Session Five: The Rest of the Way

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Taught October 11, 2026. Reading: Adams, chapters 5 to 9.

Summary

Four Sundays got us through the first band of the map. This last morning is the mechanics: how formal discipline actually proceeds when preventive discipline has not held and someone has veered off the path. Adams, chapters 5 through 9, in an hour, so a walk through the remaining steps rather than a close reading. One text governs the whole hour, Matthew 18:15-17, and the progression is marked out by one repeated phrase: “if he listens to you.” One-on-one. If he does not listen, one or two others. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Everything hinges on listening. We are engaging in dialogue, sometimes in confrontation but mostly in dialogue, in order to be heard.

What moves a case forward, then, is never the length of time a step takes or the number of attempts, but the unwillingness of the parties to keep talking. And unwillingness to listen is not the same as failing to agree. My predecessor used to say it to people in the middle of a dispute: it is not that I don’t understand you, it is that I don’t agree. That is where you want to get. Do they understand the position? Do you understand theirs? Understanding without agreement is what sends a case to the next step, and getting there may take many conversations. One more distinction before the steps, because the class asked: this is a process for adults in the church, not for children, and a member who has taken vows carries a higher responsibility than a non-member who has not.

Step two: one-on-one. Adams counts six elements in Matthew 18:15. Jesus commands; the offended brother or sister; is to go; and speak to the brother; privately; so as to convince him of his sin. Jesus does not suggest. We are under orders, and this is the immune system of the church. Sin will walk through the door, and discipline is the body’s healthy response to it. Matthew 5:23-24 sends the offender and Luke 17:3 sends the offended, and neither obligation waits on the other; that is where the stalemate usually starts, with each waiting on the other while the thing festers. The brother with the sore toes must go, because he is always the one who is aware. And remember that an error is not a sin. Not every mistake is a sin, though it may still need to be put right, and the person in error may not know he is in error. Begin with the tentative rebuke of Luke 17:3, epitimao, and only arrive at conviction, elengcho, after you have engaged. Hey, this doesn’t seem right, can we talk about it? Conviction is a courtroom word. It is the effective use of objective evidence, not the production of guilty feelings.

This is where I get personally invested, because I lived through the other way for several years. Discipline is not interested in your feelings. Evidence must be established by two witnesses, and witnesses supply evidence, not feelings. “You really upset me” is grounds for a conversation; it is not grounds for discipline. If you are going to guns, you had better have evidence, because that gun is very hard to put away once it is out. Your feelings are indicators, not dictators. And the other edge of the sword: if you have no case, you have no offense. If you cannot back an accusation with facts, you should not have taken offense in the first place, and Adams says on page 52 that an accusation without facts is itself unchristian and in some cases a reason to discipline the accuser. Much of what we dealt with on our way out of the EPC was built on the two things Scripture does not allow, feelings and anonymity. People feel badly. Who? We can’t tell you. That is not a witness. When we tried to raise the question of the accusers, we were told to cease and desist. A body that actively prohibits Christians from following the Bible has settled the matter for you. Read why we left the EPC.

When it goes well it ends in forgiveness, and forgiveness is a promise: never to raise the matter again, to him, to anyone else, or in your own brooding. The word means letting it go, and the letting go is for your sake; harboring an offense is drinking poison and hoping the other man dies. It is a skill, it is not natural, and C. S. Lewis noticed that the framers of the Creed were wise to put the forgiveness of sins among the articles of faith: I believe in it, and I will need help to do it. Luther said forgiveness is letting go of the bell rope. You let go, and the bell keeps ringing for a while. That is normal. The temptation is one more tug.

Step three: one or two others. The two are not merely witnesses. They are first counselors who try to reunite the parties, and only when a refusal happens do they become witnesses, to the words spoken at this step. Elders, deacons, even the pastor may serve, as long as it is clear they appear as private Christians and not in their official character; an elder in the room at step three does not mean step four has begun, and we do not want to escalate faster than Scripture does. The counselors may also tell the accuser his case is weak and urge him to drop it and restore fellowship, or even to seek forgiveness for accusations he cannot corroborate. We had that off-ramp available to us once, and nobody took it.

Step four: tell it to the church. Not from the floor on a Sunday where unbelievers are present by design, but in a closed meeting of the membership, or by telling the elders as the church’s representatives. Most people’s skin crawls at the thought, but a body kept in the dark breaks loose; that is the golden calf while Moses is up the mountain, and Moses made everyone drink the dust. The congregation is told as little as necessary and enough to act: that the brother is under discipline and for what, so he can be marked and avoided, which is identification and not a scarlet letter; that normal fellowship is broken, and your job is no longer dinner but pleading with him toward restoration; that he is barred from the Lord’s Table; and that they must counsel him, which is why he is named at all. Anonymous restoration does not work. And the sentence for a nervous congregation: people are not disciplined for their sins but for refusing to give them up. The old word is contumacy. Excommunication, exclusion from the Table, happens here at step four, not at step five.

Step five: removal from the midst. The church does not judge the heart; God alone does that. It judges words and actions, and by word and action this man has acted as a heathen and must be treated as one. Have procedures, follow them, keep the record.

Restoration. Forgiven, on the naked word “I repent,” without waiting for fruit, and if we err it must be on the side of leniency. Assisted, parakaleo, the Holy Spirit’s own word, called alongside to help him back into the body, old friendships restored and his gifts put back to work at once. Reinstated, formally restored to full membership, no probation, no rights withheld. It is a long process. It is not easy. It is rarely followed. It is exactly what the Bible requires.

Right preaching, right sacraments, and discipline rightly maintained: we cannot be the church without this. Nobody here should be interested in witch hunts; they produce nothing of kingdom value. But neither does avoiding the hard things. The goal is restoration, not removal. And if someday you see things happening that look familiar from this class, know that we are following the process, and trying to honor the Lord by it.

Key texts: Matthew 18:15-17; Matthew 5:23-24; Luke 17:3; Galatians 6:1; 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15; 2 Corinthians 2:5-11.

For discussion

• What is the difference between a conversation about how you feel and a disciplinary conversation? Which one do you usually start?
• Why are the “one or two others” counselors first and witnesses only later?
• Adams says the restoration must be as public as the removal. Are we as ready to hold the second meeting as the first?

Go deeper: Jay E. Adams, Handbook of Church Discipline, chapters 5 to 9. Buy the book