Mark #7 of a Healthy Church: Biblical Church Discipline

-
We need to live lives that back up our professions of faith. We need to love each other. We need to hold each other accountable because all of us will have times when our flesh wants to go in a way different that what God has revealed in Scripture. And part of the way we love each other is by being honest and establishing relationships with each other and speaking in love to each other. We need to love each other and we need to love those outside the church whom our witness affects; and we need to love God, who is holy, and who calls us not to bear His name in vain, but to be holy as He is holy. That's a tremendous privilege and a great responsibility.
~Mark Dever

In response to last week's post regarding church membership, my friend Aimee offered this comment
Another important point about church membership is discipline. How can you expect your church family to help you grow, and protect you as a part of it, if you will not publicly place yourself under the authority of the leaders? And since discipline is a mark of a healthy church, membership is all the more important.
I remember many years ago a friend's husband was caught in an inappropriate relationship. They were part of a church that practiced church discipline, and she told me what steps the church was taking to discipline him and protect their marriage. Quite honestly, I was taken aback that the church leadership assumed such a role. I believed the elders were meddling where they didn't belong. My friend knew something I didn't - that marriage isn't about the individuals, but about representing Christ and the church. My friends reconciled. I didn't give any thought to church discipline after that. Then I started reading Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. The Lord opened our eyes to the importance of belonging to a church that practices discipline.

Mark Dever gives five reasons to practice church discipline:

1. The good of the person disciplined
2. The Good of the other Christians, as they see the danger of sin
3. The health of the church as a whole
4. The corporate witness of the church
5. The glory of God, as we reflect His holiness 

Looking through the material we would cover in our new members class, I was happy to see that we would cover the topic of church discipline. I came into that session with no idea what to expect.  The pastor shared an incident that occurred several years earlier. (I believe I have the story, or at least its substance, correct.) An elderly widower was keeping company with a woman who had been estranged from her husband for many years. The pastor confronted him about dating a married woman. After some time, the gentleman repented and broke off the relationship. The couple later reconciled when they were free to do so, and married in the church.

What struck me most about the story was our pastor's boldness to go to the gentleman - someone he loved and respected - and confront him about sin that many would be tempted to overlook, considering the parties' ages and circumstances. We left church that day a little in awe of our pastor and his resolve to lovingly practice church discipline. We knew we had found a church that considers itself a family and takes seriously the responsibilities that go along with such a privilege.
When we begin to view the church as a family, we then begin to see the purpose and blessing of church discipline. Just as fathers and mothers who dearly love their children must take the time to correct and encourage them, pastors and elders who love the Lord and the Lord's people must take the time to correct and encourage them.
~Fred Greco
"Church Discipline", Tabletalk , August 2013 (p. 24)


This summer, I'm blogging through Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. Find out why here.

Comments

Aimee Byrd said…
Our church unfortunately had the burden to excommunicate a member of our church who was openly committing adultery, and refused to repent. My pastor announced it in tears to the congregation following the service, saying that he wanted us to pray for reconciliation for this person. My mother-in-law was visiting that day and she was very bothered that our elders did this. I couldn't believe how bothered she was, considering the fact that when her husband left her, not only did the church not come to her defense or reach out to her husband, but then treated her poorly as an abandoned spouse.
About a year later, my pastor was happy to announce that this person had now reached out for repentance and restoration of fellowship. Praise God for bringing back his beloved!
August 14, 2013 at 9:44 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not Feeding the Frenzy

-
Increasingly, we are living our lives in the public forum. Hand-written letters to friends were exchanged for emails, which were exchanged for text messages, which have now been exchanged for tweets and notes on a Facebook wall for all the world to see. Secrets among friends, it seems, no longer exist. Meaningful friendships themselves may soon be a thing of the past. Social media has allowed us to collect "followers" and "friends" like trinkets on a charm bracelet.  We are compelled to share intimate details of our lives with complete strangers, yet we are ashamed to ask those closest to us to pray as we wrestle against sin. We foster, as Carl Trueman writes , an "intimacy of strangers which is such a part of celebrity culture - for example, the faux-chumminess of all those tweeted exchanges and retweets, lives lived as soap operas mediated by the internet..." We brand ourselves with carefully crafted personas, afraid the true person cowering behind t...
Read more

Meditations on Mid-Life

-
Two women stand behind us in line. I judge they are perhaps 10 years my senior, but it's hard to tell. I inwardly cringe as one bursts into a litany of complaints and coarse language. The other can hardly stop talking about who she's tweeting and snap chatting while we wait. One as salty as a sailor, the other as giddy as a schoolgirl. I see myself in these women. A complainer who makes those around her miserable. A foolish woman too mesmerized by social media to be a friend to someone standing right beside her. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Lisa's friend passes away. A woman I've never met, but will one day. Her example to Lisa became an example to me. While she is just beginning to understand what it means to worship God fully, her family and friends mourn a life ended too soon. I consider the woman I long to be. A woman who, in Lisa's words , "...believes the good news of the gospel to be true; she believes it, she needs it, she banks her life on it." ...
Read more

What I Learned During My Social Media Vacation

-
With the Holy Spirit's prompting - and the grace of God abounding - I gave up Facebook and Twitter during December so that I could focus on the Incarnation and prepare my heart for Christmas. I didn't think I devoted an inordinate amount of time to social media; however, when I announced my intention to my girl and her response was something akin to "Good. You need to given them up.", I knew I needed the break more than I cared to admit. I had already stopped posting anything in this little spot for the final months of 2013. Limited blogging at Out of the Ordinary, permanently paring down my feed reader to precious few, and saying no to Facebook and Twitter has taught me some valuable lessons. ~ Absence does not necessarily make the heart grow fonder. While there may have been a few who felt my absence, I imagine that I was, for the most part, forgotten. Not that I blame anyone; it's the nature of the social media beast. ~ Social media friends aren't alwa...
Read more