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15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” (Matthew 18:15-17)
An ecclesia is the Greek word for church, but a modern definition is not compatible with the use of the word found in the Bible. The word also means assembly, gathering, and in the time of Christ, this was the term used in Greco-Roman cultures to refer to political or other kinds of assemblies, not solely a religious group. This is a helpful distinction when interpreting scripture because not all “ecclesia’s” are a group of Christian believers. This text will later use a term and specific language when referring to those who are in the family of faith.
This passage from Matthew 18 seems to indicate that Jesus’ admonishment is directed toward those who claim to share faith in Christ and therefore is a blueprint for how the community of believers (àdelphós-brothers and sisters) should deal with the misconduct of others. I’d like to add, that this teaching shouldn’t be limited to faith based gatherings, but applied everywhere possible. I practiced this form discipline as a church leader and it truly helped preserve dignity of others by reducing false accusations, and limiting the gossip streams. It was also clear that our default practice is very far from this ideal.
What happens when someone in the group does something wrong, annoying, or unfitting? Don’t those who notice begin to talk among themselves about the other person? What almost always happens next? Yep….drama….and rarely healing and transformation.
The Greek word àmartáno is the verb form of àmartia-(sin, error miss the mark, engage in wrongdoing), and sinfulness is not limited to one’s behavior, yet it’s our behaviors that impact others. Jesus knows we cannot live in sinless perfection. He also knows how people’s hatred of one another grows out of division and our inability or unwillingness to apply love when we are offended, hurt, or angered by others. A “brother” is someone within whom we see ourselves…a shared identity. “Otherness” is the refusal of one or both parties to share an identity. This passage uses the term éthnikòs (derivative of èthnós-meaning gentile, heathen, pagan) to clarify the “unbelief” or “non-faith” of a person who will not depart from their sin, or who prefers the identity of the sin to that of Christ followers. The profession depicted in this passage is that of a tax collector, people who commonly abused their power for personal gain. (More on this later).
No matter how great your group, at some point, someone will behave in a way that offends, angers, or hurts another. When this inevitable sin takes place, Jesus’ 4 step blueprint is to begin confidently and only include others as necessary for the correction and healing of others. Almost no group (faith based or otherwise) does this:
Step 1: Go and speak directly to the offender alone.
If you are offended or witness a sinful behavior and you are affected by it, then it’s incumbent upon you to say nothing to anyone until you have spoken to that person. Don’t we always talk to others first? We pridefully deliver our self-promoting commentaries on how others are doing. The speaking down of another is the easiest and most pitiful way to elevate oneself. By joining in that conversation, others are falsely elevated, and the “down-talker” feels justified and then the problem gets worse before it can ever get better.
Jesus’ always employs the law of love and that means we must begin by providing the benefit of the doubt. None of us know everything that has transpired, we don’t know all the backstories, and thus speaking about it to others means we are layering in a lot of assumptions which may not be true and are often more hurtful than the original offense. Jesus’ blueprint takes courage and self control. It takes trust and Fatih that God will work in the heart of all others to His Glory. Thus when we begin speaking about another, we are stealing God’s glory as if it belongs to us. Love preserves the dignity of another by keeping the secret a secret and allowing a person to self-reflect and make changes in the privacy of their own life without their sins becoming the subject of the “prayer-chain.”
If the sinner hears, obeys, receives this rebuke or correction, then healing and transformation take place and we’ve gained our brother as apposed to losing them. That’s the goal…to gain or win them, to help one another grow in our struggle against sin. The goal is never to merely point out the sins of others so that we can feel better about ourselves.
Sometimes, the sin goes deeper than the misstep. Sometimes people resist being told they did something wrong. Sometimes people react in a greater amount of pride and self-defense, and double down on justifying their behavior as not sinful. This is literally the fodder for endless TikTok videos. If this is the case in a community of faith, Jesus escalates things to the next level.
Step 2: Take one or two witnesses and confront them.
Prior to our world of endless video surveillance, there was no easy way to solve a dispute between two people with different accounts of what transpired. But if there were witnesses to the event, the testimony of the witness was sufficient to justify the events.
If a person’s offense is experienced first hand by others, then those who experienced it are to be brought together, but only one or two. This is not a mutiny or a gang. This is still a small group of only 3-4 in total. This means the secret is still a secret. Step two is the only time the offended person is allowed to speak of the event, and then only to one or two others whom she or he knows was also offended.
The law of love continues to be the guide, and this small group then is to confront the person in error and “establish the charge” against them. This means this is not about feelings or opinions, but a pure focus on the provable facts or evidence that these witness provide. The idea is that the sinner who is faced with the facts (not threats, not emotions, not fear) will then hear and obey, again with the goal of restoration or gaining our brother, not with the goal of proving them wrong. The difference is not about “being right” it’s about “getting things right.” If the person still refuses to listen, if they remain steadfast in their pride and justification of sin, Jesus advocates for a third escalation.
Step 3: Tell it to the Church
At this point, the secret is no longer a secret. We are all sinners, we must expect others to sin. As a group who shares faith in Christ and in His teachings and trust Him to usher in the New World, we cannot settle for our sins and if we are called out on them, we must repent and do better. That’s all that’s expected. Keep trying. Keep improving with the help of others. But if we reject the loving help of others, if we double down in our pride, certainty, and justification of wrongdoing, then everyone in the community is at risk, the New World is at risk, the hope of the restoration of all things fades when others do not take seriously that causes of sin in their life (v.6-8).
Bringing the “established charge” before the entire community means that the person in error is accountable to those in the group whom he or she loves and seeks friendship. If this group is a loving group committed to the restoration and healing of all of its sinful members, then such a bringing forth is not a scandal, but an expected and occasionally necessary event to bring about sobriety and repentance of the one who errors against them all.
It is important to mention also that this group, this body of believers, is not just an assembly, it is the very life and physical body of Christ Himself, living in and as His faithful followers. This should be the greatest loving confrontation of ones behavior yet. This is not a group power play. Since it has risen to this level, it is not only a sin of action, but of the will, the affections, and the inner self. If sin has so gripped a person, that the very loving presence of Christ, displayed in His body of believers, has no transforming effect, then Jesus makes a very clear delineation for this person.
Step 4: Treat them as a Heathen or outsider.
Not everyone who says they love God actually do. Not everyone performing a religion possesses faith in God. Many simply go through the motions. Many place their faith in their faith system, denomination, tribe, tradition, religion, and not it God. This doesn’t mean a person is hated by God, or that they will forever be spiritually lost or bankrupt. What this does mean, is that for this point in time, this person loves themselves and their own story of righteousness, more than they love the Christ of God and His design for transformation into His likeness.
The division isn’t so much one of Heaven and Hell when we die, but whether we long for our true identity found in the redemption of God’s love or we insist on the pseudonym we imagine ourselves to be. So long as we maintain our false, illusory self, to the same degree we forfeit our true self and a renewed world. Transformed by either our sins or God’s love are the only options and to share community with those who seek a promised New World, means that we are ready and willing to crucify our superficial self daily and receive loving rebuke. None of us are perfect, we each take our turn at correction. But if we refuse this love, then the fire of God which transforms us into a purer gold will necessarily be the fire that consumes what can’t be transformed. To the proud, God becomes a living Hell.
Jesus’ blueprint isn’t one where everyone is a part of His Church. Despite making multiple efforts to soften our pride and bring on our humiliation which changes us, He will also allow us to resist Him if in pride and confusion we don’t want to be made real. If we reject this loving correction, we are to remain outside His ecclesia even if we are never outside of His love.
The simple question we can each ask ourselves to determine the motivation of our heart is this: “Do I want to be right, or do I want to get it right?” Those who are certain and proud will never belong to Jesus’ true Church. And now you see why I showed you why Jesus’ definition of Church is not the same as the one derived by our modern Christian religion.
When I reflect on the state of the business of American Evangelicalism, I see many who are proud and certain, and I struggle to differentiate between the tax and revenue violence these businesses impose upon its people from that of the “tax collectors” in Jesus’ day. If my observations are true, then Jesus’ church will appear in some very unlikely ways…and that’s exactly what I have discovered.
