Today’s passage: Matthew 18:15-20
Helpful thoughts:
- When a person is in sin:
- Go to them and lovingly rebuke them privately
- If they repent, praise the Lord!
- If they continue in sin, take two or three others who are aware and confront them again.
- If they repent, praise the Lord!
- If they continue in sin, get the whole church involved and lovingly call on them to repent.
- If they repent, praise the Lord!
- If they continue in sin, they are to be seen as an unbeliever, and therefore removed from church membership.
- Go to them and lovingly rebuke them privately
- The purpose of this process (Church discipline) is repentance and reconciliation, not punishment. It is to be exercised with care and compassion, not with anger and ridicule. Often the reason why people have such a poor view of church discipline is because they have never seen it done in a biblical manner.
- The final verses of the paragraph (18-20) share God’s authoritative approval when the church follows His will.
- So, when it says “when two or three are gathered together in my name” that doesn’t mean you are having “Church” whenever two or three people decide to meet together. It means that God’s will and authority are being carried out when the church gathers together to pursue righteousness within its membership.
Questions to consider:
- What is one reason why church membership is important given the content of this passage? Is it good that you would be mutually accountable to a specific set of believers?
- Why do you think discipline is so difficult? Why do people struggle to pursue it?
- How do followers of Jesus live? What do they do?