Rethinking Church Discipline & Excommunication

In Reimagining Church (2008), I briefly discussed the topic of church discipline.

Recently, someone asked me to expand what I said about the topic, asking for my opinion on how church discipline worked in the early church.

I’ve already dealt with the first half of this question in another post. See How (Not) to Correct Another Christian.

Excommunicating a genuine Christian is a “horrible” experience. I say horrible because excommunicating a true believer (putting them out of a local assembly) is one of the most horrendous, heart-wrenching, dreadful things that can happen to a person.

Anyone who is involved in excommunicating someone (who has half a heart, that is) doesn’t want to be involved in the process.

Excommunication is discussed in several places in the New Testament. So it’s not an issue that can be conveniently ignored.

Matthew 18:15-17: If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over.  But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

1 Corinthians 5:4-12: So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord . . . Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people . . . “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

Romans 16:17: I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.

Whether you are part of an organic church or an institutional church, someday your church will have to bite the bullet and excommunicate someone for unrepentant sin.

Thankfully, in over 30 years of being a Christian, I’ve only seen four cases of excommunication.

In all four instances, a member of the body was persisting in one of the transgressions that Paul mentioned in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.

All of the sins listed in that text are community destroyers. Thus, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5, if the problem is ignored, the entire body will become infected because “a little leaven leavens the whole lump.”

In each of the four cases I’ve witnessed, an individual who was sinning against the body refused to stop. They were approached privately as Jesus taught in Matthew 18.

When the person refused to heed the correction of the one individual, two or three witnesses were brought in to bring the same correction to the person.

When their correction was refused, a process of two or three — and sometimes more — continued, pleading with the person to repent.

Sometimes this went on for a period of months, because the churches involved were incredibly patient and desperately wanted to see the person repent. I commend this approach. We’d want the same kind of forbearance if we were the sinning party (Matt. 7:12).

Finally, when the person stubbornly refused to stop sinning after countless attempts to bring them to repentance, the church disfellowshipped them.

One of the problems we have today, however, is that many Christians ignore when a person has been excommunicated. They will continue to “friend” the excommunicated person on social media (like Facebook and Twitter). This practically overturns the excommunication and causes toxic people to influence others with their sin and abuse, something that grieves the Holy Spirit.

My friend Barton has written a stunningly powerful article on the topic of excommunication, reclaiming its importance today. Here it is:

The Lost Practice of Church Discipline (Guest Post)

This piece was contributed by a pastor.

I remember well my days of pastoring and working in a denominational district office. Back then, I would get the occasional call from a pastor or church leader asking for a reference concerning a former church member or adherent.

In some cases, they would ask for a letter of recommendation assuring their staff that this person (or family) had been members in good standing and weren’t subject to church discipline.

They especially wanted to know if the person or family in question had a reputation of trouble-making.

The practice of “letters of commendation” is thoroughly biblical. In the New Testament era, if you relocated from one church to another, a “letter of commendation” went ahead of you.

That letter was to inform the church to which you were relocating if you had a “good report” or if you had a “bad report.”

Many organic and simple churches do not follow this practice at all, even though it’s wholly biblical and rooted in practical wisdom.

For example, let’s say that someone from church A (whether an institutional church or not) is excommunicated by the church for gross unrepentant sin.

Of course, “unrepentance” means the person doesn’t acknowledge his or her sin and they don’t stop committing it. In fact, they may even justify it.

So the person is excommunicated from church A as Scripture teaches. Let’s assume that this is a thoroughly legitimate excommunication.

The entire process of Matthew 18 has been followed. The person was approached in private, but they refused correction. They were then approached with 2 or 3 others in the church (perhaps on multiple occasions), and they still rebuffed the correction.

Only as a last resort, the person’s sin was made known to the church and they were asked to leave the fellowship as both Jesus and Paul both taught (see Matt. 18; 1 Cor. 5; Rom. 16).

This person, having been excommunicated, relocates to attend church B.

Church B is completely unaware of this person’s past sinful behavior and excommunication. So church B gladly receives this individual into their fellowship.

In some cases, the excommunicated person may bad-mouth church A, complaining of being “mistreated,” spinning the truth to suit his or her own purposes.

Church B, unfortunately, never thinks to call church A to find out what really happened and hear their side of the story.

This scenario is more common than we might want to believe.

Unfortunately, many people who gravitate toward simple forms of church have had negative experiences with institutional churches and sometimes other simple forms of church.

Sometimes those negative experiences were because of dysfunction or high-handed hierarchical control on the part of those churches.

But others times, it’s not that at all. The reality is that the person was disfellowshipped due to a pattern of causing division or other unrepentant sin.

In the first-century church, letters of commendation — recommending a person or warning others against them — were not just a matter of “protocol.”

It was crucial and sometimes a matter of life or death. A good example of this was Saul, before he was known as Paul, who had a reputation of scourging the church of the living God.

Saul actively hunted down believers in Christ to imprison them and even stood by approving in the case of public executions (Acts 8:1-3).

As we know, this same Saul later became integral within the body of Christ as a leading member, teacher, and preacher of the gospel to the Gentiles.

There was an extended time, however, where the Christian communities had to transition from justified fear and caution to unrestrained acceptance and trust.

This didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen without cautious “baby-steps” that were facilitated by already trusted men within the body who placed their reputations and lives on the line to vouch for Saul and assure others that a genuine change had truly taken place in his life.

Barnabas ended up being the key to Saul becoming Paul, enabling Paul to enter into the local churches with open arms. Barnabas was known and trusted by all within the Jerusalem church as a man who evidenced the fruit of the Spirit.

After Saul’s experience on the Damascus road and an extended time of retreat where he came to know Jesus personally, Saul returned to Jerusalem and sought to meet with the believers there, including the apostles.

Before Paul could be accepted by the church, it took Barnabas’s testimony to assure the church and the apostles that Paul was “safe” to God’s people (Acts 9:26-28).  It was only because of the personal relationship that Barnabas had developed with Paul that the concerns of the Jerusalem church were overcome and Paul was able to receive an endorsement from the apostles.

Paul understood the importance of being vouched for in this regard and he practiced the same in his subsequent ministry.

Paul would commend people to local fellowships who were coming from other fellowships. In other cases, Paul would warn people against those who had a history of divisiveness. (See 2 Cor. 3:1-3; 1 Cor. 16:15-18; 2 Cor. 8:16-24; Eph. 6:21-22; Col. 4:7-10; Phil. 2:19-30; 1 Cor. 4:17; 16:10-11; 1 Thess. 3:2; Acts 15:22-27; Rom. 16:1-2; Acts 18:27 for both examples.)

Philemon is a positive letter of commendation on behalf of the runaway slave Onesimus.

To repeat, Paul would warn others against people who sought to do him harm by maligning him and thereby hurting the churches within his care.

Paul understood that there was forgiveness and restoration available to those who attacked the Lord’s servants, but only when true repentance was evidenced.

Nobody knew that better than him, since Paul attacked the church and was later forgiven and received after his repentance.

Until there was a time of repentance, however, Paul knew that those who sought to make a name for themselves at the expense of others to promote their own teachings and establish their own name were a deadly threat to young fellowships and new believers.

Repentance means a change of actions. And it’s evidenced by an apology to the offended parties and a change of behavior over a sustained period of time based upon a change of mind or heart. It’s not just a show of regret, emotion or lip-service.

Paul sometimes even named names and made public warnings as evidenced in cases like Alexander the Coppersmith (2 Tim. 4:14-15). Paul also referenced a group known now as the Judaizers who would follow him into places he previously ministered, slandering him with lies and false reports, attempting to draw Gentile converts into their legalistic practices (Gal. 1:6-7).

By their very nature, organic fellowships and simple churches seek to establish deeper fellowship, interaction and trust without hierarchies and formal policies.

Because of that, however, they are particularly susceptible to people who have been excommunicated by other fellowships because of a history of quarrelsomeness, contentiousness, divisiveness — and other serious sins condemned in the New Testament.

Do not discount or neglect the wisdom of the early church as demonstrated by Paul in looking for commendations from others who are known and trusted. By the same token, do not discount the warnings of others about a person if those warnings are current and from multiple credible sources.

When a local fellowship or a group of leaders has excommunicated someone for serious and ongoing unrepentant sin, the body of Christ has spoken.

Therefore, for a church or individual to receive the person who has been excommunicated by a local fellowship or group of leaders on biblical grounds is received into fellowship, it’s a denial of the oneness of the body. More seriously, it’s a denial of the voice of Jesus on earth.

Only when the people who were involved in the excommunication can verify true repentance can fellowship can be restored to the individual.

To ignore this principle is to invite the enemy “into the camp” and he will use it to wreak all sorts of havoc and confusion among Christians.

If we are going to take the New Testament seriously about how we are to gather, we must also take seriously the principle of the oneness of the body of Christ, and this includes the practice of letters of commendation — both of positive recommendations and of warnings.

Of course, warning letters are sometimes bogus and written by people who have a sinful agenda. Here are some of the marks of a false warning:

1. It’s written or headed up by one person.

2. The accusing person has never gone to the individual they are accusing privately to hear the person’s side of the story (per Matt. 18).

3. The accusing person has not brought others to go to the individual privately (per Matt. 18).

4. The accusing person has no relationship with the person they are accusing, but are deriving their accusations from second, third, and fourth hand sources and there is a discernable hidden agenda present.

Such letters of warning should be ignored out of hand. They are virtually always written by someone who is seeking to smear another person and are driven by evil motives.

On the other hand, if a letter of warning is signed by multiple credible witnesses and those witnesses followed the process of Matthew 18 — privately pleading with the person to repent, taking others to do the same, and then finally, taking it to the church — then such letters should be seriously heeded and taken to reflect the voice of the body.

Without evidence of an offending person’s changed heart and changed behavior, reconciliation with those who have harmed others in the past leads to “leavening the whole lump” and defiling others with sin. This is why the practice of excommunication — as gut-wrenching as it is — was practiced in the first century churches.  Restoration of the individual was the goal but not at the price of quarrels and division within the body as a whole.

Apart from the work of Christ in our midst and within the members of His body, the past is a good indicator of what might happen in the future. Only when the past has been dealt with by true repentance is it gone forever, never to be mentioned again.

See also 5 Reasons to Defriend Someone on Facebook