In the gospel according to Matthew, Jesus gave His disciples some teaching concerning church discipline, that is, dealing with faults among our brothers and sisters in the Church. He said, "If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother." This is a saying of Jesus that is rarely acted upon in the Church today, and greatly to our detriment. We are so afraid of offending other people. We want to be so polite. But often our politeness is simply a disguised form of cowardice when it comes to confronting others. In the name of "peace" we have ceased to deal with real and destructive problems in ourselves, in our natural family, and in our church family. I am perhaps the world's worst. I grew up in a society in which tolerance and politeness have been exalted as the highest of virtues. "Live and let live" has been our credo.
There seems to be no longer a place for "discipline" in our families, in our churches, and in our society. The result has been moral breakdown on a colossal scale. We have seen a breakdown of all authority in our school systems. Elementary teachers in Putnam County are trained in "crisis management," which turns out to be simply the technique for restraining an elementary school child until the police can arrive.
We often say to ourselves, "Who am I to tell someone else how to live their life?" That is the Big Lie of moral relativism, and as we say it we pat ourselves on the back for being so wonderfully enlightened. According to the Bible, however, we share responsibility to teach and admonish one another. Not only the unity of our church, but the stability of our society depends upon it. For one example, older women are charged with teaching younger women how to love and care for their families. The Promise Keepers movement is challenging men to stop being self-centered and begin to lay down their lives for their families in self-sacrificial love.
Part of caring for one another is telling others the truth and speaking out against sin in a redemptive way. This is called "tough love." When I see a brother who is mistreating his wife, I need to show him his fault in private. When I see a father who is neglecting his children, I must go into teaching mode. Human beings are not born with an innate sense of how to raise children, how to love our spouses, or how to treat one another. These values must be instilled. A whole generation of children are growing up in the world without any standards of right or wrong. It is our fault. We have listened to the big lie.
The first qualification for this process is that you have dealt with your own sin. Jesus said to remove the mote in your own eye, and then you will see clearly to help your brother. Second, you must be a "brother." You must have gone the extra mile with this person and made the sacrifices of friendship. This is not to be some stranger. Third, you are not on a "fault-finding mission." Finally, instead of simply gossiping about my brother's faults, I need to go straight to him and deal with it. What we often do is spread it around the church, and that person is the last to hear, long after his reputation has been impugned.
We must not shirk our responsibility to call one another to accountability in the church family. It is time to step up to the pump and deal with sin, beginning with ourselves.
@ copyright 2000 by Scott H. Northrup. All rights reserved.