Church discipline

To win a brother

Jesus taught the church what to do, step by step, when a brother sins:

If your brother sins against you, go and confront him privately. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.

Matthew 18:15

If he will not listen, one or two others are to go; if he still refuses, "tell it to the church", and if he refuses even the church, "regard him as you would a pagan or a tax collector" (Matthew 18:17). And he promised, "whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven" (Matthew 18:18). Paul told the Corinthians, "Expel the wicked man from among you" (1 Corinthians 5:13), yet the purpose was "so that his spirit may be saved on the Day of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 5:5). When the man repented, Paul urged them to "forgive and comfort him" (2 Corinthians 2:7). The word to "not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother" (2 Thessalonians 3:15) breathes the same spirit.

Augustine, commenting on Jesus' words, says: "our rebuke should be in love, not eager to wound, but anxious to amend" Augustine. Discipline shows that the church does not take sin lightly, and it is a shepherd's care that will not lose a single sheep. Its door always stands open to repentance.

How the church came to practise it

The early church kept those guilty of grave sin from the Eucharist and restored them after public penance. At the Reformation the Reformed churches saw discipline as vital to the church's life. Calvin set up in Geneva a consistory in which ministers and elders together watched over the people's lives Calvin, Ecclesiastical Ordinances, and the Belgic Confession named, among the marks of the true church, "if church discipline is exercised in punishing of sin" Belgic Confession, art. 29. The Heidelberg Catechism calls the preaching of the gospel and church discipline the keys of the kingdom: those who refuse repeated brotherly admonition are excluded from the sacraments and fellowship, and received again as members of Christ and his church when they show real amendment Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 85. The Westminster Confession gives the reasons:

Church censures are necessary for the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren; for deterring of others from the like offenses; for purging out of that leaven which might infect the whole lump; for vindicating the honor of Christ, and the holy profession of the gospel

Westminster Confession 30.3

Where the traditions differ

The Catholic and Orthodox churches combine reconciliation through the sacrament of penance with canonical penalties such as excommunication, which bars from communion in grave cases. Lutherans teach the ‘office of the keys’, binding and loosing sins, and keep the unrepentant from the Sacrament. The Anabaptists gave great weight to the ‘ban’, by which a member who would not turn after two private warnings was put out of the fellowship before the breaking of bread Schleitheim Confession, art. 2. In Baptist and Congregational churches the congregation decides on discipline together (congregational polity); in Presbyterian churches the session of minister and elders exercises it.

Discipline has a history of misuse. Church penalties were at times bound up with the punishments of the state, and severity sometimes outran love. Today, by contrast, many churches have all but given discipline up. Scripture warns against both, and calls those who are spiritual to "restore him with a spirit of gentleness", watching themselves (Galatians 6:1). Presbyterian discipline is taught further in the lesson Presbyterian church government.