Where 2 or 3 are gathered...

So today I'd like to comment on Matthew 18:15-20. In this passage, Jesus says that if you see your brother in sin, you should go to him privately and confront him with love. If he does not respond, then you should bring another person with you and confront him together. If he does not respond to this, bring the matter before the entire church, and if he still does not repent - "Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst."

Treating someone like a Gentile or a tax-collector means rejecting that person socially. For Jews in that time, Gentile's and tax-collectors were outcasts. Jesus says here that when we corporately judge someone who is in unrepentant sin, that person is judged by God. This is a hugely serious point. There is real spiritual power in the church discipline process.

I comment on this passage here for two reasons. First of all, to take another shot at the erroneous, but apparently very prevalent, notion that being a follower of Jesus means you never confront people with their sin because that would supposedly be unloving. Of course, in reality, love seeks for the purity of its object. Therefore, true love sometimes must confront, but not for the purpose of crushing the person, it is for the purpose of restoring the sinning individual to fellowship with God and the community. As Paul says to the Corinthians with regard to the man he judged in 1 Corinthians 5, "...so that on the contrary you should rather forgive and comfort him, otherwise such a one might be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. Wherefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him" (2 Corinthians 2:7-8). This statement was made after the guy repented of his sin. If we fail to treat an unrepentant brother like a "Gentile or a tax-collector" we basically approve of his sin by our friendliness and he will feel no need to change.

Secondly, I want to say a couple things about the statement, "where two or three are gathered." I've been quoted this verse, completely out of its context of course, by several people in recent weeks. Dave also quoted it to me back in December when I was trying to convince him to come back to church. All of these guys seemed to think that that statement means you don't need to go to church. They interpret it to mean that anytime you're hanging out with your friends, that's good enough, church is unnecessary. Putting the statement in its context pretty much settles the issue. He is not saying we don't need church, he's saying that the church community, even a small segment of the community, has spiritual power from Christ to judge sin. This power, however, would not be accessible if one were not in fellowship with the body! It means exactly the opposite of what they think it means.