The Lost Art of Church Discipline

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome into the Think deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. I'm your co host will Harab here with Joe and Jack Wilkie. Got just a fantastic episode that I am tremendously excited to get to here in just a few minutes. But before I do, two things that I wanted to mentioned very briefly. We always want to make sure that our deep thinkers are well aware of everything that's going on at Focus Press. The first of which being we have a bestselling author among us, Jack, we talked about his book Sunday school catch up a couple of days ago. We have the picture to prove it. His book was the number one selling book on Amazon as far in the genre of Christian Bible handbooks. So not quite the number one selling book on Amazon total. [00:00:52] Speaker B: I wish. [00:00:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that would be very there. [00:01:00] Speaker C: That's right, get us there. And then we'll be recording from the four seasons from here on out, if. [00:01:04] Speaker B: Every deep thinker bought a hundred copies. [00:01:07] Speaker C: There you go. Tell your churches, I'm sure any church treasuries that have some money in the bank, just spend it all on. [00:01:14] Speaker A: And it's useful too. I mean, Jack put together a great book. It's one that, again, we talked about it before, but I'll just say it again, it's for people who maybe you know the plan of salvation already, maybe you know the acts of worship, some of that stuff, but you just don't know a lot of the Old Testament. You don't know a lot of the names and the places and the important terms and words. That's what Sunday school catch up is for. And so Jack did a great job of putting together something for those types of people who want to increase their bible. I would say most members of the church are going to learn something from that book. I know I certainly did. And so I think a lot of people would as well. So want to encourage you. [00:01:51] Speaker C: Pick up a copy. [00:01:51] Speaker A: Let's make it the number one selling book on Amazon. It's a lofty goal, but hey, I got to start somewhere. So again, that was the first thing. And then the other thing is my dad Brad Hare's video series brains and brew. We are still dropping one episode a week where he's covering kind of a wide range of topics on various things, evolution, the design of the human body, just kind of little nuggets of wisdom, things to think about from a christian perspective. I think he's eventually going to start doing some kind of reaction to the culture type of thing to incorporate into the video. So just really good three to five minute videos that give you something to think about for the week. Those will start to be exclusive to focus plus subscribers here in a couple of weeks. But right now, the three that are out, I know we have unlocked the public. Anybody can go view them. So brains and brew. Catch that with that. Guys, let's go ahead and get into the episode. For today, we're talking about church discipline. And this is a topic, this is an episode where I think sometimes we do topics that are very niche to the church, that being people within the church care a great deal. But maybe people who are outside of the church don't really have anything to add or maybe they don't get all that fired up about it. This particular thing, church discipline, as we'll get to later on, certainly fires people up. Even people who are not in the church, people who would not consider themselves Christians, kind of what right does a church have to enforce things, enforce scripture, whatever. Even people who are outside of the church for some reason always have something to say about that. And so again, it's a very emotionally charged topic. Even within the church? Even outside the church. And so I'm very much looking forward to getting the reaction comments from those who do listen. But Jack, I am going to hand it over to you because you put a great outline together here. Why are we talking about this? What is kind of the importance of this and where are we headed with the episode? [00:03:37] Speaker B: Sure. So a few years ago, deep thinkers might be familiar if you're a focuspress follower with my book church reset came out. I got an email and it was very complimentary. Said he enjoyed the book a lot and I don't have the email anymore. And so I apologize. If this person's listening, please reach out because you opened my eyes to a lot of things. But he said, great book, really enjoyed a lot of it. But I wish you had done a chapter on church discipline. And it hit me between the eyes. Why did I not do a chapter on church discipline? Because he was exactly right in that you can do all this positive leading people carrot and stick with the carrot of discipleship, be more like Christ. What if they don't? What if you have those slacker Christians, the worldly Christians, the Christians who won't conform to the church becoming more like Christ, what do you do about it? And if you don't do that, you let those people run the church. You can only be as united as the level to which they will come. It's a very shallow unity. It's something that makes it hard to grow together as a church. It's hard to accomplish what the church is supposed to accomplish if you're just letting people drag it down. But that's what happens without church discipline. And by and large, church discipline doesn't happen today of confronting wayward members, of confronting people in open sin, or people who just aren't conforming to the scriptures. And so with that email, he really got me thinking. I've been read a lot on it. One book I'd really recommend is James south did a book on church discipline. I don't remember the exact title, but I think it might just be that church discipline. Great book. So if you're looking for a resource on it, but just with this idea that it's our job to clean up the church from within, to not allow those things to show people what is good and lead them to it by these practices God has set forth in scripture, and we're going to get around to this in the end. I really think this is so impactful that it's not just something that would clean up the church and make the church stronger and make it to where you can't just have so many lazy people who wear the name Christian but aren't christian at all. It would do that, but I really think this is our path to changing the world, is church discipline. And that we have backslidden because we have neglected that. And it all comes down to one principle that we're going to kind of operate on here is that we live in a time of we talk about consumer Christianity or being a church customer. It's because church membership is totally by your own choice, 100% at will attendance. If I want to go, I go. If I want to be there this Sunday and not the next, I do. They're going to try and they're going to tell me that I should come more, but if I don't, no big deal. If I don't like it there, I'll go to the next one and I'll go there because I like it until I don't anymore. And you just see this happen and it weakens the church. Whereas the concept of church discipline introduces the idea that church membership isn't a choice so much as it's a privilege, it's a blessing that God has offered you to come be a part of his people. He has added you to his kingdom. In Colossians one, he has brought us into this family together, Ephesians one and two. And that being a Christian means that and you have to conform in a certain way. And so membership is a privilege. Less than a choice is kind of our operating concept here. But what do you guys have to add for introduction? [00:06:47] Speaker C: It just dovetails perfectly with your book on consumerist Christianity. We are consumers, right? So often, and this is to the credit of the church, that at least we discuss the idea of church discipline. I can't imagine Joel Osteen's church, I can't imagine some of the community churches actually kicking people out, holding people to any standard. In the least we conceptualize the idea of church discipline. We at least know we will go over first Corinthians five. Now, in actuality, I don't think we do it well, which we'll get to here in a bit, as to kind of the common approach that we take. But I will say at least we're willing to discuss it. But this all is because we're consumers exactly to this point of the choice. We want to come in and make this as our choice, and we want you to make it as entertaining for me as possible. We want you to feed me, we want you to do. Instead of Jack in your book, you make the great illustration of, this isn't a restaurant, it's a potluck. Well, with a potluck comes responsibility, and with that, with responsibility comes the opportunity or comes the possibility rather, of you letting people down and of you letting God down. And what then? And so I'm glad that this person, whoever it may be, again, shout out to whoever wrote Jack the email. Make sure to email Jack. And that's a great point. I mean, that's just a very needed point of there has to be at some point, rubber meets the road. What happens if they don't do it? [00:08:05] Speaker A: Well, this set up the dichotomy of membership as a choice versus membership as a privilege, is perfect because you think about the way that so many congregations, because they're operating under the framework of membership as a choice, what that means is they're going to try to do everything in their power to increase the odds that people are going to choose their congregation. And so what do you see? You ramp up the marketing plan. You spend more on advertising. You put together the big events, the hall of Fame of Joe's favorites, VBs, big youth group stuff, all those things to try to appeal, to try to increase the likelihood that people are going to choose your congregation while at the same time. So while you've got that going on of doing everything you can to try to increase the likelihood that people are going to choose your congregation, you're not doing the things as a congregation. As a leadership structure that are going to decrease the ODs in your mind that people are going to choose your congregation. So what are you not doing? You're certainly not practicing church discipline. You're not preaching hard sermons from the pulpit. You're not really leading with any kind of expectations. You're probably not teaching very strong, harsh Bible stuff. It's a lot of fluff. It's a lot of, again, everything, every leadership decision, every sermon from the pulpit, everything like that is set up under the framework of, is it going to increase or decrease somebody out there choosing our congregation? And that's how most congregations operate. As you're sitting listening to this, again, I would just strongly encourage you. Think about the congregation that you're at right now. Think about the congregations you've attended in the past, the ones you're familiar with. If you're honest with yourself, I would say north of 80% of congregations across the United States operate under this framework. Probably more than that, but conservatively, 80% or more have this mindset of membership is a choice. And so again, it's just the perfect way to set this episode up. Obviously, we are, all three of us, under the or have the strong opinion that we should treat membership as a privilege that we'll get to later on. But, yeah, it's just, Jack, you set it up perfectly. Anything else to add as we kind of get rolling here? [00:10:12] Speaker B: You guys familiar with this thing? It's not new, but it's been going around more recently. This theory, the purpose of a system is what it does. You heard that? [00:10:23] Speaker A: I think I've heard it, but I. [00:10:24] Speaker B: Don'T know that I've essentially, you can say that, man, this thing is set up with all the best intentions. We're trying to accomplish whatever it may be. I mean, you might look at the United States constitution of like, oh, this is supposed to give us limited government. Like, well, how'd that work out for you? I mean, the purpose of the system is what it does. If what you got out of it was a huge government, then that really was the purpose of the system. You can say my purpose was something else. I had the best of intentions. I didn't mean for it to turn into this, but that is its real purpose. And so we can say, man, we really don't want consumer Christianity. We want Christians to be stronger, we want Christians to be better, and all that. The purpose of a system is what it does. And so you're working backwards going, we've got this environment in which there's a bunch of weak Christians, a bunch of people calling themselves Christians, but not actually living like it at all. Not living change, not trying to be sanctified or anything like that. So no matter what we say we're trying to do with all of our preaching and everything that the church does, the purpose of a system is what it does. And so if we are not purging ourselves in the ways the Bible talks about, if we're not pruning the plant in the way the Bible talks about, this is what you're going to get. And so again, you can say you've got all the best intentions, but the purpose is what it does. [00:11:30] Speaker A: Just real quick, before, I know we got to go into the scripture here, but this is something that has frustrated me for a long time, that I know I brought up before because again, it's very frustrating for me. It's not like the current structure for the church is one that is leading to the church growing. It's not like the current structure we have is keeping kids faithful, is making for stronger families, is making for stronger congregations, is making for all the positive change that we truly think the church is capable of. The current system, our standard practices, what we're doing right now, again, anybody with a brain could turn around and look and go, oh, yikes, man, these are not the results we're looking for. What should we change? And it seems like for 30 years it's been, well, guess we won't change anything. Let's just keep going right down the same path that we've been going down for 30 years. And again, this applies to not just church discipline, but the way we parent our kids, what we do with youth groups, do we send them to public school or do we homeschool them? Do we. High expectations, low expectations. So many things. Again, it applies to here, but specifically what you're talking about there, Jack, you would think that somebody, and some people do, but not many people would have the self awareness to turn around and go, let's look at the fruits of this current system, our standard practices, what we've done for 30, 40 years. But no, instead, again, we just go down the same path, mindlessly setting our congregations up under this framework of membership being a choice. And I don't think it's coincidental that again, we have weak congregations, weak leadership, young people leaving the church and all the problems that we're facing. [00:13:01] Speaker C: We just recorded a sorry and we got kind of flamed for this on YouTube. A lot of the orthodoxy guys came out, but will and I recorded the gym podcast on Orthodoxy and we are losing actually a lot of our youth to this. And one of the reasons why is because they are holding a standard. They are calling you to a higher standard. Now, clearly we do not believe or agree with orthodoxy. They have a lot of issues, doctrinally speaking, but at least they are calling or somebody to something higher. People want that. They crave that. They want to be a part of something that's special. And if everybody can be a part at no cost, it's not special. Jack, I think you use this in your book of the idea of like a country club. If a country club got on their knees and begged you to in the door, nobody would want to be a part of that country club. You want to be in the prestigious, like, wow, it's a privilege to use that word again. It's a privilege to be here. So we're actually seeing people leave Christianity for a harder version, quote unquote, where they are required to do certain things lest there be consequences, because they're looking to do something more. And I think this younger generation, we put it on them as though they're lazy. No, I think they're realizing they're has to be something more out there. Unfortunately, they're finding in a lot of bad areas. I don't know if this is where you're going to get to, Jack, because I'm curious to see where you're going with this being kind of changing the world. But to me that's what it is, is we're calling people to something higher. And that's really cool. But we get all this back to the Old Testament. This is throughout scripture. God calls them to something higher. And I want you to transition into this. Of the Old Testament passages, we see this, everybody knows first Corinthians five. We'll break that down. We'll get into it. Everybody's very familiar with that one. But there's some other cases in the New Testament as well. But this starts in the Old Testament. This idea of being called to something higher, this idea of really exclusionary. I don't know discipleship existed back then, but being a part of God's people was pretty exclusive. Get us into that. [00:14:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it really was. And I've talked about before, we have a hard time with our hermeneutic making use of the Old Testament because it's not direct commands for the church. And so laws given to Israel and the nation aren't directly applicable to us. What do we do about it? But it gives a sense of God's view on things, whether that's principles or just a general sentiment of where God stands about himself and his people and all of those things. And a lot of times people go to the New Testament, they go to the sermon on the Mount. I just wrote on it last week. Again, I know everybody already subscribes, gets all the articles, reads them as soon as they come out. So I'm sure you saw it. But on the sermon on the Mount, where we basically change it to Jesus is just soft, begging you to come, just hopes that you'll come his way and he's just there for you. Anytime you turn around, he's there for you. His yoke is easy, his burden is light. There is that blessing, but there's also the take up your cross or you don't get to follow kind of thing. And so you got to pair those things when you look into the Old Testament and realize God had very strong lines. And it's well known that the death penalty, sins that they had in Israel, and just to list a few of them, murdering, the things that would get you the death penalty under the law of Moses murder, striking your parents or cursing your parents, kidnapping, man stealing, witchcraft and divination, bestiality, idol worship, adultery, incest, homosexuality. And among all those, it uses the term. And Paul brings this back in one Corinthians, which we'll talk about in a bit, where he says, you shall purge the evil from among you. It's the idea of the little leaven, leavens the whole lump. A little bit of bad influence brings down the whole nation. God says, you're out. You've got to kill these people, even your own children who strike their parents or curse their parents. You got to kill them so they don't ruin the roost. And so you've got that. But then you've got banishment sins, sins that say you don't get to be a citizen of Israel anymore. That included especially, they're very big on the ceremony. Like God established these ceremonies and says, look, you've got to participate in these or you're out. And so it's violating or refusing to observe the feast of unleavened bread. If you have leaven during that seven days, you're out. You lose your citizenship. If you don't have the perfect reason, which there are a couple of reasons of, either you're unclean, you're sick, there's a few things of why you can miss Passover, and if you don't meet any of those and you don't go to Passover, you lose your citizenship. You're banished from the nation the day of atonement. If you work or do anything on the day of atonement other than go and get atonement, you're banished from Israel. If you violate the protocol for offerings, if you try and circumvent the priests and run up there and offer your own, you're banished. And so there were a lot of those that just say you lose your citizenship. This is going back to our point. It's a privilege to be God's chosen people. And if you don't do this, you get kicked out. Well, notice all those things I listed. Guess what you see throughout the Old Testament after they get the old law, they violate pretty much all of those. Do they punish according to God's law for any of them? Most of the time, pretty much no. How did that turn out for them? They just ended up looking like the people around them. I mean, they turned into Canaanites, essentially. They worshiped the idols. They did all those things. [00:17:57] Speaker C: That's what special about them. [00:17:58] Speaker B: There's nothing special. Yeah, you lose all of that. And when you don't discipline it, you don't put a stop to it. The slide just keeps happening. [00:18:04] Speaker A: Well, as I think about, because you could also talk, know, guys like Uzzah, Naidab and Abayhu, where the punishment was instantaneous. As soon as they stepped outside of bounds or outside the lines of what God had set in place, that was it. And it was very much a exclusionary, very much a, you have to hold to the standard or else you're just out of luck type know mentality that we don't have nowadays and that we don't consider when it comes to the New Testament church. And as I was sitting here, kind of reflecting on the outline, listening to the way you were describing it, Jack is again, you do read the old law and you see man stoned for this, stoned for that, banished for this. Nate Abenabi, who killed on the spot. All these things. It's like man. But what separates that the way it was back then, specifically with the Israelites in the wilderness when the law was given down, what separates that from the way we currently view things today, specifically within the church, is that back then, the Israelites very much understood this was God's standard. This was not Moses's standard. This was not Aaron's standard. This was God's standard. You think about today, if an eldership came to a young lady who was dressing very modestly and said something to know to correct her, what would be the response. How dare you say something like that to me, a member who is very spotty with attendance. How dare you come to me about this? Fill in the blank for anything. You think the Israelites were doing that to Moses whenever those things were going on back then? Like Moses, how dare you say that? No, they knew that it was God's standard. They knew God was the one that was setting these laws, these rules, these regulations in place. We don't have that mindset in the church today. Again, when somebody, if an eldership ever. And we'll get to kind of the modern day examples with the congregations in Oklahoma, Oklahoma and a few where that is the mentality, and you see it on social media as well. Like, look what these people did to me. Look what these people said I had to do. Somewhere along the way, those who claim to be Christians have forgotten. And it sounds so cliche, but that's, to me the differentiating factor here. The Israelites back then knew it wasn't Moses'standard. It was God's standard. People nowadays, again, it's, how dare you say that to me? What gives you the right? And it's like, it doesn't matter what my right is. God is the one that said this. God's the one that said you can't just show up to church whenever you want to. God's the one that said you can't cover 20% of your body at the beach. Like, God's the one that said those things. And so again, the standard is, to me, the difference as far as the people's mentality, those who claim to follow God, their mentality of what standard to follow is what's changed. In my opinion. [00:20:41] Speaker B: There is that idea that if Jesus had been there, he would know. Kind of been shaking his head disapprovingly, like Jesus gave the. Jesus. [00:20:49] Speaker C: He was there. [00:20:50] Speaker B: He was there. He was involved in that whole thing. We're going to get to the New Testament where he just carried all this forward. And no, it's not stoning people to death in the church, although, I mean, God himself struck Ananias and Sapphira down, just like Aiken and Nadab and Abihu. Like, those are mean, not Aiken. As a different one we'll get to in a minute. But with these, Jesus didn't change. He didn't bring about this softening of like, oh, I'm really sorry, because here's the deal. And I taught a class on this just the other day at our congregation. Jesus gave us access that they didn't get. They had to stand outside the Mount Sinai, they had to stand outside the tabernacle. They could only go so far. We can go confidently, as Hebrews tells us, before the throne of God, and to say, yeah, essentially we can continue in sin, so grace may increase. We can basically be more casual about it now. Wrong. If anything, we should be way less casual about it. [00:21:38] Speaker C: Right? Yeah. I mean, what we have to remember, the reason why all of this is important is because they were to be a light unto the nations. It was that important for them to stand apart, for them to be holy as God is holy, because they were to be his delegates. As they went around to everybody who's sacrificing their children and who's doing blatant sexual sins and horrible things while that's taking place, you guys are to look different. Is it any different today? Aren't we supposed to be lights unto the world? And we say that it's very cliche. Of course we're lights under the world. What does that mean? It means individually, yes, we're lights of the world. It also means the church is a light unto the world. And if we allow people in, and, Jack, you can get us into Aiken here, if we allow people in like that, that are just blatant sinners that really don't care to change, they really don't have a heart to change. They're not repenting in the least, and we just allow them in. That dims the light. Oh, you let this guy in, I guess you let anybody in. We have to recognize the specialness of what God has created with his people. Yes, Israel. But now the church. That, to me, is one of the fundamental issues here. As you look back at the Old Testament, they forgot who they were supposed to be. They forgot that they were supposed to have a special place among the nations to draw everybody else to the glory of the Lord. We're no different. That literally is our job. And anytime we let willy nilly sin take place, we're forfeiting that right? We're forfeiting the holiness of God. For what? So we can like the guy, as we'll get into in one Corinthians five, so we can be nice people, so we can have this decisified Jesus that we want to bring in? [00:23:04] Speaker B: No. [00:23:05] Speaker C: If that's the case, again, we're giving up the glory of the Lord. We're giving up our position in the world to be a light unto the nations the way they were supposed to be. But I'm curious, because you do have Aiken on the we go to Joshua seven. A lot of us know the story. If you don't know the story, go back to Joshua six seven. Read about it. Of they conquer Jericho, Aiken takes of what is not his. They say, hey, everything's consecrated to lord. He takes. He hides it in his tent. Pretty severe consequences in that moment. What do we learn specifically, Jack, from Aiken? [00:23:33] Speaker B: Well, yeah, that's where they go out to battle with a little town of AI. They think, all right, we just mowed down Jericho. There's going to be no problem. And they lose, and people, Israelites die. Of course, Joshua is mad with God. Like, what just happened? You were with us and then you're not. And God said, yeah, there'sin in the camp. Essentially. I cannot bless this effort until you handle the sin in your camp. They didn't even know there was sin in the camp, but God was going to hinder their efforts. He wouldn't let them win in battle until they handled the sin in the camp. And so they did. They found, whittled it down until they figured out it was this guy Aiken. And he and his, not just him, the consequences spread to his family because old law, as we're talking about, these things were severe, of getting this leaven out of the lump were killed. They were stoned to death. And so that was how severely it was taken of. You can't bring down everybody else. God will not be with us. And so as a church, if a church is tolerating sin, carry that principle forward. God won't be with a church that tolerates sin, that has sin in the camp that's going unaddressed. And so again, can you take a direct command? Direct, one for one? Yes. Stone to death, people that are in sin. No, but it's okay. We have to take this seriously in our church, or God won't bless our church. [00:24:42] Speaker C: We want to bring it in the New Testament. Let's start at the end of the New Testament. What does he say? What does he say in revelation? I'm going to remove the lampstand because you've put up with sin. You have blatant sin in the camp, and you're not doing anything about it. Therefore, you're basically dead to me. You're not going to be a church. You're not going to have my spirit anymore. That's a pretty severe consequence. So that starts at the end. Let's go to the beginning of the New Testament. You go to Matthew 18, sins against brother. [00:25:06] Speaker B: Right? [00:25:06] Speaker C: Like, what are we supposed to do? And this kind of lays, I guess, as we get into the foundation of church discipline, how this takes place. Matthew 18 kind of lays out the foundation, initially of what we're supposed to do. Will. [00:25:17] Speaker A: Yeah, well, so Jesus gives kind of a four step, pretty easy step by step recipe process, whatever you want to call it, where it is, if somebody's. And there's an interesting kind of verbiage disagreement that we'll get to here in a second of how it kind of really does determine how you interpret the passage and really how you apply the passage. But as far as the process goes, Jesus literally says, you go to the person, try to get it resolved, try to get the sin problem taken care of. If it's not resolved, the next step would be go with two or more witnesses. The next step would be tell it to the church. And if no change has taken place on all those steps, then the fourth and final step is you are to treat them as somebody who is not a part of the church anymore, as a gentile and a tax collector, somebody who is not a part of the bride. And so that's the process Jesus lays out. Now, is that process practice very much? Well, no, not really very much at all. But, Jack, you got on here that there is kind of a translation variant. So Matthew, chapter 18, verse 15. I'm curious what translation, what your guys'translation has, because new King James has. Moreover, if your brother sins against you, and then it gets into step one, go tell him his fault. Between you and him alone, if he hears you, you've gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two witnesses. So sins against you is one kind of variant of it, and the other would be just sins in general. What does new american standard have? [00:26:45] Speaker B: Sins. And it has the footnote late manuscripts add against you. [00:26:50] Speaker A: So talk about why that matters. Why that distinction? Or maybe it doesn't matter. What are your thoughts? [00:26:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I would make the case that it really doesn't in practice. And you can get into the whole textual variance thing. I've written on this before. It's a big dispute. I don't think it matters that much. I know it doesn't matter that much in general. I don't think it matters that much here, because, yeah, he goes through this process of go show him his sins in private, take somebody else, and then eventually tell it to the church. And if he keeps refusing, and if you got admission that this is just what you're claiming it is, and the guy won't stop the church, let him be as a gentle and a tax collector. When we see in one Corinthians five essentially the same verbiage, it's not against you. It's general sin that this guy is in. And it's essentially the same process. Confront the sin. If there's not repentance, you can't just let him keep on coming. And so my point with this is, even if it is against you, we see the exact same thing for sins that are not specifically against you. So I don't think we need to split the hairs there. [00:27:50] Speaker A: Well, the other thing, too is there are certainly sins that you could do against somebody that are also sins against God. If I gossip about Joe, that's technically sinning against Joe. It's also sinning against God. There's all kind of things you could throw, but there are things that I could really offend Joe in a way that is not necessarily sinning against Joe. Well, if that's the case, I don't really see why the church needs to be brought into it. That's more of a Matthew five. If your brother has something against you, kind of go take care of it type of thing. And so, Jack, I do agree with kind of your take there of like, it seems as though here in Matthew 18, this is not just, man, he said that thing, and it really bothered me. I'm really offended. These are sins. This is something where somebody is in a wrong standing with God because of something that they did, maybe to another person, maybe out in public, for a person to know just somebody who is living in sin. Because, again, the church has to get involved. And again, that fourth and final step is disfellowship. Treat them as a gentile task letter. That does seem to be a bit more of more gravity to that than just, well, so and so really hurt my feelings. Does that make sense? I would agree with you, I guess. Suffice it to say, Joe? [00:29:01] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I don't really have anything to add to that discussion. I do think it's very interesting, the context of Matthew 18 right before this. My Bible says 99 plus one, right where he goes after the one that's gone astray. That's the whole purpose of this, is if somebody is in sin, go after them. You want to bring them back into the fold. And we misuse this as misquoted all the time. In verse 20, where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst. And the whole point is, look, when you go to confront them, when you go to take somebody with you, I'm there. Yes, I'm backing you, right? But I'm there in your midst to help you and to see that this person is brought to repentance the same way this one sinner who's gone away, we're trying to return him to the fold. And that's one of the keys that gets missed in this is the entire purpose of church discipline. It's not to be a jerk or anything else. It is to take somebody who isn't sin or if they have sinned against you, either way, you take it. I agree with you guys. I think you had a good summation there. No matter what the situation is, the whole point of this is to return the one to the fold, to the 99, so to speak. And so we don't have this guy floating off and doing his own thing. [00:30:06] Speaker A: So question there, because I just had a thought very quickly, and I'm not saying I necessarily disagree with you, obviously, you'd love to have the person return. Is the purpose to have the person return or is the purpose to purge the sin from the camp? Because obviously there are two ways that could happen in nowadays terms, two ways that sin could be purged. One is the ideal version, right? The person repents, changes their ways. The sin is therefore purged from the camp. There's the other version or the other possibility, which is that person chooses not to, and then, therefore you have to exercise church discipline. Therefore, the sin is still purged from the camp. The sin is still removed from the camp. Both ways, again, those are two possibilities of outcomes. And in both ways, I think the purpose, the goal is accomplished there, which is to, again, remove the sin from the camp. Sure. Ideally, optimally, you want the person to come back. [00:31:05] Speaker C: But. [00:31:05] Speaker A: So I'm curious if you agree with distinction. I do see what you're saying there. But if we're talking about is with the way the old Testament had it, the purpose in the Old Testament was to get the sin out of the israelite camp. [00:31:20] Speaker B: So I see this as going four different directions, and all of it is driven by love. First of all, you're doing it for God. In that thing where we were saying, you can't bring sacrifices wrongly before God, you just get banished. You're out strange fire before Lord, you're dead. Because he says, if you're going to come near me, you got to treat me as holy. And so we're telling everybody in the church, you got to treat God as holy. We respect him. First of all, whatever he says, it doesn't matter how you feel about it. We're going to respect him. And it's our love for him. It's toward God. It's toward the sinner themselves. It is out of love for them. We want them to be part of it. We want them, but we also don't want to give them any delusional feeling of being safe with God if they're not. And so it is out of love for them. And like you say, we're trying to bring them back, but if they leave, that's a choice. That's to them. But the worst thing we can do is let them continue being wrong with God. [00:32:09] Speaker A: Let the sins stay in the camp. [00:32:10] Speaker B: And let the sins stay in the camp. The third direction is to the fellow members. Like you're saying, you're purging the evil. You're telling the rest of the church, we approve of how you're living like this, that you are on the right track, and we're going to make sure that we're not letting wolves in here, we're not letting people come in and do whatever they want, that, hey, we're all on the same page. What we're preaching from the pulpit isn't just for our own benefit, isn't just to hear ourselves talk. We're all in this together. And then the fourth direction is for the lost. [00:32:37] Speaker A: There's real life application, right? [00:32:38] Speaker B: Yeah, real life application. And for the lost, for the people outside observing the church, I know there's a lot of them, and we're going to get to this, that, see church discipline. And they're like, that is the meanest church in the world. But there's a lot of them that see, oh, you're a church, that it's just okay to do whatever you want and go there and, oh, well, I know these people. They go to church twice a month, and I guess that's the kind of church they go to. No, if they hear about a church that's actually serious about what they teach, imagine that. Imagine how much that would stand out. So I think it's for all four of those purposes, it's love for the lost, it's love for the members, it's love for the sinner, it's love for God that makes us do all these. And so it's accomplishing each of the purposes you mentioned and then others along the way. I love that. [00:33:20] Speaker C: And I think what I was going to say is, contextually, I think he's talking about restoring the sinner to the fold. But I agree with you. I think it's all of these things. I think it is getting the sin out of the camp for the lost. There's a reason it's called the narrow way. Few are going to find it. It says, few are going to look at that and go, that church is serious, and I want to be a part of a church that takes it seriously, that calls me to a higher standard, go, wow, that's a pipe dream. Nobody's going to. [00:33:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of the point. [00:33:46] Speaker C: That's kind of why it's the narrow way. There's going to be very few who look at that and go, I want to be a part of it. But those that do are in it for the long haul. They want that. They want the specialness that the church brings, whereas everybody else looks at it and goes, that's so mean. It's like, yeah, this isn't for you. This wasn't intended for you, and maybe it is, but I think, jack, you've had some really good, and I want to go too far off on this, but you've had some really good articles recently. Kind of like, look, the people that get it will get it, but when it comes to evangelizing and everybody go out and evangelize, and you have to realize we can continue to beat our heads against a brick wall trying to evangelize people that just don't care. Or we can pass by, spread the gospel, spread the seed, and then kind of see where it falls and so see what comes of it. But that's Matthew 18. I do want to transition, keep us moving because we got a lot to get into. One Corinthians five, this is the passage a lot of people are going to go to. Of course, this is the man that's sleeping with his father's wife. And of course, Corinth thinks that they're great people. They're super kind. They are. What I would say is kind of. Yes, I was going to say they are the 21st century tolerant crowd. We're so loving because you know what? We're not even calling him out on a sin, so to speak. We're just allowing him in. And there's a lot of people that believe isn't the best place for sinner to be in church. Isn't that where we want them to be? Is maybe by one of the messages they hear will convict him. Right. So you have a lot of people that believe that, but that's not what first Corinthians five is saying. So get us into that. Either one of you can kind of get us into that. It is a very interesting discussion well. [00:35:14] Speaker A: I'll go first very quickly. It doesn't take you very long into first Corinthians five till you get to verse four. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Paul's not mincing words there, making it very clear that this whole, like y'all were saying, tolerance, mindset, this whole, man, we're so loving. It's great to have them here in the building. It's great that we've got them here in our fold. Paul wasn't having it, and he essentially said, God and Christ are not having it either. Get that person out of there. Deliver such a one to Satan. And again, you can have the mentality of man. That's just super harsh. That's just such a jerk thing to do. It's profaning the holy body of Christ, the church itself, and you get to the end of the chapter, which is the one that's always kind of stuck out to me, or the part, I should say, that's always stuck out to me is Paul saying, don't give people the idea that you're condoning sin. Don't eat with people. Don't even eat with such a person who is living in that way. Someone who is named a brother, who does these things. Awful sexual immorality, living with. It's put into modern day terms. Maybe living with their boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe. Again, you could fill in the blank here. Paul says, don't even act like you're condoning it. Don't eat with such a one. Don't pretend as though they are a part of the fold when they should not be, which is what the corinthian church was doing. So, yeah, those are my brief thoughts on it. What did you have to add, Jack? [00:36:46] Speaker B: There's an interesting phrase there that you read that Paul brings back around in one Timothy one, where he says, delivering such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. That's really serious. Like, all right, we're telling this guy, sure, go try Satan. And there's a discipline that comes in that of you do get destroyed, eats you up from the inside out. I mean, it ruins your life. And it might be the thing that makes you happy. It might give you pleasure in the. I mean, you know, it's a fleeting pleasure. You know, it's going to lead to misery. You're going to be the prodigal son. And that's what Paul is saying is the point of this is that this guy would get so destroyed that he's looking at the pig slop and decides to come back. That's because so many times with know Joe is saying, well, isn't it better for them to be in church? What, what happens if we confront them? What's going to happen if we do this? They might get mad. They might never come back again. What's going to happen if we don't? They're going to go on thinking they're okay with God until the judgment day where they get a rude awakening because we never told them otherwise. And so you have mean you have to do. Exactly. I mean, this is what Paul said. Deliver them to Satan. Can you imagine saying that in the church today? Well, guys, this person, we've gone to them, they're not repenting, they're not changing. We got to deliver them to Satan. You'd be the one they kick out of the church in a lot of cases. Not the person in sin, not the adulterer, not whatever. Some places even the homosexual. I mean, like in extreme cases. But this is for their good. [00:38:08] Speaker A: It's got the phrase that you brought up there, Jack, in verse seven, about purging out the old leaven. Why? Because you're supposed to be unleavened. That's the. [00:38:17] Speaker C: There it goes. To assume there is a threshold. And I think this is what we struggle with in the church is we give them a chance. We go to them. We give them a chance. We give them a chance. We give them a chance. We give them a chance. We really hope that maybe it'll just be too awkward for them to continue to show up. And are you going to be a lot of drama. Yeah, exactly. Same thing with, as you mentioned, live with your boyfriend girlfriend. Well, though we married and then we won't have to worry about it. It's so conflict diverse. Because what Paul is talking about here, we know Paul is no stranger to conflict. You see him call out Peter, you see him call out certain people, you go, well, that's Paul. He's made a conflict. Yeah, that's why. Not to go off on this, but we need masculine leaders. We need guys who aren't pansies, who aren't afraid of conflict. Because this right here is conflict. You have to have a threshold where you go, yeah, we've gone to you. We've done Matthew 18, we've called you out. Time to deliver you to Satan. And that's such a serious phrase, but the whole point of it. Remember the last part of that verse. I've decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. That's the purpose here. This is a loving call for this person to get right. Otherwise, hey, you're toast, and we are trying to save you from eternal destruction. So if your body is eaten up with all sorts of disease or whatever else in this situation, and all the issues that come along with this and how sin really devastates a life, if that brings the person to repentance, it really is a whatever it takes approach. And if withdrawing from him, not associating with him, not eating with him, if that's what's going to save his soul, we talk a big game about, oh, the soul is what matters. This is where rubber meets the road. We could talk all day long about it, but until we're willing to put in physical roadblocks to say, no, you're not allowed to partake the Lord's supper. No, you're not allowed to come into the church willy nilly and think that you're okay. You're not allowed to serve and worship. We're not even associating with you. Wow, how mean. It's for the purpose of calling them back to the fold, so to speak. It's to remove the sin from the camp, but it's to let everybody else know we take this seriously here. Because if we don't, who's going to? That's the whole purpose of it, is to ultimately save his soul from eternal damnation. [00:40:21] Speaker B: There's two things I want to add before we get to some more scripture. We're going to have to get through here pretty quick. But one, there's so much faith in this because, as you said, this is for the. Their soul may be saved for the day of the Lord. What that's saying is the best chance this person has is that church discipline is enacted on them. We think, as you said earlier, the best chance they have is man. If we just keep them coming, if we just keep tabs on them and hope they keep coming back, that's man's thinking. We can trust ourselves, or we can lean not on our own understanding and trust God if we really love this person's soul. The other thing, I love Paul's phrasing here because I want to bring this back to number one. It's love for the person, but number two of Jesus, an appreciation for him where he says there in one Corinthians five, seven, when he's talking about the leaven and getting rid of the old leaven and staying unleavened, he says, for Christ, our passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the feast not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So they celebrated the Passover and immediately went into the feast of unleavened bread. This is, you're leaving Egypt, and you're leaving Egypt behind. You've cleansed the leaven out of your house. There's nothing left of Egypt in you after the Passover in Jesus, you've been saved, and you're getting rid of the sin. And anybody in the church who's like, no, I want to hang on to some. They didn't get to leave Egypt. They didn't get to cross the Red Sea. They didn't get to go with them. And so he's using that analogy to say, look what Jesus did for us. The proper response to that is to live unleavened lives. And so again, it's out of appreciation for the love and goodness of Christ that leads you to do this kind of thing. Do you guys have anything more on Corinthians before we hit a little bit here in Timothy and Titus? [00:41:56] Speaker A: I would say rapid fire, Timothy and Titus. [00:41:58] Speaker B: So we very, there's not a lot of sections in scripture, but it makes sense that it would be in Timothy and Titus that Paul would come around to this. And it is. I brought up earlier, Hymenus and Alexander, those that he handed over to Satan. He talks about things like that earlier. And the elders, Paul or Timothy, is told in one Timothy five how to rebuke an elder. And you're supposed to do that with extra care and very carefully, with respect and all that because of the position they're in. But you might have to do it sometimes. Of course, you have that. All scriptures given by inspiration for reproving, rebuking and exhorting. Reproving is a correction, hey, do this instead of that. Rebuking is you stop it right now. Get your act together. And exhorting is go the right direction. And then he says in the next, I mean, just verses later, it's a bad chapter break there where he says, preach the word, be in sin in season and out season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort, use the scriptures. You have to put people on the right path. [00:42:53] Speaker C: I want to make a quick note real fast about the first Corinthians 520. I'm reading it here about the elders. Those who continue in sin rebuke in the presence of all so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning. [00:43:04] Speaker B: Like I said, it tells everybody. [00:43:06] Speaker C: I just wanted to bring that in because you've already said it. [00:43:08] Speaker B: But that first Timothy 520, you said Corinthians. Oh, I'm so sorry. [00:43:14] Speaker C: Yeah. First Timothy 520. No, it's just talking about the elders. It's to create kind of a fear of people. Like, yeah, we take this seriously. God takes sin very seriously. And if that increases the fear of, I don't want to be that. I don't want to be rebuked. I don't want to be exhorted in that way. There is a carrot and stick to both of these things. [00:43:31] Speaker A: What that does is that gives elders and church leaders a purpose. It gives them something that they are supposed to do. You think about the modern congregation. If church discipline, if all those things you just went over silencing false teachers, you've got in Titus one. But even the reproving, the rebuking, the exhorting, the making sure that the flock is going in the right direction, that you're leading people, you're in their lives. If that part is removed, seriously, I know we've already had eldership episodes before. What is the job of an elder? If you're not doing that, what is the job? Most congregations have resorted it to? Well, make sure that we're not losing money, make sure the money is well spent, and make sure that the thermostat gets changed. I don't mean to demean elders and really belittle it, but as you guys were talking, and as we've talked about this before, that is the entire purpose of elders, is to make sure that the flock is going the right direction. How is that done? Church discipline. If neither one of those things are being done, why even bother having elders? Literally, what is the point other than to set the times for worship, decide which Sunday of the month we're going to have a potluck, and make sure the money is well spent? It's so frustrating that that is so clearly laid out in scripture. What the role, and not even just the role, the purpose of shepherds, the purpose of what elders are for. And that is taken off the table so often when it comes to congregations, the reproving, nope. The rebuking, nope. The exhorting, nope. None of that is done. Church discipline, not done. And it makes the role of an elder completely invalid. [00:44:59] Speaker C: Take it from a boss perspective, if you didn't have the ability to fire anybody, and the only thing you could do is just give people raises. Well, if you do this, we'll give you a raise. We'll give you a raise. We'll give you a raise. There has to be at some point where it's like, no, you're written up and there's this process that we go through where, yes, you'll eventually be fired. This is standard practice in every part of society. We see this, but when it comes to the church, this goes back to the privilege. It's a privilege to work for the company you're working for. It's not a human right. It's a privilege to be there. And yes, there are certain things required of you. They have to be able to fire you ultimately, for there to be some level of, like, if things go really south. Now, of course we want to give you a raise. We want things to go well. But if you just drop out the bottom and fail to show up to work for 20 days straight, there is going to be consequences for that. We grasp that, but we've essentially taken all the teeth away from elderships because of this principle. But this gets us into. [00:45:49] Speaker B: Unless I want to say one more thing on the first Timothy five before we get into some of these questions and specifics. It's great that he has the recourse for rebuking leaders because so much of this gets cast as man. The people who run that church are meanies. They're bullies. Yeah, they're power hungry and all that. And here's where Paul's telling Timothy, look. [00:46:06] Speaker C: It'S a great point. Be careful. [00:46:08] Speaker B: Don't do this haphazardly. You better know what you're talking about, and you better do it respectfully and all that, but also strongly in front of everybody, like, so everybody knows that everybody's in on this. The whole point is for all of us to be right with Christ, even the highest up. And so, no, this isn't some people picking on you. This is man. We are a family that has come together, literally. What makes us a church, it's all of us. Confess. Jesus is Lord. We're going to do what he says, and if somebody's not, and we just kind of let them keep being a part of it, what we just know the purpose of a system is what it does. The purpose of this family is no longer to say that is Lord, and that's why the church is so weak in the world everywhere. [00:46:46] Speaker C: That's a fantastic point, but I do think that puts us. That's kind of the perfect dovetail into this next session, which is how it's typically done and why this fails. We're talking about elderships not being able to just lead and not being able to call people unto Christ. [00:46:59] Speaker A: Like how church, every part is currently practiced, you're saying, but how it's currently. [00:47:03] Speaker B: Yes. We haven't talked about any specifics or practicals. It's all been the concept of church discipline. But now we're talking about actually who we're talking about, how we're talking about. So go ahead and get us into that. [00:47:17] Speaker C: Yeah. So the first thing that you typically see is they'll say something about the really big sins. The really big sins, quote unquote. Like if a guy commits adultery, probably need to handle that one. You know what I mean? Probably need to go to that guy. Probably need to figure out he's bringing his girlfriend to church while his wife and kids are over there. Yeah, we probably should mention that. So if there's a really big one, typically they will actually say something about it. Now, the small things, we kind of know that this guy is not well known in his workplace. He's actually cheated a couple of people. Man, we just really hope that the sermon is hitting him where he needs to today. That seems to be the way we initially handle it, is we wait for it to hit a certain threshold. There's our threshold. We wait for it to hit a certain sin point, then we'll call it out. But usually that's pretty far down the line. We're not calling people out for the small things. It's got to be adultery, murder. [00:48:09] Speaker B: The approach is preach a sermon on it and really hope that it sets in. [00:48:13] Speaker C: They get it. [00:48:14] Speaker B: And if they don't, then still pretty vague. [00:48:18] Speaker A: Because as Joe, as you were talking about that, they kind of have to say something with a really big sense. Man, it's going to sound like I'm just dogpiling here, but I've been a member of the church for 24 years, call it 14 of them that I can remember, and remember the elders getting up and lessons and all that. I have heard this happen zero times. Never once have I heard anybody, elder, minister, whatever, get up and announce any specifics about any specific member in any kind of church disciplinary fashion. To Jack's point, it is. If we think it's an issue, well, let's just get the preacher to preach on it. Let's keep it generic, keep it pretty vague, keep it pretty ambiguous. And then that's going to kind of serve the purpose. And so, I know, have, of course not, have not been to every congregation that there are congregations that do. But even this first one that we got on the list of, well, okay, maybe they do address the really big ones. I haven't seen even that happen very often. [00:49:13] Speaker C: It's true. Second thing I'd say, moving on, because I agree with you, I don't think a lot of these things. This is the typical way, and still, I don't think a lot of these things happen. But we'll write letters to people, and actually, we did see this at the church we attended. They wrote letters to people who hadn't been there in years. I'm sorry, I just don't see what the purpose is. You haven't darkened the door of the church in two and a half years. We're writing a letter to let you know, basically, we're disfellowshipping you. We're cutting you out. Right. We're church disciplining you. They don't care. They haven't been to church in two and a half years. Big deal, big WHOOP. Like, if this mattered, they would have been here at some time in the last, like, 100 plus 150 weeks. At some point, they would have said, okay, probably should get back to church. At that point. We wait so long to do the church disciplining that it effectively means nothing. The whole point of church discipline is we're removing something that they very much want. We're taking you out of the family, and people are looking at the know, looking from the outside. Hey, hey, knocking on the door. Can I please add back in? Look, the passage, or the right password is I repent, and I'm actually coming forward, or whatever it is, to make this right with Christ. That's what brings you into the door. But if they've already kicked themselves out of the house and we go, hey, we're locking the door, guys, I'm miles down the road. I don't care about coming back into the house. So that would be the second thing. The third thing I'd say is, to our point, we really hope the sermon convicts, we really hope the Bible class convicts, we really hope to maybe almost subliminally push things in their direction that might bring them about by osmosis. We happen to mention a few things, or we ask the preacher, kind of nudge them, hey, would you mind preaching on a certain sin? And we're really hoping that as they sit there, the beads of sweat are coming down, like, whoa, this is hitting me right between the eyes. In my experience, because I've been on the preaching end and I've preached some of these lessons before where I very much felt this could convict a few people. They're not listening. If they are living in sin. Most people are blatantly aware that they're living in sin, and they don't care. [00:51:13] Speaker B: Well, my favorite, and I've done it, this is stepping on my own toes. And it was kind of the same thing requested. Man, we need to talk about this so people know. So we had the big sermon on why you need to attend church every week. The people who don't come weren't there. Right. Well, whoops. Put it on a CD and mail it to them. That's kind of passive aggressive. And even at the time, and this was almost ten years ago at this point. Well, it was ten years ago even at the time. You've just got that thought run through your head, man. I wish there was something more we could do. Well, if I read my Bible, I would have seen that there is. [00:51:46] Speaker A: Right. [00:51:47] Speaker B: It's there. [00:51:48] Speaker A: All three of those. Say something about the really big sense, write letters to people who haven't been attending in years, and then hope the sermon convicts. All those are half measures. Every single non confrontational measures. [00:52:00] Speaker B: Basically all of them go back to it's your know, we hope you make a better choice. [00:52:05] Speaker A: Yep, that's exactly right. So let's move on, because we got a few more things to get to here. So you have the legal considerations. There's an article that Jack sent us about the Collinsville church of Christ, and. I don't know, guys, grant me if I'm wrong, if I read it right, this happened all the way back in 1981. [00:52:20] Speaker B: Yeah, this is an old one, but it's kind of the standard very well tale. [00:52:24] Speaker A: Yeah, well, very well known there speaks to my ignorance. I had not heard about that. [00:52:28] Speaker B: Well, 1981. I mean, that's a bit before. Multiple generations before you. Yes. [00:52:33] Speaker A: And even Jack was graduating high school that year. [00:52:35] Speaker B: Hey, come on now. [00:52:37] Speaker C: He got married two years later. [00:52:39] Speaker A: Right. Anyway, this Collinsville church of Christ, a woman sued and won for $390,000. [00:52:47] Speaker B: The jury said they thought they were giving her double, that they didn't realize she was getting so little. [00:52:52] Speaker A: They said that essentially the eldership and I should have pulled up the wording, but caused emotional harm, essentially bullied this woman to the point where she felt like she had been emotionally damaged and all these things. She sued. $390,000 later, this eldership is now having to cough up this money to this woman who all they seemed to do was enact church discipline. Real quick. I will give the other one and then let you guys comment. You had the west Sparta church of Christ. I do remember this. When I was young enough to see this one went all over Facebook. This woman was living in some kind of sin. I do think it was sexual sin, right? Some kind of living with boyfriend girlfriend or living with boyfriend. I think something like that where they. [00:53:32] Speaker C: Wrote her a letter. [00:53:33] Speaker A: And in the letter you could clearly see that it know, we've tried to reach out to, you could clearly see from the letter, determine from the letter that they had carried out several steps to try to make this right. They did not just send her a letter and cut her to reached out to you. We tried to get you to change. We tried all these things. [00:53:47] Speaker B: And good for them, man. [00:53:49] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And this woman posted on Facebook or posted on social media to obviously get back at them. And man, did so many people just blow up at that. And just, man, as Jack was saying, this awful congregation, those mean elders, just how awful the church is. So you have those things to consider that the world highly frowns upon any kind of expectation, any kind of authority, any kind of standard, and these kind of big name, get in the news, get in social media things are unfortunately what could come of it. [00:54:22] Speaker C: I wanted to read the Oklahoma article, just this one paragraph, as to how they justified $390,000. The jury deliberated just under 5 hours before deciding the three elders invaded Marion Gwynn's privacy in their public denunciation that they intruded on her seclusion by confronting her three times about her love affair, and that they willfully inflicted emotional distress by their ex. Emotional distress. I'm shocked. This was 1981, to be honest with you. Like this sounds something that was from 2021 that wasn't even that far removed. [00:54:55] Speaker B: From adultery being illegal at the time. [00:54:58] Speaker C: Right. [00:54:59] Speaker B: And the jury got a church that are like the worst people in town for saying you can't commit adultery. [00:55:03] Speaker C: So there are legal concerns. I think this is one of those areas where churches, to me personally, this speaks to smaller congregations, a more familial congregation. That doesn't solve everything, but it does speak to like, I want to know each person that kind of comes into my congregation and have a pretty tight lid, especially as elders. I think I'd like to know that where we've got a pretty tight lid on these things instead of you have people like this that could potentially sue you. That's not to say that this couldn't happen in any church. This could happen in a church of 20 members. At the same time, I feel like you have a much different relationship than somebody, especially if you're denounced. Like there's this public denunciation in front of 350 people. There's embarrassment there. All my friends are here, those type of things. It's a little bit different in the church of 20, but this is just a sad situation across the board and legal consideration. Well, I do want to throw it out to you guys. What do you think about churches having to take that into account? Obviously, we're not going to go against God. We feel this is very biblical. But what advice might you give to? We're not elders here. We're young kids, so we're not saying we're speaking on this, but I am curious your thoughts on like, if you were elders, what advice would you give to other elders as to maybe how to mitigate some of that? [00:56:14] Speaker B: I think Jesus just saying be true to serpent, innocent as doves is wisdom to bring into something like this. Know, dot your I's and cross your t's legally as much as you can, but it can't control you. You still have to do the right thing. Even if it's going to bankrupt, if you're going to lose the building, whatever is going to come of it, you got to still do the right thing. [00:56:36] Speaker A: Briefly, I would just say if you do the work to set the culture early, I would think that most people who are not okay with that are going to kind of weed themselves out, that they're going to come in and be like, oh, man, they're pretty serious about this. Let me go find another congregation. And a lot of people look at that and you say, man, that's just the worst thing in the world. If you set the culture and you continually foster that atmosphere and foster that culture, I think that would be something that a lot of the people that might sue or might get super upset are probably going to weave themselves out. And I'm not saying that those two congregations specifically did not set the culture. If I was giving advice, that's what I would do. Though I do have one question before we get to this. Overdoing it. That is the next question of like, okay, how could a congregation overdo it? How do you guys respond to everybody's favorite excuse when it comes to this? Well, everybody sins. Well, we're all sinners, all of sin and fall short of the glory of God. That's what's said by so many people kind of to justify or excuse a sinful behavior. In essence, kind of the well, who are you to tell me my sin is worse than anybody else's sins? And so I think there's an obvious answer here, but I think we'd be remiss if we didn't bring it up. How do you handle that kind of very shallow rebuttal from people when they say, well, you know, everybody sinned or all have sinned and falls for the glory of God? What's our response, biblically speaking? [00:57:59] Speaker C: I think first John has to be the response. First John speaks a lot to that. There's a sin leading to death and the sin not leading to death. It's pretty clear that he's talking about the one repented of and the one not repented of. And he talks about we're out of sin. We don't sin as Christians, and then goes on to basically say, yes, we do, but we have an advocate with the father. So first, John is a great book to kind of study this with somebody and just to let them know, like, there are sins that we commit that are forgiven because they're repentative and we've turned from them, and there are sins that will lead to death. And that's how I would say it is. You are living in sin, unrepentant of sin, that you're not trying to turn. [00:58:32] Speaker A: Habitual sin. [00:58:34] Speaker C: Habitual sin. We are sinners, but we're trying to remedy that. We are trying to learn from our sins and turn from them. You're not turning from yours. That's the big difference here. [00:58:43] Speaker B: I just very shortly say Paul missed that memo. The guy in first Corinthians five, Jaimeus, Alexander, I mean, like those people we've brought up, Paul just blew right through. That didn't stop him. So I don't think it should stop us. There we go a lot longer. But I think that's a pretty easy way to answer that. But getting to the overdoing it, I mean, it can be overdone. And I think that's the first thing that comes to mind, is like, whoa, whoa, whoa. We don't want to be too harsh. And as always, the overcorrecting, it's like you have to be wary of overcorerecting. But right now, we are so far in the other ditch of being too soft that don't worry about being too harsh until we start getting towards that ditch. And don't go into that ditch. But you're already in the other ditch, so worry about that one. But it has been overdone. There was what was kind of merged movements, international churches of Christ, Boston movement, Crossroads movement. That was kind of before I was born. It was petering out right around the time I was born, and up until many, many years later, five years later, when Joe was born, something like that. And they grew really fast, baptized a lot of people, but they were known for controlling. You had to have a prayer partner, you had to check in with, and they had to know about stuff and kind of write down your sins kind of thing. And I don't want to mischaracterize it, because, again, it was a little before my time, but they're just known for that. And it can become that if you're not careful where you're a little phariseical, you're peering over people's shoulders in each other's business a little bit too much. And so I think when people hear church discipline, they just think that and they just shut it off. You do have to be aware of that, no doubt. [01:00:14] Speaker C: There's not a lot that I think we can add to that, other than the inner Pharisee of us all likes to pop out, I think, from time to time, and it's a way to make us feel better than the other person if we kick them out. Boy, I made it. I'm special because I'm a part and you're not. Obviously, that's not the tone Paul takes. That's not the tone that we see at all. It's one of. Of. We do love our members so much that we are weeding out all sin. We love the congregation of Christ. We believe so much in the sanctity of the body. We're weeding out all sin. But we love the sinner in this situation enough to say, we're willing to kick you out. We're willing to do whatever it takes to bring you to repentance. It's one of love. The Phariseeism is one of selfishness and pride. Look at me. I'm better than this person. That can very easily take place. And I do think that, again, you have people. It's a fine line sometimes between calling people to be holier and calling people to be what you want them to be. And we have to know the difference internally. And this is something that may need to be called out from time to time as we overcorrect. But to your point, Jack, I think we're in the right know, or we're maybe in the left ditch. We're so kind of liberal and loose, we need to swing back over. And if we do overcorrect a little bit. We'll get there. We'll kind of come toward the middle, but I'm not really worried about that right now. We just need to come toward the middle. [01:01:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So we need to get to the question of what rises to the level of discipline. The other thing that I would say for overdoing it is Jack's written some great articles. One strike fellowship. One strike and you're out. Do one thing wrong and we're going to write you off. You're a false teacher. You're all these things. Obviously that's not what we're talking about here. And so that's all I'm going to say on that. But this ultimate question of, okay, what rises to the level of discipline? Maybe I probably should have saved the brawl, have sinned question to right here because this is where it applies. But let's put us all in the shoes of elders. When do we need to step in here? And we've got several things. Obviously, we all agree if it's open sin, it most definitely something needs to be done discipline wise. If it's something that is out in public, everybody knows this person is doing something that is actively opposed to God's will. But the problem is everybody thinks, okay, cohabitating, pretty big one. Adultery, pretty big one. Obviously transgenderism, pretty big one. Guys, what are some other ones that you think? Because, again, those are pretty well, the easy ones to go to. What do you think are some of the other ones? What about lack of church attendance? What about somebody who just kind of every two weeks or every other week or just kind of whenever we'll see them some weeks, won't see them other weeks. What about a woman in the church who just, man, she's just a notorious gossip. You just know that's what she does. What about maybe it's a dad who you can visibly see, you know, is not leading his children at home. Does that qualify? Put yourself in the shoes of elders other than kind of the big quote unquote open sins, the, again, adulterous situation, cohabitating homosexuality, transgenderism, what rises, the level of discipline. [01:03:18] Speaker B: Another one on the big ones that doesn't get touched is divorce. I mean, elders kind of going in and investigating of like, what happened here and what's wrong and can we go on? I mean, divorce and remarriage, some churches will handle that. But divorce itself, that's not really something anybody wants to get their hands on. It's like, well, that's a bummer. That happened is typically the response. So that's one there's something I read a while back of somebody making the case of like, look, if a husband tells his wife, honey, we're going to do this at home, it's not a biblical command that he's giving her, but a thing of, it's also not wrong for him to say, in our house, we're going to do this, and she goes behind his back. She undermines it with the kids. She just won't do it. They can have conversations. He needs to pray with her. He needs to talk with her. And if she won't, he can take her to the elders. And that just blew my mind, the concept of that happening. Can you guys see that happening? And not anytime soon, but it's, shouldn't it? She's in sin. That is one of those things. And the same for a woman to her husband. I don't want to be. Some people might go, oh, husband get away with it. No, the woman. If the husband, if there's things where he's really letting down on his duty or he's just really, as will said, not leading his family, raising his kids or whatever, just an absentee father, why can't she take him to the elders? That is God's recourse that she gave her. Is that. Here's his spiritual head. [01:04:44] Speaker C: He's got a secret porn addiction. [01:04:46] Speaker B: Yeah, take it to the elders. We see that a lot. [01:04:50] Speaker C: We see it a lot. And a woman goes, what's my recourse? What's my recourse? What can I do? You take him to the elders and ultimately you take him in front. I couldn't do that, boy. My husband would be so mad at me. Do you care about a soul? [01:04:59] Speaker B: You don't need to walk down in front of the whole church on Sunday morning. But that's what your elders are for. [01:05:04] Speaker C: That's exactly. [01:05:05] Speaker B: It is. [01:05:05] Speaker C: You let them kind of handle it from there. Maybe you're the only one that knows. Well, I need to protect my husband in this way. No, protecting his soul will be bringing to the elders. I would say another one I'd add to list people that are insubordinate to the elders. The elders say, this is what we do here as a church. And people go, I'm not doing that. We expect everybody to bring something to the potluck. And every week somebody comes up, loads three plates of food and never brings something to the potluck. I think that's a hard issue. Are we saying that you kick the person out? You need to be having some serious conversations with somebody that's not submitting to the elder's rule, not submitting to what they've decided is best for the congregation. Those are the type of things that people are going to look at and go, are you kidding me? That's insane. How could you possibly do it? But the whole point of this is we're trying to get the hearts right, hearts that want to please the Lord, hearts that want to make the church a better place. There's a lot of people that I think can get away with having a horrible heart, horrible attitude week after week, and there's literally no recourse other than hoping that that sermon is going to convict them. [01:06:04] Speaker A: And this is where it's so hard to put into practice, it's so hard to. It might seem so idealistic, but you have to have the church culture, the church kind of atmosphere of, we talk about these things, we have the conversation with you, and you have to be humble enough to hear the criticism, to hear maybe the critique. And we live in such an individualized society. We live in such a membership is a choice church society. We live in such a, you can't tell me anything society that I've been in these congregations where it's walking on eggshells to make sure nobody gets offended walking. And so of course you're not going to have the conversation, as silly as it may sound, about the three plates of the potluck or about the, again, maybe the more dramatic example, the person who never, the man who never wants to lead in worship, the one who doesn't show up to worship, like all these things, you have to have that culture and atmosphere and you have to foster that humility among your members of, okay, I might disagree, but they're my elders and I'm going to at least hear them out. I'm going to hear their criticism, I'm going to hear their critique, I'm going to hear what they have to say, and I need to respond in a biblical fashion. No congregation has that atmosphere, but that's, to me where this is truly going to be successful. If everybody has the individualistic mentality, then I don't think any of those meetings are going to work of going and calling them out for XYZ issue at home, within their marriage, whatever. And so that's the problem. And that leads us to kind of, when do you, Jack, put on here, pull the plug, so to speak? When do you give them the axe? When do you kind of do that fourth and final step of Matthew 18, treat them as a gentile tax collector? How do you do it. A lot of congregations just send letters. This is where to my previous point of having this atmosphere and culture, hopefully you have the ability to where you have talked to them. It's been face to face, it's been over coffee, it's been again just these really in depth conversations to where it's not going to feel weird to send them a letter or to do these things because you've had these conversations. Guys, what are your thoughts on this? I guess we got two questions left. The second to last question of when to really carry out this fourth step of Matthew 18. [01:08:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I just spoke to an elder the other day, a brother I really respect, and I was asking him about what's your process? And he was saying, and this was to attendance as we talked about is one of the things on that list that I think should be on there, the family that misses for sports or whatever. I think you start number one on almost everything. I mean, adultery, there's no question there. But most things you can say, let's just assume they don't know. So you go the first time assuming, hey, you need to be there or hey, you're sleeping with your girlfriend, your boyfriend, you guys moved in together, you can't do that as Christians. And so we need to fix that, whatever it may be. Assume they don't know. Now, you told them they do know and you got to start operating from that. I think as you said, you go to them a few times, take others, sit with the elders, whatever it may be. But what this brother mentioned was their practice was they have those meetings and when it comes to a certain point, they send a letter that basically says, look, we're not getting a response from you. It's not coming along. You are in danger of being removed as a member of the church and meet with them again, call them, follow up on that letter, like, did you get it? Do you understand what's going on? Can we pray for you? What do you need to get on the right track? And if they still don't, then send another letter. Yeah. Literally making it, and more than anything making it clear to people where they stand is really important that you're not just, all right, you're out. But the other thing that makes this really hard, the person you reach out to and they're like, I ain't changing and you can't make me. That's pretty straightforward. The person who's like, oh yeah, I know, I know, I got to do better. I'm going to try. I know. Or the guy with the porn addiction. I know, I'm trying. Well, did you set any filters on your phone? Well, no, I wasn't sure and I'm not doing anything, not taking any steps. You're not seeing anything. But boy, they're talking a big game. That's the hard one. And again, none of us are elders and we really respect the elders, especially those that work hard at this. We're not speaking from a total lack of experience because we're dealing with some of this ourselves. And in ministry we've seen things like this. And so again, making it clear to everybody where they stand, making sure that they know they're loved, that they know this is not dropping a hammer, but we want them to be right with God. But also there is a consequence coming if there's no change. [01:10:21] Speaker C: This is difficult and it goes back to. I didn't really answer the legal consideration side of my point. I think it goes to the same thing here. There is a level of faith that has to take place. And when you're walking in step with God, and I think the legal considerations, you just have faith that God's going to see you through and you just make the right decision. And in this situation I would happen to land on again, to your point, Jack, and kind of what it is, you take the necessary steps, you kind of do Matthew 18 and then you start withdrawing and you start making it a lot more difficult and you leave it up to God in that moment that this person is going to understand it. To your point. Well, if you pull the plug and there is no relationship there, there's no culture there, there's no family there, it doesn't work. The reason this works is because it costs them something to not have this family. If they can just go to the church down the street that they can throw and hit a rock because it's that close and they can just go to that church and there's no recourse there. Well, I think that's another aspect. I don't know that we had that, but it's kind of like this is where the elders maybe need to send letters to other congregations going, hey, do not fellowship this man. He is in open sin and he is not making it right. People get real squirrely about that. But these are the instances we have to go to to say you can't just go to the next church. [01:11:31] Speaker B: So when out of love for their soul. [01:11:34] Speaker C: Out of love for their soul, that's. [01:11:35] Speaker B: The worst thing in the world is knowing somebody else will just let them get away with it. I mean, you still got to do your part and like you say, reaching out is the best of your ability. But one other thing briefly, a lot of people don't have elders and so this is something that you don't have the authority of elders. You have to men of the church, whatever leadership in place, the preacher needs to take an active role in this. Do it to the best you can without doing an elder thing. I think a church that doesn't have elders can still discipline somebody to the point of removal of fellowship. There's no reason to believe they can't. So let's get to this final part why it matters and I'm just going to kind of wrap here and well, you guys give yours and then I'll explain my way. This is the way the church changes the world. [01:12:14] Speaker A: I've kind of already said my piece on this, again, just we have congregations that are lukewarm, we have worldly families, we have weak leadership, young people walking away. It's probably time to consider what kind of expectations do we have for our congregations. Is the expectation, show up if you can. We're just really happy to have you. We really hope you choose our congregation. If that's what we're going for, then the results that we get out of that are going to be what we deserve. And I don't mean that to be harsh or again, to be demeaning in any way, but if that's the way that, again, the country club operates, be a pretty miserable country club. I pointed out in the orthodoxy episode, one of the reasons why I think men, specifically guys, young men, don't have any interest in the church is because young men want to be a part and men in general want to be a part of something that feels important. And when you go to a church, church building or congregation where they don't have any expectations for you, you're just showing up there, it doesn't feel very important. And so I use the example of you go to your job interview and it's very structured, people are dressed very nicely, it feels important. It's like, man, this is what I want to be a part of. This feels important versus they show up. Maybe your interview starts late, not a lot of structure, your job, people are dressed casually, just doesn't feel as important and you don't want to be as much of a part of it. Again, it's just kind of natural in us. It's the exact same thing with our congregations. If it doesn't feel important, most people are not going to want to be a part of it. And again, it leads to all the problems that we see. And so that's why this matters is because you got a lot of people claiming Christianity that again, truly are not Christians, that are lukewarm, that are all these things need to start raising the expectations. [01:13:56] Speaker C: Joe, I just speak to the specialness of the church. Again, this is something that it's just cool to be a part of. It is a privilege. And I really want people to see it as a privilege and recognize that when you do the godly steps of church discipline and disfellowshipping somebody, you will be hated for it, you will be judged, you will be criticized. The elders at that church at West Barter completely blasted over Facebook and everything that went down for them. They stand justified in the eyes of God. God doesn't hate you for it. God is very proud of people that are willing to take a stand for his word, take a stand for something that matters, saying, hey, we are going to keep the holiness, the sanctity, the beauty of the body of Christ here and we're going to keep that intact by kicking out anybody that's going to weaken it. That's very special. Yes, it's hurtful to some people and they're going to get their feelings hurt and everything else. It matters too much. This is worth too much to just throw it up for somebody else's feelings, to throw it away for somebody else's feelings. And so that's all I'd say is just keep in mind the specialness of the church. This is unique, this is a privilege. This is fun. It's cool to be a part of the Lord's body. Let's treat it as such and let's be willing to do whatever it takes to keep it that way. [01:15:08] Speaker B: Jack yeah, I don't know if I want to flesh this whole theory out here. I do have an article on my site going up about this either today or tomorrow when this podcast comes out. Jackwilke, Co if you're curious where I'm going to flesh out this theory a little bit more, I wrote a couple weeks ago on the church isn't being persecuted, it's being disciplined. And somebody might say that's splitting hairs. That's the same thing. Persecution is a good thing when you're going and evangelizing and meeting resistance. Discipline is when we've backslidden and we're paying the price for it the same way Israel did when they became like the people around them, worshipped idols. God disciplined them until they got right to learn from history and not fail and not repeat it would be to say, oh, let's get our act together before God does it for us, before he uses bad circumstances to get us right. Because here's the other thing. In Revelation 20, we are all millennial. We don't believe the millennium is yet to come and the rapture and any of that stuff. We believe we're living in the thousand year reign of Christ and the reign of the saints. That means if the saints are reigning, that faithful saints will spread the gospel throughout the world. The success of the church, the growth of the church and all that. We're not doing that right now because we're not faithful, because we let all kinds of people walk around and say, I'm a Christian, and they're not. And so you want to fix the world. It's always who's the next president? Who's the big hero? Who's coming to save the day? No, the fix for the world is church discipline. Is church is saying, we're going to stop tolerating weakness in our membership. Not weakness, laziness. We're going to stop tolerating cultural Christianity. We're going to stop tolerating compromised Christianity. Yeah, church customers, we're not going to tolerate it anymore. You're going to be expected to be a real christian if you're here, and if you're not, you're not a part of it. And yeah, that might shrink your church down at first. It's called pruning. You get rid of the dead. [01:16:52] Speaker A: Jesus expected, if you're not going to want to follow me, then don't follow me. [01:16:57] Speaker B: Right. And this is again, we can prune ourselves or we can have God bring about the circumstances because people go, man, when persecution comes, none of those fake Christians will be going to church anymore. It's our job to get them out of the church, not wait for Muslims to take over the country or the World Economic Forum to force us all into poverty or whatever theory you want to go with of what bad things going to happen? No, if we were fixing ourselves, we wouldn't be facing down the barrel of this. And so I really do think that the world is governed right now by the faithfulness of the church and it is because we're unfaithful that things are going down the toilet so hard. And if you want to fix that, get a more faithful church. [01:17:36] Speaker A: I dare not say anything else to. [01:17:39] Speaker B: Rant in my back pocket for the end there. So we're going to wrap up on that note. Like I said, if you want more on that theory. It's a little weird going to revelation with that, but I think it's well attested. Again, I've got an article on it. Go check it out. But we're strong believers in this. We're more and more in it all the time and believers in it. And we hope you are too. We really hope that this is a practice that's growing again. Shout out to the guys in west Sparta, the guys in Oklahoma back in the 80s. Most of them probably aren't even alive anymore. Who enacted that? The churches that do this. Well, bless you. It's hard. You're going to be hated. This is really doing the difficult things to make the church salt and light. And that's what we're calling everybody to do. And so that's what we got this week on think deeper. Get your comments in. We'll be checking our Facebook, YouTube, of course, focus plus for the subscribers there. And we will talk to you guys next week.