Welcome to Part 18 of the weekly release of my book, Unless God Builds It: A Proposal to Radically Rethink the Church.
In the last post, we completed Chapter 5 and looked at why human intellect cannot understand the gospel. We discussed how true spiritual authority comes only from being with Jesus and receiving revelation from the Holy Spirit, rather than from academic degrees or theological study alone.
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In this post, we begin Chapter 6: Church Discipline. We explore why correct, loving discipline is the most critical missing ingredient for real spiritual growth, and why every true community—including and especially the Church—must demand conformity to its identity in order to survive.
Church Discipline
The Missing Ingredient for Growth
Thus far, I’ve set out to provide you with what I believe to be the most important missing design elements in today’s Church according to God’s architecture. These are significant enough (compared to a host of other less significant elements) that if any one of them is missing, the Body of Christ simply cannot thrive.
In that regard, my work here is not yet finished, for there are yet a few more concepts that I hope to establish, which are crucial for our mission.
I’ll repeat myself in saying that the house-church model is no guarantee for a healthy church, which is partly why I have not written any chapter on it. To be sure, more house churches fail than not. And from what I can tell, it’s usually because they, too, are missing one or more of these essential features.
Nowhere do I think this is more obvious than in regard to the topic of “church discipline.” It seems to me that in nearly every kind of church, the practice of church discipline—particularly the part of escalating an issue when someone will not repent—is so rare that, with the exception of the public removal of church leaders, I cannot remember but a few stories I’ve ever heard of it happening in a church besides my own. God forgive me, I do not intend to portray myself or my church as superior to others; I am only making an honest observation. And, of course, the fact that I’ve observed this doesn’t mean that church discipline isn’t happening anywhere, but it certainly means that it isn’t happening enough.
I think we should agree, as a whole Church, that a good indicator of our corporate obedience to Christ on this matter (see Matthew 18:15-18 and Luke 17:3-4) is whether anyone who has been a part of the Church for some time can easily pull from their memory an occasion (ideally within their own church) where an issue of unrepentant sin was identified and escalated properly, and that it did not leave the community with a bad taste in their mouth, but encouraged and enlightened.
For what it’s worth, this is not a tall order—no taller than saying that any child should be able to pull from their memory a time when they or one of their siblings suffered a consequence of not obeying their parents. If a child cannot do so, we may rightly conclude that their parents have not loved them well.
“For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. (Hebrews 12:6–8)
Yes, discipline—when understood properly—is an act of love, to which we are called above all things. And so, I exhort my brothers and sisters, in the name of Love, to learn and submit to God’s instruction on this matter.
As we begin, it is worth acknowledging that nowhere in any English translation of the Bible will you find the exact phrase “church discipline,” so I remain open to better terminology. Perhaps words like “correction,” “accountability,” “training,” or “speaking truth in love” are as much or even more appropriate. Whatever we choose to call it, it has to do with believers upholding and/or enforcing the gospel within the Church—reminding one another of our present union with Christ, of God’s promises toward us, of his command for repentance/faith, and of the coming judgment for those who do not repent and believe.
As for the term “discipline,” we’d do well not to think of the word as necessarily having to do with punishment, but rather, correction (i.e., for the purposes of training), which this Bible verse alludes to:
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11)
Athletes understand that when a coach corrects their form, he isn’t punishing them; he’s pointing out a weakness so that they will grow and perform better. It would be very odd for an athlete to get offended by this, or to interpret the coach’s corrections as punishments or as personal attacks. The need for correction is one of the main reasons to have a coach to begin with. We should view our relationships with one another—that is, our brothers and sisters in Christ—the same way.
Community Demands Conformity
First, I’d like to address one area of discomfort surrounding the issue: most of us don’t like conflict. And because we don’t like conflict, we tend to avoid telling others how to live or what to do, let alone making judgments about the state of another’s soul. However, as we will see, if we want any semblance of deep Christian community, we must grow beyond this discomfort and learn to judge one another rightly. “For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. ‘Purge the evil person from among you’” (1 Corinthians 5:12).
Every type of community has an identity—that is, something that makes them them. It could be as simple as citizens living in the same city, fans rooting for the same football team, or relatives in the same family. It could also be more complex, like a group of friends who don’t exactly know what brings them together and makes them click, but still, there is something—past experiences they share, their trust in one another’s loyalty, common interests, etc. Notice the words “same,” “common,” and “share.” This is the essence of community. If you subtract all our differences that we’re willing to put up with, as well as our commonalities that are merely convenient but not ultimately necessary, what you’re left with is the sameness that makes up our community’s true identity—the “glue,” so to speak, that holds us together. The biblical word for this is fellowship (Greek: koinonia), which means “the state of having things in common.”
It pains me that I have to go out of my way to make this point, but we live in a confused world. From the pit of hell, it seems, has come the lie that we are not allowed to protect our sameness, nor should we dare even name it, for that would inherently exclude those who don’t share it with us, which is a “very bad” thing to do. This idea, of course, only applies at the devil’s convenience. He’s more than happy to let us rejoice in our sameness, as long as it has nothing to do with things pertaining to truth and righteousness, to life and godliness. And this is easy to prove with a quick example:
Twelve women meet for a monthly book club. By joining the book club, they implicitly agreed to read the Book of the Month and discuss it when they gather. This is their “sameness,” part of their social contract. One woman (let’s call her Amy), however, never reads the books and never shows interest in discussing the books, but she attends each week. When asked a question about the Book of the Month, she has no answer except, “Sorry, I didn’t get to reading it this time.” When asked a question about something other than the book, she goes on and on without taking a breath, so much so that the others don’t feel she is respecting their time together.
Any sensible person can see that Amy is not actually a part of this community but an outsider. No one should be ashamed to say to her: “Amy, this isn’t a gossip group; we don’t just come together for random chatter and friendship. We want you to be a part of the book club, but only on the condition that you’ll participate in the book studies like the rest of us, or else we ask that you leave.” This ultimatum is not unfair or unkind. It is an honest declaration of the group’s identity, which preserves the group for everyone’s benefit and invites Amy to actually become a part of it for the first time.
If the group wants to keep its original identity and purpose intact (and there is nothing wrong with wanting to do so—it’s just a book club, for goodness’ sake!), there are only two real solutions: (1) Amy must conform to the group’s identity by participating like all the others or (2) she must leave the group.
I hope you can see how painfully obvious this is—that is, the inherent right (and at times, the obligation) possessed by members of a community to protect its identity. Every type of community demands conformity of its members, without which it would not be a community. The question is not whether it demands conformity, but what kind of conformity it demands. A bowling league has the right to require its members to bowl; a rock band has the right to require its members to perform, or else there would be no such thing as bowling leagues and rock bands. No logical person would condemn these communities for demanding conformity to bowling or rock and removing members who won’t participate. It is clear that they ought to.
But as I said, our society has lost this sort of clarity the nearer we get to things that pertain to the heart of God. I don’t desire to comment on the cultural contagion that exists outside the Church, but if you try, it shouldn’t take you long to think of multiple examples where a community’s demand for conformity is questioned or even despised, where the acceptable and necessary rules of community (as discussed above) are no longer quite as obvious to our society as they used to be. And this delusion has made its way into the most significant community of all, that is, the Church itself. This shouldn’t surprise us too much, for the devil hates our community. So what better way to destroy it than to make us doubt whether we have any right at all to demand conformity from one another.
But we do have the right. And in this case, not only the right, but the obligation—for God commands it of us. And so the question then becomes, What is it that makes us us? What is our group identity, the thing that we share which, if we didn’t, we would not be the Body of Christ at all? What type of conformity must we require of those in our midst, without which the very foundation of our community is threatened?
The answer is quite simple, and it is found in the gospel we’ve already discussed. What makes us the Body of Christ, fundamentally, is our union with Christ. Each of our spirits, through faith in Christ, has been joined with his Spirit, and we now have his life inside of us. This “life of Christ,” “Spirit of Christ,” “identity in Christ,” or whatever you want to call it, is precisely what we share—it is the substance of our fellowship—and everything else meaningful flows out of that reality.
So then, if Christ is what we share—not just the idea of him, but him—then conformity to Christ is what we must require, which just so happens to be God’s calling upon our lives (see Romans 8:29). Therefore, anyone who is not interested in being conformed to the image of Christ is, by definition, not a member of his Body and has no business being in our midst. They must leave or be cast out, lest we be consumed by them.
Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? (Galatians 5:9 and 1 Corinthians 5:6)
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Questions for the Comments:
Why do you think the practice of church discipline (especially correcting unrepentant sin) is so rare in the modern Church?
If true fellowship (koinonia) means "having things in common," what is the difference between legalistic conformity and the conformity to the image of Christ that the Bible demands of us?
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In Christ,
Jake