Watch CBN Newswatch Now!

important Information IIf you'd like more information on church discipline and how it works, please visit the following resources: A Close Up: Webb Examines Concept of Church Discipline The Biblical Studies Foundation Jay Adams Library: Handbook of Church Discipline

DISCIPLINE

Church Discipline: The 'Outdated' Practice Believers Desperately Need

By Lee Webb
CBN News Anchor

Ausderau said, "almost every night, I would go out drinking and doing drugs...just completely involved in that partying lifestyle." When asked if she knew what she was doing was wrong, Ausderau replied, "Yes, I did. I, in fact, had to drink so much, because it was difficult for me to sleep."

But even after her parents confronted her, Melodi refused to abandon her reckless behavior, and eventually she was asked to leave home. But her parents did not stop there. They allowed the elders of the church, the same elders who had watched Melodi grow up, to confront her and bring her under the church's discipline.

For many, that seems like a harsh, outdated approach. It conjures up visions of the Salem Witch Trials. But, along with the faithful preaching of the word and proper administration of the sacraments, the Protestant reformers considered the right exercise of church discipline one of the marks of the church.

Evangelical author and theologian Albert Mohler says the decline of church discipline is perhaps the most visible failure of the contemporary church.

"If we tolerate sin within our own body," Mohler said, "within our own congregations, then what right do we have to talk to the world about sin that is there?"

Mohler says the church has become far too consumer-oriented, afraid of offending anyone. And he says it has allowed the American secular ideal of private space to become far too influential in the church: "You know, the Bible doesn't give us a whole list of rights of privacy. As a matter of fact, the Bible is very intrusive. And the early church lived together, accountable to each other, for the way they maintained their marriages and the way they raised their children."

In fact, when the Apostle Paul discovered that immorality was being tolerated in the church at Corinth, he couldn't have been more direct when he told them to, "expel the wicked man from among you."

In Matthew 18, Jesus told his disciples how church discipline was to be carried out. First by confronting the person individually, then by taking two or three witnesses along. Then by telling it to the church.

If all those steps fail, the unrepentant sinner is to be treated, Jesus said, as a pagan or a tax collector. In other words, excommunicated.

Melodi was heading toward excommunication from her church. Even after several private meetings with her elders, she refused to repent.
So, in a meeting, Melodi's pastor, Bill Harrell, laid out the sins she had admitted committing, and in front of the church members, admonished her. He concluded by saying, "We, the church (elders), in the name and by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, do now declare you suspended from the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, until you give satisfactory evidence of repentance."

Harrell said, "Which, again sounds like we're being harsh. But we're told in the Bible, if you eat and drink of the supper in an unworthy manner, you eat and drink judgement to yourself." And Harrell says all of this is never done with an iron fist. "It's not a "holier than thou" sort of thing. It's not an imperious, high-handed sort of thing. It is a humble, loving appeal to a brother or sister to come to themselves, and come back to the Lord and back to the Lord's church," said Harrell.

Ausderau said, "I remember seeing tears in their eyes as they spoke with me, and them looking for anything to encourage me and to help me, and they were always so kind. And it made it hard for me to make the choices I was making, just because they were so kind."

Church members never gave up praying that Melodi would renew her commitment to God. After three and a half years, their prayers were answered. She returned to her family, repented to them, and to God.

Today, seven years later, Melodi is the happily married mother of two children, and she credits the elders of her church with her very survival.

"I do know that I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the church," Ausderau declares. "I know that. I think had it just been my parents calling me to account, I wouldn't have listened. And I am very thankful, yes, that these men were strong enough [to] look past everything that I was to them on a worldly level, and see who I should be spiritually."

And Bill Harrell, Melodi's pastor and one of her church elders is also her father.

Harrell said, "There's an old puritan, it may have been Matthew Henry, who said, 'the bandage is always larger than the wound.' And the Lord bandaged us well, and covered with us with blessing beyond what we could have thought or imagined."

Ausderau said "I have a very happy and very honest life, and a better understanding of who I am and who the Lord wants me to be."

This story had a happy ending. But what about those cases in which the church member is unrepentant, and ultimately excommunicated from the church? Reverend Harrell, Albert Mohler and others say church discipline still works. And it is necessary because the peace and purity of the church is maintained.

If you'd like more information on church discipline and how it works, please visit the following resources: The Biblical Studies Foundation , Jay Adams Library: Handbook of Church Discipline .

Translate Page     

Print Page     

Email to a Friend    

A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.