Excellent. We need this lesson.

 

It is important because the modern church has turned Matthew 18:15-17 into the "church discipline" passage, rather than the "Christ pursuing his stray lamb" passage, so that when one believer goes to another believer and exposes his or her sin in private - the whole thing is regarded as disciplinary by the church - when it is not disciplinary, but restorative - it is how Christ has said He will pursue His stray lambs.

I think you conflate terms and in doing so make restoration and discipline exclusive categories when the reality is that restoration is a category of discipline. But so is excommunication. Restoration does not necessarily require excommunication, but excommunication would always require the pursuit of restoration.

If you look at the beginning of Matthew 18, we get the context. This is in view of the world tempting the sheep. That translates that if the church does nothing about it, cutting off hand, foot, plucking out the eye, et cetera, it becomes as the world because it condones it. The zeal of the Lord for his church and her purity is in view. Those who would neglect that are in the Lord's words in danger of being thrown in to the hell of fire themselves.

The reason I say you conflate the terms is found in the same section of Mat 18: "And if he refuses to listen even to the church, (attempted restoration) let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector (ex-communication)." Two things to be noted about this is first, the ministry of reconciliation requires that we preach the Gospel to the Gentile and tax collector, which is a way of saying those in the world. A brother acting worldly is to be evangelized in that sense, and by disciplining we are preaching to the world, also. The brother should be disciplined, prayerfully, hoping that God will grant him repentance. Excommunication is the last ditch attempt at restoration. Hopefully, the severity will be enough to destroy the flesh. But it also tells us another thing. The keys which bind are judicial and the idea is that the one refusing to listen is to be made as one in the world. So the traditional rendering is right and that is, this speaks of disciplinary action- from going to the brother, to bearing witness, to trial and finally judgement. Then, in view of repentance, how many times should we be willing to do this, seven times seventy?

 

(continued)

Listen to the passage, while it is true that someone might wander away, this is about putting internal wanderers out. Which makes little sense if the passage is primarily about finding a wanderer who is out and bringing him in. It encompasses that, but not primarily. This is first, and foremost, about one who is in fellowship and establishing a adjudicatory means of disciplining them. Now, if we see what this means in reference to Paul's instruction about putting one out and that after the due penalty of separating and repentance the separated brother is to be brought back in and not cast away such that bitterness of soul would over take him, we see the Gospel being exercised. The world should see that we are disciples by our loving disciplinary handling of the church.

So there are two things to discipline. There is the issue of negative punishments and positive building. Punishment should never be to the cutting off without the ministry of reconciliation, but as Christ never forsakes, Matthew 18 goes on in 21-35. We are to view the great debt that we have been forgiven as reason for forgiving our brother, for the debt they owe us (the church) is minuscule by comparison. But in that is the greater revelation of the forgiveness of sin which is the reconciling of the world to God by Christ.

Our hangup comes from the term discipline. In this day we view it as negative. The root however is disciple. It simply means to train up in the ways of righteousness, and just like Hebrews 12 where it says that the Father scourges his sons who he receives, so Christ gave to the church the keys of discipline, both positive and negative. But in the end the Lord desires that none of his children perish, but all come to repentance. That is our goal, growth and maturity, not capital punishment. It is our goal also that the unity which the world sees is a truth spoken in love and love requires a father to train up by both rod and staff.

When Jacob had made up with Esau, he bid Esau go on without him; because Jacob had with him some little lambs, and would not drive them as hard as he would a mature flock, because doing so would only kill them. When it comes to expectations in this matter, as in any spiritual matter: be discerning. Expectations must reflect the maturity of those involved.

That was Jacob's claim, but I think it had more to do with his character. He was a wimp and did not trust his brother, irrespective of the Lord's promise. Remember, it was Jacob, not Esau who was the deceiver. It was Jacob who was the momma's boy who didn't respect the Lord's word, that he even brought back to and buried in the heart of Israel the gods of Abraham. Jacob will further prove his weakness in taking wrong actions against his son's for their violation of a covenant in which they practice deceit. Because of that he would be at war with enemies that needed not to be. For their lying covenant, the children of Jacob would spend 430 years in captivity (my interpretation of the reason for it). Jacob remained Jacob, regardless of the vision he had. His character was of a man whose manhood was disjointed. It was only because of God's intervention that he was anything.

But I agree with the spirit with which you have written this. Not all sin, nor all individuals are alike, and we must be discerning, for our business is not to beat the servants but to disciple children as good fathers in the faith toward mature manhood in the likeness and knowledge of the Son of God, Ephesians 4:13.