unwilling to deal with moral categories, modern men and women resort to the only moral language they know and understand -- the unembarrassed claim to “rights” which society has no authority to limit or deny. This “rights talk” is not limited to secular society, however. Church members are so committed to their own version of “rights talk” that some congregations accept almost any behavior, belief, or “lifestyle” as acceptable, or at least off-limits to congregational sanction.

The result of this is the loss of the biblical pattern for the church, and the impending collapse of authentic Christianity in this generation. As Carl Laney laments, “The church today is suffering from an infection which has been allowed to fester.... As an infection weakens the body by destroying its defense mechanisms, so the church has been weakened by this ugly sore. The church has lost its power and effectiveness in serving as a vehicle for social, moral, and spiritual change. This illness is due, at least in part, to a neglect of church discipline.”

The mandate of the church is to maintain true Gospel doctrine and order. A church lacking these essential qualities is, biblically defined, not a true church. That is a hard word, for it clearly indicts thousands of American congregations who long ago abandoned this essential mark, and have accommodated themselves to the spirit of the age. Fearing lawsuits and lacking courage, these churches allow sin to go unconfronted, and heresy to grow unchecked.

John Leadley Dagg, the author of a well-known and influential church manual of the 19th century, noted, “It has been remarked, that when discipline leaves a church, Christ goes with it.” If so, and I fear it must be so, Christ has abandoned many churches who are blissfully unaware of His departure.

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THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE, Part 2, July 19, 2005

The disappearance of church discipline has weakened the church and compromised Christian witness. The church's abdication of its moral responsibility has also led to public humiliation before the watching world. Any road to recovery will take the church through a rediscovery of the biblical and theological foundations for congregational discipline. The integrity of the people of God should always be a paramount concern. This story does not begin with the church, but with Israel.

Throughout the Bible, the people of God are characterized by a distinctive purity. This moral purity is not their own achievement, but the work of God within their midst. As the Lord spoke to the children of Israel, “For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy” [Leviticus 11:44]. Given that they have been chosen by a holy God as a people of His own name, God's chosen people are to reflect His holiness by their way of living, worship and beliefs.

The holiness code is central to the understanding of the Old Testament. As God's chosen nation, Israel must live by God's Word and law, which will set the children of Israel visibly apart from their pagan neighbors. As the Lord spoke through Moses: “You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and His testimonies and His statutes which He has commanded you. You shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you and that you may go in and possess the good land which the Lord swore to give your fathers” [Deuteronomy 6:17-18].

The nation is reminded that it is now known by God's name, and is to reflect His holiness. “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth” [Deuteronomy 7:6]. God promised His covenant faithfulness to His people, but expected them to obey His Word and follow His law. Israel's judicial system was largely designed to protect the purity of the nation.

In the New Testament, the church is likewise described as the People of God, who are visible to the world by their purity of life and integrity of testimony. As Peter instructed the church: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” [I Peter 2:9-10].

As Peter continued, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation” [1 Peter 2:11-12].

As the new People of God, the church is to see itself as an alien community in the midst of spiritual darkness -- strangers to the world who must abstain from the lusts and enticements of the world. The church is to be conspicuous in its purity and holiness, and steadfast in its confession of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Rather than capitulating to the moral (or immoral) environment, Christians are to be conspicuous by their good behavior. As Peter summarized, “like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves in all your behavior” [1 Peter 1:15].

The Apostle Paul clearly linked the holiness expected of believers to the completed work of Christ in redemption: “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach ... “ [Colossians 1:21-22]. Clearly, this holiness made complete in the believer is the work of God, and holiness is the evidence of that redemptive work. To the Corinthian congregation Paul urged, “let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” [2 Corinthians 7:1].

The identity of the church as the People of God is to be evident in its pure confession of Christ, its bold testimony to the Gospel and its moral holiness before the watching world. Nothing less will mark the church as the true vessel of the Gospel.

The first dimension of discipline in the church is that discipline exercised directly by God as He deals with believers. As the book of Hebrews warns, “you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, 'My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.’ It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” [Hebrews 12:5-7] As the passage continues, the author warns that those who are without discipline “are illegitimate children and not sons” [Hebrews 12:8]. The purpose of discipline, however, is righteousness. “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” [Hebrews 12:11].

God's loving discipline of His people is His sovereign right and is completely in keeping with His moral character -- His own holiness. His fatherly discipline also establishes the authority and pattern for discipline in the church. Correction is for the greater purpose of restoration and the even higher purpose of reflecting the holiness of God.

The second dimension of discipline in the church is that disciplinary responsibility addressed to the church itself. Like God's fatherly discipline of those He loves, the church is to exercise discipline as an integral part of its moral and theological responsibility. That the church can fall into moral disrepute is evident in the New Testament itself.

The Apostle Paul confronted a case of gross moral failure in the Corinthian congregation which included “immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles” [1 Corinthians 5:1]. In this case, apparent incest was known to the congregation, and yet it had taken no action.

“You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst,” Paul accused the Corinthian congregation [1 Corinthians 5:2]. He instructed them to act quickly and boldly to remove this stain from their fellowship. He also warned them, “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened” [1Corinthians 5:6-7a].

Paul is outraged that the Corinthian Christians would tolerate this horrible sin. Incest, though not literally unknown in the pagan world, was universally condemned and not tolerated. In this respect, the Corinthian church had fallen beneath the moral standards of the pagan world to whom they were to witness. Paul was also exasperated with a congregation he had already warned. Mentioning an earlier letter unavailable to us, Paul scolds the Corinthians: “I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually I wrote you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler -- not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those w ho are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves” [1Corinthians 5:9-13].

The moral outrage of a wounded Apostle is evident in these pointed verses, which call the Corinthian church to action and the exercise of discipline. They have now fallen into corporate sin by tolerating the presence of such a bold and arrogant sinner in their midst. Their moral testimony is clouded, and their fellowship is impure. Their arrogance has blinded them to the offense they have committed before the Lord. The open sin in their midst is like a cancer which, left unchecked, will spread throughout the entire body.

The Apostle's concern about the Corinthian church is a startling catalyst for concern about today's congregations, many of which are following a Corinthian pattern of moral compromise. Paul's letter is a poignant reminder of what is at stake in the recovery of biblical church discipline -- nothing less than the church's witness before the world.

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THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE, Part 3, July 20, 2005

In 1 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul confronted a case of gross moral failure in the Corinthian church. In the face of such sin, however, the church had done nothing. So how should the Corinthians have responded to this public sin?

Paul speaks in this passage of delivering this sinner unto Satan and removing him from fellowship. How is this to be done? To the Galatians Paul wrote that “if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted” [Galatians 6:1]. This teaching is clear, indicating that spiritual leaders of the church are to confront a sinning member with a spirit of humility and gentleness, and with the goal of restoration. But what are the precise steps to be taken?

The Lord himself provided these instructions as He taught His disciples. “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” [Matthew 18:15-17].

The Lord instructed His disciples that they should first confront a sinning brother in private. “Show him his fault,” instructed the Lord. If the brother acknowledges the sin and repents, the brother has been won. The fact that the first step is a private confrontation is very important. This limits the injury caused by the sin, and avoids a public spectacle, which would tarnish the witness of the church to the Gospel.

In the event the private confrontation does not lead to repentance, restoration and reconciliation, the next step is to take witnesses. Jesus cited the Deuteronomic law which required multiple witnesses of a crime for conviction. Yet his purpose here seems larger than the mere establishment of the facts of the case. Jesus seems to intend for the witnesses to be an important presence in the event of the confrontation, thus adding corroborating testimony concerning the confrontation of a sinning brother. The brother cannot claim that he was not confronted with his sin in a brotherly context.

If the brother does not listen even in the presence of one or two witnesses, this becomes a matter for the congregation. “Tell it to the church” instructed Jesus, and the church is to judge the matter before the Lord, and render a judgment which is binding upon the sinner. This step is extremely serious, and the congregation now bears a corporate responsibility. The church must render its judgment based upon the principles of God's Word and the facts of the case. Again, the goal is the restoration of a sinning brother or sister -- not a public spectacle.

Sadly, this congregational confrontation may not avail. If it does not, the only recourse is separation from the sinning brother. “Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector,” instructed the Lord, indicating that the separation is to be real and public. The congregation is not to consider the former brother as a part of the church. This drastic and extreme act is to follow when a brother or sister will not submit to the discipline of the church. We should note that the church should still bear witness to this man, but not as a brother to a brother, until and unless repentance and restoration are evident.

What is the church's authority in church discipline? Jesus addressed this issue directly, even as He declared the establishment of the church after Peter's great confession. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven” [Matthew 16:19]. This “power of the keys” is one of the critical controversies between evangelicals and the Church of Rome. Roman Catholics believe that the Pope, as Peter's successor, holds the keys, and thus the power of binding and loosing. Protestants, however, believe that the Lord granted the keys to the church. This interpretation is supported by the Lord's repetition of the matter in Matthew 18:18, “Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” Here, the context reveals that the power of binding and loosing is held by the church.

The terms “binding” and “loosing” were familiar terms used by rabbis in the first century to refer to the power of judging matters on the basis of the Bible. The Jewish authorities would determine how (or whether) the Scriptures applied in a specific situation, and would render judgment by either “binding,” which meant to restrict, or “loosing,” which meant to liberate. The church still bears this responsibility and wields this power. John Calvin, the great Genevan Reformer, believed that the power of “binding” should be understood as excommunication, and “loosing” as reception into membership: “But the church binds him whom it excommunicates -- not that it casts him into everlasting ruin and despair, but because it condemns his life and morals, and already warns him of his condemnation unless he should repent. It looses him when it receives into communion, for it makes him a sharer of the unity which is in Christ Jesus.”

Calvin's interpretation is fully in agreement at this point with Martin Luther, whose essay on “The Keys” [1530] is a massive refutation of papal claims and Roman Catholic tradition. Luther saw the keys as one of Christ's great gifts to the church. “Both of these keys are extremely necessary in Christendom, so that we can never thank God enough for them.” As a pastor and theologian, Luther saw the great need for the church to bear the keys, and he understood this ministry to be gracious in the recovery of sinning saints. As Luther reflected, “For the dear Man, the faithful Bishop of our souls, Jesus Christ, is well aware that his beloved Christians are frail, that the devil, the flesh, and the world would tempt them unceasingly and in many ways, and that at times they would fall into sin. Therefore, he has given us this remedy, the key which binds, so that we might not remain too confident in our sins, arrogant, barbarous, and without God, and the key which looses, that we should not despair in our sins.”

What about a church leader who sins? Paul instructed Timothy that a church leader -- an elder -- is “to be considered worthy of double honor,” when he rules well [1 Timothy 5:17]. When an elder sins, however, this is a matter of great consequence. First, no accusation is to be received on the basis of just one uncorroborated witness. If a charge is substantiated by two or three witnesses, however, the congregation is to “rebuke [him] in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning” [1 Timothy 5:20]. Clearly, leadership carries a higher burden, and the sins of an elder cause an even greater injury to the church. The public rebuke is necessary, for the elder sins against the entire congregation. As James warned, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment” [James 3:1].

The scandals of moral failure on the part of church leaders have caused tremendous injury to the cause of Christ. The “stricter judgment” should be a vivid warning to those who would violate the Word of God and lead others into sin by example. The failure of the contemporary church to apply consistent biblical church discipline has left most of these scandals unresolved on biblical grounds -- and thus a continuing stain on the church.

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THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE, Part 4, July 21, 2005

When should the church exercise church discipline? In one sense, a form of redemptive church discipline is exercised whenever the Bible is taught and the truth of God's Word is applied to the lives of believers. The convicting power of the Word of God is the first corrective in the hearts of Christ's people. Nevertheless, a more personal and confrontational mode of discipline is required when sin threatens the faithfulness, integrity, and witness of God's people.

The Bible reveals three main areas of danger requiring discipline. These are fidelity of doctrine, purity of life, and unity of fellowship. Each is of critical and vital importance to the health and integrity of the church.

The theological confusion and compromise which mark the modern church are directly traceable to the church's failure to separate itself from doctrinal error and heretics. On this matter the Bible is clear: “Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds” [2 John V. 9-11]. The Apostle Paul instructed the Galatians that “if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is accursed.” [Galatians 1:8-9]

The letters of 2 Peter and Jude explicitly warn of the dangers presented to the church in the form of false prophets and heretics. Jude alerts the church that “certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who long before were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” [Jude V. 4]. Similarly, Peter warns “there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves” [2 Peter 2:1].

The church must separate itself from these heresies -- and from the heretics. The permissive posture of the church in this century has allowed the most heinous heresies to grow unchecked -- and heretics to be celebrated. Francis Schaeffer was among the most eloquent modern prophets who decried this doctrinal cowardice. Schaeffer emphatically denied that a church could be a true Christian fellowship and allow false doctrine. As he stated, “one cannot explain the explosive dynamite, the dunamis, of the early church apart from the fact that they practiced two things simultaneously: orthodoxy of doctrine and orthodoxy of community in the midst of the visible church, a community which the world can see. By the grace of God, therefore, the church must be known simultaneously for its purity of doctrine and the reality of its community.”

The visible community of the true church is also to be evident in its moral purity. Christians are to live in obedience to the Word of God and to be exemplary in their conduct and untarnished in their testimony. A lack of attention to moral purity is a sure sign of congregational rebellion before the Lord.

Writing to the Corinthians, Paul chastised severely: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” [1 Corinthians 6:9-11].

When Christians sin, their sin is to be confronted by the church in accordance with the pattern revealed in Scripture. The goal is the restoration of a sister or a brother, not the creation of a public spectacle. The greatest moral danger to the church is the toleration of sin, public and private. One of the greatest blessings to the church is the gift of biblical church discipline -- the ministry of the keys.

The integrity of the church is also dependent upon the true unity of its fellowship. Indeed, one of the most repeated warnings found in the New Testament is the admonition against toleration of schismatics. The unity of the church is one of its most visible distinctives -- and precious gifts.

The warnings are severe: “Now I urge you brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ, but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting” [Romans 16:17-18]. Writing to Titus, Paul instructed that the church should “Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and sinning, being self-condemned” [Titus 3:10-11].

A breach in the unity of the church is a scandal in the Body of Christ. The church is consistently exhorted to practice and preserve a true unity in true doctrine and biblical piety. This unity is not the false unity of a lowest-common-denominator Christianity, the “Gospel lite” preached and taught in so many modern churches, but in the healthy and growing maturity of the congregation as it increases in grace and knowledge of the Word of God.

The ongoing function of church discipline is to be a part of individual self-examination and congregational reflection. The importance of maintaining integrity in personal relationships was made clear by our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, as He instructed the disciples that anger against a brother is a deadly sin. Reconciliation is a mandate -- not a hypothetical goal. “Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering” [Matthew 5:23-24].

Similarly, Paul warned against participating in the Lord's Supper amidst divisions. The Supper itself is a memorial of the broken body and shed blood of the Savior, and must not be desecrated by the presence of divisions or controversies within the congregation, or by unconfessed sin on the part of individual believers. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.” [1 Corinthians 11:26-29]

The “discipline of the table” is thus one of the most important disciplinary functions of the congregation. The Lord's Supper is not to be served indiscriminately, but only to those baptized believers who are under the discipline of the church and in good standing with their congregation.

In the 21st century, the great task of the church is to prove itself to be in continuity with the genuine church as revealed in the New Testament -- proving its authenticity by a demonstration of pure faith and authentic community. We must regain the New Testament concern for fidelity of doctrine, purity of life and unity of fellowship. We must recover the missing mark of the church.

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These columns were adapted from Mohler's weblog at www.albertmohler.com.

Southern Baptist scholar Gregory Wills believes in church disipline.[1] Wills says the degree to which churches implement church discipline is a predictor of whether the church is safe from disaster.

“[Church discipline] is the canary in a coal mine,” says Wills, who is professor of church history and director of the Center for the Study of the Southern Baptist Convention at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. “When the canary in a coal mine keels over, catastrophe impends. When church discipline is lost, catastrophe impends.”

According to Wills, church discipline among Baptists began to decline in the late-19th century and early-20th century. He attributes the decline to the rise of pragmatism, individualism and secularization in the culture at large. This decline in discipline also permitted liberalism to make crucial inroads into many Baptist churches, he says.

Lax discipline was a new development among Baptists. Earlier Baptist churches had a strong commitment to church discipline in earlier centuries, Wills says.

Baptist churches stood for proper discipline “because they feared God more than men; because Christ commanded it,” Wills says. “They had no more freedom to neglect church discipline than they had to neglect baptism, communion or preaching faith in the name of Christ. They believed that Christ commanded a specific church order, and they pressed themselves to carry it out no matter how impractical or ineffective it might appear.”

Early Baptists, Wills says, were confident that God would bless the faithful practice of church discipline.

“Church discipline was a Gospel remedy for sin and temptation. It was an essential part of the means that God gave for sanctifying believers,” Wills says.

Rev. Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C, says churches cannot effectively reinstitute biblical church discipline until the meaning of church membership is renewed.

Dever has written and spoken extensively on the subject of church polity. Developing a plan for church discipline was the 11th step of a 12-step plan Dever proposes for a renewed commitment to local church membership. A system for church discipline came after other steps such as consistently proclaiming and applying the Gospel message, writing a church confession and instituting a membership class.

“We should realize that our immediate assurance to someone else of their salvation based merely upon their verbal profession of faith in Christ may not be the most loving thing we can do,” Dever says. “Joining the church is joining an assurance of salvation cooperative. We are to observe evidences of God’s grace in each other’s lives and to encourage one another by them. And we are supposed to correct one another when occasion requires.”

Dever says that a thoughtfully implemented approach to church membership should foster evangelism, love among Christians and submission to God and church leaders. Meaningful church membership helps Christians display the character of God, he says.

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1. Wills’ presentation was titled “The Historical Development and Loss of Church Discipline in Baptist Churches.”

Increasing numbers of Southern Baptists are claiming that church discipline is not merely a relic of the past.

Some churches have instituted a process drawn from Scripture of correcting and, if need be, eventually dismissing unrepentant members for public sins. The ultimate goal of the discipline process is repentance and restoration of sinners, the churches say, citing Baptists of past centuries as examples of how church discipline can benefit individuals and churches.

The return to church disciple has been gaining momentum for several years.

“The decline of church discipline is perhaps the most visible failure of the contemporary church,” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, wrote in a 2001 essay in a book titled “Polity: Biblical Arguments on How to Conduct Church Life,” edited by Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

“No longer concerned with maintaining purity of confession or lifestyle, the contemporary church sees itself as a voluntary association of autonomous members, with minimal moral accountability to God, much less to each other,” Mohler observed.

“[W]ithout a recovery of functional church discipline -- firmly established upon the principles revealed in the Bible -- the church will continue its slide into moral dissolution and relativism,” Mohler wrote.

Jeff Noblit, pastor of First Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals, Ala., agreed with Mohler’s call for church discipline and said he has seen it practiced successfully firsthand.

Eighteen years ago when Noblit became pastor of First Baptist, he developed a conviction that church discipline is biblical and builds the purity of the church. Noblit’s conviction stemmed from reading the Bible and Baptist writings from past generations, including the New Hampshire Confession, the First and Second London Confessions and the works of Charles Spurgeon.

Responding to Noblit’s leadership, First Baptist began to practice church discipline according to the process outlined in Matthew 18.

The first step in church discipline is for one person to confront a sinning church member privately, Noblit said. If the individual does not repent, the confronting person should take two or three others with him and confront the sinning church member again, the pastor continued.

If the sinning church member still will not repent, Matthew 18 says to take the matter before the church, Noblit said, noting that First Baptist does this in Sunday School departments initially.

“In a church our size (approximately 1,000 active members) ... we tell it to a Sunday School class or maybe a Sunday School department,” Noblit said. “And that group of people will begin to appeal to that person. If they refuse to listen to that group, then the Bible says to bring it before the church.”

When a discipline case proceeds to the point of coming before the entire church, Noblit shares with members the steps already taken and mentions the name of the offender and the sin in question. The church subsequently votes on the member’s removal.

“We exhort the body to not be gossiping or spreading strife, but to pray,” Noblit said. “As the Scripture says, if they see this person or have fellowship with them, they’re to humbly appeal to them to repent and be restored to the body.”

In most cases discipline never advances to the point of a vote to dismiss the offender from the church because people generally repent early in the process, Noblit said.

“Fortunately there is repentance very often,” the pastor said. “The great majority of times things can remain covered. The Scripture says it’s a blessing to cover sin. It doesn’t mean you excuse sin, but you deal with it confidentially and privately. And that is discipline. But it is fairly common in the life of our church to publicly dismiss someone -- it has happened numerous times.”

When a person is dismissed from the congregation, the dismissal is never permanent and the offender may always repent and be restored, Noblit said, adding that restoration is the goal of discipline.

One of First Baptist’s many examples of restoration is Scott Carrier, who was dismissed five years ago for drunkenness. After a process of recovery, he was allowed back into the church’s membership and is an active member today.

Carrier said he deserved the discipline and that God used it to change his life.

“It was genuine repentance on my part, and after a time I was allowed back into the church,” Carrier told Baptist Press. “One of the major things [discipline] did for me was humble me. It also let me know I was coming back to something worth coming back to. I was coming back to something that’s valuable and not to be toyed with and not to be sinned against.”

Being disciplined was “grievous” initially, Carrier continued, but brought a “peaceable and good fruit.”

“I can honestly say today my life is better than it’s ever been. I’m closer to God than I’ve ever been. My marriage is in better shape than it’s ever been, and God’s done some remarkable things in His grace.”

Carrier strongly disagrees with those who say churches should not practice discipline today.

“I know a lot of people in this day and age don’t like this idea (church discipline), but it was a valuable thing in my life,” he said.

Al Jackson, pastor of Lakeview Baptist Church in Auburn, Ala., is another pastor with a conviction that church discipline is essential for a congregation to serve God obediently.

Jackson has pastored Lakeview 27 years but led the church to practice discipline only after a providential encounter on a mission trip to Latvia about 10 years ago. While leading a conference for Latvian ministers, Jackson was asked by a Latvian pastor how his church practiced church discipline.

“I had to hang my head in shame and say, ‘My brother, I’m sorry but we don’t. And I know better because I’m very familiar with what the Scripture teaches,’” Jackson recounted.

He came home determined to obey God and preached a three-part sermon series on church discipline, in which he explained the purpose of church discipline, who should be disciplined and the process that should be used. Following the series a woman approached Jackson and told him that her husband was committing adultery and seemed like a candidate for the discipline process. After several visits to the offender, first by Jackson and then by Jackson along with other leaders, the man refused to stop his adultery.

Jackson brought the matter before the deacons next, who agreed to proceed with discipline after prayer and discussion. A letter to the offender informed him that the deacons would recommend to the church that it break fellowship with him if he failed to respond to the letter. The man never responded, so the church held a special business meeting following a Sunday morning service. At the meeting Jackson reviewed the biblical guidelines for church discipline and presented the name of the man to be voted on but did not disclose the specific sin.

“Then I took a deep breath and we voted,” Jackson said. “And it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. We voted by lifted hands, and I think there were six no votes (out of approximately 1,000 members present).”

In the aftermath of the vote at least one member was confused, thinking that the church’s decision would result in the man going to hell. But after clearing up the misunderstanding, the church maintained unity.

The offender never repented, but Jackson said maintaining holiness in the church and obeying the Bible made the matter a success. He advises other churches that are thinking about beginning church discipline to obey God but proceed carefully and slowly.

“My caution would be: Build consensus and work with your deacons to do this,” Jackson said. “...In order to be unanimous in a decision like this, you’ve got to have godly lay leaders who desire above all else to please God.”

Pastors who are new to their churches should be especially cautions when attempting to institute discipline because a proceeding without consensus could result in a church split or the pastor being fired, Jackson said.

“If you can’t build consensus among your lay leaders, you need to just be patient and stay put until you can build consensus,” he said.

Hershael York, pastor of Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, Kentucky, also has practiced church discipline on several occasions in the churches where he has pastored. Most recently he led Buck Run to rebuke publicly a man who embezzled approximately $250,000 from his employer to fund a gambling addiction. The man repented and now praises church discipline as an instrument of grace in his life.

York, who also serves as Victor and Louise Lester Professor of Christian Preaching at Southern Seminary, advises pastors to teach their churches about discipline over time and realize that a loving church always seeks to deliver its members from sin.

“Get people to understand that our goal is always restoration,” York said. “Our goal isn’t a clean church role. Our goal is restoration. Get them to buy into that concept. Then I think you can really bring them on board.”

Prior to the last century, Baptists “practiced church discipline on a large scale” and regarded the practice as a normal part of church life, according to church history professor Greg Wills.

Between 1781 and 1860, for example, “Baptists excluded more than 40,000 members in Georgia alone,” Wills, director of the Center for the Study of the Southern Baptist Convention at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, noted in a 2001 essay in “Polity: Biblical Arguments on How to Conduct Church Life,” edited by Southern Baptist pastor Mark Dever.

“Across the nation in this period they excluded between one and two percent of their membership every year. But the number of church trials was yet greater. Only about half of the offenders received excommunication. Baptists on average disciplined between three and four percent of their membership,” Wills wrote.

Baptists generally exercised discipline at monthly Saturday conference meetings, Wills noted. At such meetings church members accused offenders of specific sins. The accused usually confessed guilt. But when the accused either denied guilt or was absent, the church appointed a committee to investigate the matter. The committee reported its findings at a subsequent meeting and recommended a verdict and sentence. The members then voted on the verdict and the penalty if the offender was found guilty.

Churches generally imposed either admonition or excommunication on offenders who were found guilty, Wills noted. Many excommunicated members maintained their piety and were eventually restored to church membership, he wrote, noting that Baptists followed the process outlined in Matthew 18 for church discipline.

“Baptists sought to restore offenders to holiness,” Wills wrote. “They believed that church discipline helped believers overcome sin and temptation.”

Several documents from past generations of Baptists confirm that discipline was the norm among Baptists in general and Southern Baptists in particular through the 19th century.

“A Summary of Church Discipline,” written by the Charleston Baptist Association in 1774, argues that the Bible prescribes three “censures” for “rebellious and unworthy members” -- rebuke or admonition, suspension and excommunication. The various censures should be applied depending on the severity of an offense, according to the document.

The goals of church discipline are “the glory of God,” “to purge the church and preserve it from infection,” to clear the church of immorality and false doctrines and “the good of persons excommunicated,” the documents says.

William B. Johnson, the first president of the SBC, argued in an 1846 essay that Scripture demands church discipline.

“In relation to this part of the discipline of a church (the exclusion of disciplined members), it is important to understand, that a proper attention to its exercise is indispensable to the welfare of the body,” Johnson wrote. “And further, that by the faithful, vigilant supervision of the rulers of the church and the duty of the members, the necessity of its exercise may be, as far as possible, prevented.”

Patrick Hughes Mell, a former president of both the SBC and the Georgia Baptist Convention, presented a detailed summary of the discipline procedure for both public and private offenses in his 1860 treatise “Corrective Church Discipline: With a Development of the Scriptural Principles Upon Which it is Based.”

“The views which are presented in the following pages are such as have been held by the Baptist churches from time immemorial,” Mell wrote in the preface. “The Author attempts to do no more than to exhibit the sentiments of our Fathers, and to defend them by showing that they are sustained by the Scriptures.”

For the leaders of Watermark Community Church, church discipline is simply loving like Jesus. But for many people, the notion of churchgoers publicly denouncing one another’s sins raises fearful images of The Scarlet Letter and Pilgrims in stocks.

An appeals court in Dallas is now being asked to decide where the right of Watermark -- or any church -- to confront sin ends and an individual’s right to privacy begins. Can a church pursue someone who isn’t even a member?

Watermark, a fast-growing nondenominational church in northeast Dallas, says the case involves accusations of adultery, a wife who wanted to save her marriage, a husband who sat on a board of a national Christian organization, and another woman who works for another church.

The man and woman accused by the wife and by Watermark of having an affair -- identified in court documents only as “John Doe” and “Jane Roe” -- say the church is distorting what happened and has invaded their privacy. (Both declined to be interviewed.)

They filed suit against the church in April to stop the discipline process.

These days, congregations may call it church discipline, “care and correction” or a “restoration ministry.” Discipline is mostly private and informal, one friend talking to another. Less often, church officials get involved.

What makes the Watermark case fairly unusual is the lawsuit.

Jeff Tillotson, attorney for the man and the woman, said the case has nothing to do with the church’s view of biblical teachings. “It has to do with actions the church wants to take against its former members and third-party citizens who never belonged to this church in the first place.”

Church officials say their responsibility is clear. As Watermark’s senior pastor, the Rev. Todd Wagner, told his congregation last month: “Sue me. Nail me to a tree. Tell me you hate me. Misrepresent my motives. We’re going to love you anyway.”

GUIDED BY GOSPEL

Anger, gluttony, sex, inattention to others’ needs -- the list of possible sins some Christians say demand congregational attention is long.

The idea that Christians have a sacred obligation to keep tabs on one another has been part of the faith since the beginning. It was as common as singing hymns in most churches in early America. After almost vanishing in the mid-20th century, discipline has made a comeback in many conservative Protestant churches.

About 1,500 worshippers fill the auditorium at Lake Highlands High School every week for each of Watermark’s two Sunday services. Worship begins with Christian rock. Sneakers, T-shirts and open-toed sandals are OK.

But while the style is informal, doctrine is anything but. People who join Watermark literally sign on the dotted line, agreeing to “submit themselves to the care and correction of the Board of Elders.”

And that’s where the story of John Doe and Jane Roe vs. Watermark Community Church started. According to church officials, Mr. Doe and his wife joined Watermark more than a year ago. Both signed the papers agreeing to church accountability.

Soon, the wife went to Watermark leaders, saying she had evidence that her husband was cheating on her, church officials said. Her plea for help set off what Watermark calls a “Matthew 18” process, referring to a passage in the Gospel:

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault

between you and him alone. ... If he does not listen, take one or

two others along with you. ... If he refuses to listen to them,

tell the church.”

The wife confronted her husband -- by herself and with friends -- and he confessed, church leaders said. But early this year, the wife, who also declined to be interviewed, discovered that Mr. Doe was continuing his affair with Ms. Roe, and she filed for divorce, church leaders said.

At a regular evening church meeting, the wife Doe asked for a public prayer, which Mr. Wagner offered. Identifying the wife by name, he prayed that she and her husband would reconcile. While he discussed some difficulties in the marriage, Mr. Wagner said, he did not specifically mention infidelity.

Watermark officials asked the wife to make one more try at reconciliation, one last meeting with close Christian friends who might be able to work with her husband. She supplied the names of 14 people, half of whom were not Watermark members. The church sent a letter to the 14 describing the situation and inviting them to a meeting, but Mr. Doe refused to attend, church leaders said.

Then the church sent a letter to Mr. Doe telling him that it planned to contact the woman who was allegedly his paramour -- and who is not a Watermark member. The letter also said the church would write to the 14 people invited to the meeting, letting them know about his unwillingness to cooperate, and to the national Christian organization where he was a board member. (Mr. Doe has resigned from that board, Mr. Wagner said, and the church no longer intends to contact the organization.)

There was never a plan to inform the entire congregation about the affair, the pastor said.

Mr. Wagner and two other Watermark leaders called Ms. Roe and suggested that she tell her boss, the pastor of another Dallas-area church, about her relationship with Mr. Doe. If she didn’t, they said, they would call the pastor, “even as we would want and expect others to contact us if one of our employees or members was engaging in activities damaging to the reputation of Christ,” according to a prepared statement from the church.

Mr. Wagner said this week that he believed he was obligated to contact the woman’s boss even though she never signed up for Watermark’s discipline, because all Christians are obligated to one another. “If a sister sins, she is a sister in Christ,” he said. “We are commanded to love our neighbor.”

Mr. Doe sued in late April to block the church from sending out the follow-up letter and from contacting Ms. Roe’s employer. In court papers, he gives a different version of the story: According to the lawsuit, Mr. Doe revealed his personal problems directly to Mr. Wagner, believing the information would be confidential. Mr. Doe believed that Watermark encouraged open discussion of problems without fear that the secrets would be revealed, said Mr. Tillotson, the lawyer.

After the discipline process started, Mr. Doe decided to quit the church, Mr. Tillotson said. But church elders told Mr. Doe that he couldn’t leave and that they would continue their efforts to make his “sin” known -- to the congregation, his friends outside the church, his employer, Ms. Roe’s employer and possibly even the public at large.

BATTLE MOVES TO COURT

When Mr. Doe filed suit on behalf of himself and Ms. Roe, he got a temporary restraining order blocking the church from acting further.

But on May 5, state Associate Judge Sheryl McFarlin lifted that order, agreeing with Watermark’s assertion that it violated the church’s constitutional right to freely exercise its religion.

Mr. Doe has appealed. No hearing date has been set. Although Watermark is legally free to send out its letters and contact Ms. Roe’s boss, it will hold off until the appeal is decided, Mr. Wagner said.

Kelly Shackelford, the lawyer for Watermark, wants the lawsuit dismissed. Allowing it go forward, he said, would force judges to decide whether Watermark’s elders are correctly applying the Bible. That, he said, is inappropriate. “What happens next?” said Mr. Shackelford, chief counsel for the Liberty Legal Institute in Plano. “[Do] we need to get churches involved in politics to ensure that we have judges in office that support their theological views?”

But Steven K. Green, former general counsel for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the appeals court should hear the case. Otherwise, he argued, the church’s religious views trump the right of a member to change his religious views and leave. “Once he withdraws, it seems that the church’s interest is over,” he said.

Church discipline cases raise important constitutional issues:

• The First Amendment protects a church’s right to exercise its religion but also protects an individual’s right not to have another’s religious beliefs imposed on him.

• Americans have a right to have conflicts heard before a judge, but such cases entangle the court in religion.

In cases involving both of those dilemmas, the courts have usually ruled in favor of the churches, say experts in church-state law.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled directly on church discipline involving lay members. Federal and state courts, however, have often ruled that civil courts can’t interfere with religious controversies -- regardless of the harm to individuals. Safeguarding religious freedom, judges have said, is worth some damage to an individual.

The courts can intervene only if they find an important nonreligious reason, like a threat to health or public safety.

But the legal record is more mixed when discipline is aimed at nonmembers or those who have quit, church-state experts said. And at least two lawsuits demonstrate that courts can find reasons to intervene in church discipline disputes.

In 1989, an Oklahoma court ruled that a church could no longer publicize a woman’s alleged sexual immorality after she quit. The decision prodded many churches to develop extensive education for members about the discipline process, including the kinds of forms that Watermark members sign.

And in 2004, an appeals court in Fort Worth denied claims against a church but agreed with a woman who said the license that her pastor holds as a professional counselor prevented him from publicizing her behavior -- even though she attended group sessions with other church members. An appeal is expected to be heard by the Texas Supreme Court this fall.

DIFFERENT METHODS

Even churches that advocate the discipline process can struggle with how to do it. Last year, the magazine Christianity Today highlighted the issue. The headline on the cover: “Fixing church discipline: Tough love without the legalism.”

Not every theologian reads Matthew 18 as a procedural formula, said Robin Lovin, a professor of ethics at Southern Methodist University.

“Methodist pastors would interpret that as advice to keep working on relationships. It’s about not giving up on somebody,” he said. “It shouldn’t be turned into a legal process.”

The Catholic Church, by far the largest Christian denomination in the United States, has no formal method for lay members to discipline one another with or without church leadership involvement, said the Rev. Thomas Green, a canon law professor at Catholic University in Washington.

But it’s easy to find other churches that have adopted some form of church discipline over the past 20 years. And when discipline goes beyond face-to-face discussions, it’s usually about sexual issues, said Darrell Bock, a professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and an elder at Trinity Fellowship Church in Richardson.

“Issues of marital fidelity have become a litmus test for general fidelity. And it some ways, they’re the easiest to quantify,” he said. Several years ago, he said, his church had to deal with a man he called a “serial adulterer.” When his church discovered the man had joined another congregation, Dr. Bock’s church notified the leadership of the other church, he said.

Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton has also used public church discipline. A worship leader whose husband discovered she was having an affair was confronted by her pastor more than a year ago. Unlike the Watermark example, the woman repented, reconciled and eventually went on a local Christian radio show with her husband to discuss the experience.

Bent Tree has had four other successful reconciliations of married couples that had been split by adultery, said the executive pastor, the Rev. Tim Harkins. “Those are the home runs. That is what we are pursuing,” he said.

That’s the kind of reaction that Watermark hoped for with Mr. Doe, Mr. Wagner said. “Most folks respond really well and are grateful,” he said.

CHURCHES AND COURTS

Some key court decisions on church discipline:

Bear vs. Reformed Mennonite Church

(Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 1975)

Summary: A church member was excommunicated for criticizing the bishop’s teachings. Other members, including the man’s wife and children, were ordered to shun him. He argued that his business and family were destroyed.

Outcome: The court supported the man, saying that despite the church’s First Amendment rights, its conduct interfered with superior concerns, such as the preservation of marriage.

Paul vs. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society

(9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, San Francisco, 1987)

Summary: A Jehovah’s Witness in Washington withdrew from the church because she felt her parents had been unjustly excommunicated. The denomination said members who quit should be treated just like those who are excommunicated. When the member visited her hometown, friends in the church shunned her.

Outcome: The court said she had no standing because shunning is part of the faith and protected by the Constitution.

Guinn vs. Church of Christ of Collinsville

(Oklahoma Supreme Court, 1989)

Summary: Elders publicly confronted a church member with a rumor that she was fornicating with a man and asked her to repent. When she refused and tried to quit, the elders told the congregation to call her and urge her to repent. They asked other Church of Christ parishes to do the same.

Outcome: The woman was awarded monetary damages. The court said she withdrew her consent to be disciplined when she quit the church.

Williams vs. Gleason

(14th District Texas Court of Appeals, Houston, 2000)

Summary: Elders at a Presbyterian church disputed a Sunday school teacher’s lessons. The teacher filed a complaint against the elders. They in turn accused him of lying and disciplined him. A deacon’s wife called another Presbyterian church where the teacher preached and questioned his qualifications.

Outcome: The court said it was constitutionally prohibited from ruling on an ecclesiastical dispute over church discipline.

Bryce vs. Episcopal Church

(10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Denver, 2002)

Summary: A Colorado Episcopal church sent letters and held meetings with members after learning that its youth minister had entered into a same-sex civil commitment with a minister in a non-Episcopal church. The letters said homosexuals are promiscuous and get terrible diseases. The youth minister and her partner said members made offensive remarks at the church meetings.

Outcome: The court said the two women had no standing to sue. Though the partner wasn’t a member, the church still had a right to discuss their religious beliefs.

Penley vs. Westbrook

(2nd District Texas Court of Appeals, Fort Worth, 2004)

Summary: A woman and her husband attended a group marriage discussion hosted by their Bible church pastor, a licensed professional counselor. The woman divorced her husband and quit the church. The pastor sent a letter to the congregation, saying she had an inappropriate relationship with another man.

Outcome: The court said the pastor’s First Amendment rights might not apply because of his role as a licensed counselor. He has appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.

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Michael Grabell

BY THE BOOK

Churches that call for formal discipline of members rely on several New Testament passages:

“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. 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. 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.”

-- Matthew 18:15-17

“Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

-- Galatians 6:1-2

“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this?”

-- 1 Corinthians 5:1-2 (New International Version)

If you’ve been a pastor for any length of time, you’ve had to answer the question of why someone should join the church. If we’re honest, many pastors don’t have a good answer to this question. It’s obvious that pastors want people to join, but it’s not as obvious why a person should choose to join.

Over the last couple of decades, I’ve witnessed a drastic over-simplification of what church attendance and church membership are supposed to be. And the result is quite concerning. What was once called “church hopping” in a negative sense, is what many now do on the average weekend. The 2022 State of Theology study found most Americans (56%) don’t believe every Christian has an obligation to join a local church. Only relatively small majorities of evangelicals (51%) and churchgoers themselves (62%) believe all Christians have that responsibility.

When asked what benefit a church member receives that a non-member doesn’t, many are left scratching their heads. Anyone is allowed to attend a Sunday morning service. Anyone is allowed to visit, attend small groups, give a financial gift, or attend special church events.

If the only reason for church membership you can come up with is that it’s required in order to serve on a committee, you’ll likely find most people choosing to never join your church! Some may say there’s no evidence of church membership in the New Testament. Put plainly, that’s simply not true. Although there’s no Bible verse that commands church membership, when we look at the evidence, it’s clear that being a member of a local church is understood and assumed. Here are five ways the call to church membership is evident in the Bible.

1. The majority of letters in the New Testament were written “to the church.”

Before anyone says that these letters were written to the universal church, consider the wording of the letters to the churches in Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:2), Galatia (Galatians 1:2), Philippi (Philippians 1:1), Rome (Romans 1:7), and so forth. These letters were written to a specific group and were addressed that way. Otherwise, they could have been written with no addressees or simply “to those who are called by God,” with no locale mentioned. Even the letters written to individuals (Timothy and Titus, for example), were written to leaders in the church. It’s clear that when the Holy Spirit wanted to address believers, He knew they would be found in the church.

2. The offices of leadership show church membership is assumed.

These positions were to be chosen from those who were members of the church. When the first deacons were chosen, they were selected from within the church body. These were men who were known by people of the church and possessed certain qualifications. Those who are leaders, pastors, and elders of the church, had certain responsibilities to those under their care. They were to care for the widows and the sick and “have charge over” the congregation (1 Thessalonians 5:12, NASB). The members are to “submit to” these leaders (Hebrews 13:17, CSB) and to honor them as such (1 Timothy 5:17). This only makes sense if there are members of each local church.

3. Letters of membership were often sent when a member of one church traveled to another.

We see this explicitly in Acts 18:27 when Apollos went from the church in Ephesus to the church in Achaia and in Colossians 4:10 when Mark went to the church in Colossae. And we see Paul reference this in his question to the church in Corinth (2 Corinthians 3:1).

4. Jesus taught church discipline in the context of church membership.

We see this in Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 18:15-20. This is the passage commonly referred to as the teaching of church discipline. We see a clear process whereby a person found in sin goes through steps to either restore them or remove them from the church. This only makes sense if there is membership in a local church. Otherwise, from what would they remove the erring brother? Also, why would the erring brother agree to go through a process at all?

5. Church membership cultivates spiritual growth for the individual.

As a person comes to faith in Christ, it’s vital to their growth that they place themselves under the teaching and authority of the Word of God. By joining a local church, each person is making a statement that they identify with a particular doctrinal position of who God is and what role His Word has in their life. It’s there, within the body of the church, that they exercise the spiritual giftings they receive from God. Those gifts given to the individual were also given, in a sense, to the local church. Each local body is healthier if they have ears, eyes, a nose, and so forth (1 Corinthians 12:12-24). Church membership isn’t simply for the benefit of the individual but also for the benefit of the local assembly.

As you communicate the significance of church membership to your congregation, seek, first, to point out the evidence of church membership within the New Testament. Next, seek to point out that membership is not just for the individual but for the greater good of the whole body.

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This article originally appeared at lifewayresearch.com.