18:15-17
We now move on to a different topic, dealing with sin in the church. This is an area we tend to be very bad at. There is a phased approach to this. There are two principles at work here. The first is to save the man or woman, the brother or sister, and to do so while preserving the dignity of the man or woman. The second is that the sin must be dealt with. The attitude of the sinner may make it impossible for the first objective to be met, if that is the case the sin must still be dealt with.
So the first phase is to speak to the person one to one. Hopefully the person will see sense, repent and seek to put things right. If they do then that is a great success. However, the person may not listen. We do not always respond in the right way! If that is the case then two or three people are to go along to the person, so that the person may see sense and admit his guilt. The final phase is to go to the church. If that fails then they are to be expelled, treated as a tax collector or pagan. They are to be treated as no longer being part of the church. That may seem harsh to us, but it is the word of God, the words of Jesus. Sin is treated seriously by the gospel, by God, we have no right not to treat it seriously.
18:18-20
Jesus follows these words by teaching on prayer, but words that we usually take right out of context! The words on binding and loosing, and on “wherever two or three are gathered” are given in the context of church discipline. Most of us don’t like confrontation, we are very wary and fearful of doing the things spoken of in 18:15-17. Jesus is telling us that this is God’s way of doing things. When we do things in His name (and note that Jesus says “in my name”, no one who was just a prophet would say that) He is with us. This is not a licence to do what we like, it is when we act in Godly character, when we act according to His word.
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