Discipline in the Local Church

Part Two:

 

Last month’s article contained the introduction to this study and the first main point- Principle of Discipline Defined.  This month we will continue right along with the second main point.

 

II. The Pattern and Basis for Discipline in the Church

 

 

First-  Discipline in the local Church is patterned first and foremost on the fact that the Lord Himself disciplines his children.  Consider Hebrews 12:5-8 “ And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.”  I firmly believe, based on this and other passages and personal experience that someone who is truly born again, can’t live any way they want to without repercussions.  If we are one of His, He will discipline us when we get out of line.

 

As a father will often delegate his responsibility of discipline to the mother, so the Lord has delegated some of the discipline of the church family to the church itself as evidenced in the following passages:

 

• I Corinthians 5:9-13 “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.”



• I Corinthians 6:1-8 “Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?
Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.  I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?  Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.”

·        II Corinthians 2:5-8 “But if any have caused grief, he hath not grieved me, but in part: that I may not overcharge you all. Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many. So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him.”

 

Some time back I had an interesting and enlightening conversation with our pastor on this subject.  I hope I can encapsulate that and do it justice but his basic point was that God is all about order and structure.  He has given responsibility to parents as to the raising of children.  If parents fail to discipline their children properly, the child will have problems because of it, but God will take it up with the parents for failing to discipline their children. Very seldom will God step over the authority He has given the parents and discipline the child directly.  So it is with the church as well.  I believe this is evidenced in I Corinthians 5 where you find a man fornicating with his father’s wife.  The church was told to remove him, in verses 5 and 6 you read: “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” It seems clear that God didn’t intend to overstep the bounds of church discipline that he had established to deal with this man, but once he was placed outside the authority of the Corinthian church then He would.

 

 

Second-   Understand that discipline is further based on the Holy Character of God.  Consider I peter 1:16 and Hebrews 12:5-10.  These and other Scriptures make it clear that  God’s desire is for the church to be holy and set apart unto Him.  This is an important reason for church discipline as we have been commanded to clean out the leaven (sin) from our own ranks.  A failure to exercise discipline in the Church gives evidence to a lack of awareness and concern for the holiness of God.