Nice Church Discipline
Nice Church Discipline
It seems to be the assumption of the average Christian today that "niceness" is the foremost virtue that a Christian should exhibit. That assumption, however, comes not from the Word of God, but from the world around us. It is a by-product, if not the raison d'etre of the relativism that assaults us. The word "nice" is not even found in the Bible. In the English language "nice" is a term that can mean "good" but more often means "nonconfrontive." Nice people don't ruffle other people's feathers by bringing up unpleasant subjects. Nice people turn a blind eye when you find them being less than nice to you, or to others. Nice people don't point out inconsistencies in other people's walk. When a woman says a man is "nice" she often means he is spineless. He would be a good friend, but not a prospective husband, a good teddy bear, but not much of a guard dog.
The evangelical redefinition of "love" to mean "niceness" frequently goes beyond a mere sense of weakness. It not only weakens us, but assaults the very word of God. It not only makes our relationships superficial, and our communities loose, it too often hijacks one of the three great marks of the church, the grace of discipline. In our day it is a greater evil to confront sin than it is to commit sin in the first place. The greatest commandment no longer is, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind soul and strength, and your neighbor as yourself' but "Judge not, lest you be judged." When sincere Christians actually take seriously the command to hold each other accountable, to admonish and rebuke one another, they often find themselves to be the ones labeled as "divisive" and guilty of "contumacy." I have seen or heard of many examples of this in evangelical churches over the years, and it is just as common in Reformed and Presbyterian churches as it is among the Baptists and Pentacostals. One large non-denominational church in my hometown has only excommunicated one person in their 25 year history. His offence? He brought a fellow church member to the elders because the man refused to repent of adultery. Instead of dealing with the adulterer they excommunicated him for contumacy.
Perhaps people don't like dealing with sin because most of us have skeletons in our own closet that we don't want brought to light. This is just as true for elders and pastors as it is for the average person. When laymen confront an elder in sin and the elder hardens his heart, the Bible requires that the people confronting him bring public charges before the church. In that case the most common outcome is that the persons bringing the charges will be labeled as troublemakers. No one wants to go to all the trouble of looking into these matters. No one even wants to believe that their spiritual leaders could fall into gross and heinous sin. And besides, it isn't "nice" to accuse people of sins. We don't like having to publicly deal with sin in church officials because it gives the church and the denomination bad press and reminds us all of how yucky our own sins are. We would prefer to just forget about our sins. One need not be in a seeker sensitive church to be in a place in which sin is skated over lightly. The Bible does indeed say that God forgets our sins; but we have to repent of them first.
As Christians we are called to be imitators of Christ. During His earthly ministry our Lord confronted sin in both high and low places, and it did not earn Him any popularity. No one, at least when He still walked the earth, ever made the mistake of calling Jesus, "Nice." In fact, Jesus' persistent exposure of the sins of others got Him publicly executed. His cleansing of the Temple was not very nice. Turning over tables and whipping the respected operators of the currency exchange business was not a pleasant thing for Him to do. Publicly confronting the Pharisees about their hypocrisy did not support the status quo.
We need to understand that godly love requires godly confrontation. The call to discipline isn't the call to mute, or set aside love, but to act upon it. I'm not arguing that we have to forget about love sometimes and think instead of discipline. Proverbs tells us that the parent who fails to discipline his child "hates his son." By implication, the shepherds who fail to discipline the flock hate the sheep as well. The Bible also tells us that God subjects us to trials and tribulations because He disciplines those that He loves. If you love your brother, you do not turn a blind eye when you find he has been committing adultery, abusing his authority, or stealing. If you love your brother you will approach him in love but firmly discuss with him what the Word of God says about his sin. This requires first confessing our own sins, because our Lord teaches us that we will be judged by the standard we use to judge others.
The Word teaches us that discipline is the immune system of the Church. In both Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 3 we are taught that a brother in sin must be confronted, first privately and then publicly. If he refuses to repent he is to be cast out of the church. That isn't very nice. But Hell is a terrible place. And it is far worse to quietly stand by as people go to Hell and take others with them.
A healthy church is not a nice church. A healthy church knows the difference between love and niceness. It has a compassion that drives discipline. A healthy church also removes the evil from her midst, for the sake of the flock. It isn't a fun job. But it is the duty of every Christian man to confront evil in the world, and especially in the Church.