Matt. 18:15-17
By Bruce Nudd
Church discipline is the process God uses to restore a straying believer to fellowship with Himself and with other believers. It is also used to keep a believer from straying to the point where there is great damage done to his life and testimony.
There are three main steps to church discipline: 1) an individual, humble believer, after self-introspection, privately going to a straying believer about the straying believer's alleged sin. I say alleged sin because sometimes there is a misunderstanding and not any wrong done. 2) When the straying believer will not repent to a real sin and the Holy Spirit has indicated to go to the second step of church discipline, the humble believer is to go get one or two, godly believers from the straying believer's church and the two or three humble believers are to confront the straying believer with his sin. This confrontation is repeated until the Holy Spirit indicates to all the humble believers involved that it is time to move to the third step. 3) The third step involves the humble believers telling the straying believer's local congregation of the sin. This is to give the whole congregation opportunity to lovingly confront the straying believer. If after the time indicated by the Holy Spirit, the straying believer still refuses to repent of a plain and obvious sin, then he is to be cast out of the church as being a heathen and a publican. Now the church has the responsibility to try to lead this one to Christ.
Remember, church discipline is designed to restore-not to condemn and punish. Straying believers are often ostracized or condemned, or both. Most times individual believers will not go to a straying believer privately. They will usually drop subtle hints to the straying believer (often in the presence of others) and then give the situation as a prayer request to other believers. This reminds me of a scene in a video called Sheffey put out by Bob Jones University. Robert Sheffey was a circuit riding preacher in the mid to late 1800's. He was a real prayer warrior. It was not unusual for him to be seen praying in the woods for 3 or 4 hours at a time, not noticing the people that noticed him. One day as he was riding his horse Gideon toward his next meeting, he met a poor family with all their possessions on a wagon. Their horse was lying in the road dead. The horse had dropped dead while pulling the wagon. Sheffey went up to them to see if he could help. Sheffey suggested that he could help them find a horse to buy. The wife asked where they could buy a horse for 4 dollars. That was all the money they had. Sheffey told them he would go aside and pray to God about the situation (which excited the poor family. They knew that when Sheffey prayed, things happened). Sheffey went aside to pray but could not pray. Then he realized why he could not pray. God had already given him the answer. He was to give his horse Gideon to the poor family. There was no need to pray. How often we Christians try to pray concerning something-such as going to a straying believer-when God has already told us what to do. We continue to pray but never see the situation improve and wonder why.
Church discipline is probably more neglected than believers neglecting to tell others about Christ. Both concern restoration. Yet it is somehow easier to tell some stranger or relative or fellow worker about Christ than it is to lovingly confront a fellow believer. If we don't practice proper church discipline, our churches tend to become more and more like the world, and less and less preaching of the Gospel is done.