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I was wondering if anyone could help me out here.

I know that church discipline is sorely lacking in today's evangelical church. Many church leaders don't even consider it anymore and let the problematic behavior of certain church members slide away.

However, my question is in regards to what types of sins are liable to church discipline? For instance, we know that churches that still practice church discipline will discipline members who physically murder, commit adultery against their spouse, engage in financial frauds, or sell narcotics. However, what about the "less obvious" sins? For example, sins like gossiping, coveting, envying, or disregarding the poor? Shouldn't members who also commit those sins on a constant basis be liable to church discipline? Didn't Paul say that those who envy will not inherit the Kingdom (Gal 5:21)? Didn't James tell his readers that those who keep disregarding the needy are not truly saved (Jas 2:13)?

My question is: how do we decide what types of sins are liable to church discipline and what types of sins are not?

First is there any church rules that is required if you join or should there be?

You can't have church discipline without rules.
Rules are needed if one would want to become a member of a church.

If one is a Christian the rules are based on the Scripture, on God's discipline He disciplines all that he loves.

"So I say live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the sinful nature" Galatians 5:16-17
"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious:" Galatians 5:19-21

If a behavior is clearly sinful, I think the issue should not be what kind of sin it is, but whether the individual is willfully persisting in it, showing no willingness to repent.

1 Corinthians 5:6-8 6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast affects the whole batch of dough? 7 Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough – you are, in fact, without yeast. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 So then, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of vice and evil, but with the bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth. Context (NET)

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"The person who has my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him." (John 14:21)

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The NT is generally not prescriptive about these things. It is expected that some wise Christians will be discerning about action to take.

Galatians 6:1-5 says how this should happen.

You may also like to read Matthew 18 as stories about church discipline. The Matthean church appears to have taken over the synagogue practice of requiring the evidence of two or three witnesses. It has a four stage process for excluding a persistent offender. The burden of responsibility for reconciliation is on the person who knows the fellow member is sinning.

And also note that this passage is sandwiched between passages which expect a loving relationship.
Before it is the parable of the lost sheep telling us that if your brother goes astray then go out and bring him back because your Father in Heaven does not want him lost.
After it we have Paul asking if he should forgive 7 times. Now this is an advance on the rabbinic position that held it was sufficient to forgive 4 times, but nowhere near enough for our Lord who said we have to forgive 77 times (or 7 times 70 times). This is not a number to be taken literally!
For final emphasis Matthew reminds us that Jesus told the parable of the unforgiving debtor. If God has forgiven you (and him) so much then you/your church should also forgive your brother and sister.

_________________
John

My soul looks back in wonder at how I got over

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

John said, " You may also like to read Matthew 18 as stories about church discipline."

In reading Matthew 18:15 I think that is more of sinning against a person not a "religion" which is the system of faith and worship.



Being part of a church fellowship and knowing that a person is involved as Overseers or Deacons, Bishops, 1Timmothy 3:1-2 is different 1John 5:16-17

A person sin that cause Divisions in the Church Paul in his letter to the Corinthians need to be read carefully and prayerfully and then acted upon.
God bless

Concerning church discipline, as stated by others, we have one documented incident in the church of Corinth. In addition we have a procedure in Mt. 18:16-17. There should also be a procedure in your church constition on reasons and procedures for church discipline.
I remember a while back, in the Wall St. Journal (of all places), an article on church discipline. It gave an example of a woman, who due to gossip, was given church discipline which prohibited here from attending the church were the discipline took place. I cannot give you the date and page of the article since I am at church and not at home in my study but I have the article if anyone is interested.
When I wrote our church constitution I followed Matt. 18 and stated, in short, that the reason to impeach any staff member including the pastor and his staff was for several reasons: immorality, negligence of duties, absentism, and apathy. I stated that the two should meet and if they cannot come to an agreement that they should come before the board who would investigate the matter and then give each a 24 hour deadline to prepare their case (defense) to the board. When a vote of the board is done either the situation is dropped or discipline is to be executed.
However, I also said if one is found guilty or they repent a ministry of restoration is to take place. We need to be balanced in our approach to people; too many times we "shoot our own wounded" without a minstry of restoration.

What do we mean by "church discipline"? As a pastor, I have confronted folks individually about their sinful acts. I've also been a part of disciplining more publicly when it was a more public sin that required some form of public discipline. I've been confronted myself about what was perceived to be inappropriate. In all of these cases the goal was restoration and reconciliation if possible. Some sins do demand a more public and corporate discipline while many do not. Most are also subject to individual understandings rather than to straight-forward public knowledge. To my understanding, not all sins are equal (though all in one way or another all separate us from one another and from the Lord) and in need of the same discipline, though all may be subject to some form of discipline (if made known).

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Gary M said,


Isn't Church a place where sinful persons receive pardon/forgiveness?
I don't have all the facts, but I don't think I would like to belong to a church where a sinner is not wanted. John 8:10-11

Restoration and reconciliation would be the perfered option.

God send His love like sunshine in His warm and gentle way.
By the way we react is the key "by their fruits" John 4:1

People who love Jesus want to be obedent to His call upon their lives, there are never new truths---truth is eternal---we must never judge a verse in isolation, instead we must look at the Scripture in the entire to make decisions on individual issues.
Paul told Timothy to learn how to handle the Word of truth accurately, the Scripture will never contradict God's character.
God Bless

There are a couple of points about this.

We tend to look at the Bible through our contemporary individualistic culture. In Matthew's time it was very much more the case that being a Christian meant being part of a community of disciples.

You have also isolated verse 15 out of the context of the whole chapter which is about how the church needs to deal in God's love with the one who has strayed. You may have been influenced by translations which say "if your brother sins against you" "Against you" was added by later scribes and the NetBible translation correctly does not include the phrase.

Consider also about sinning. You can sin against God, and against people He has created. Do you really think that you can sin against religion (quotes removed), against a system of faith and worship?

_________________
John

My soul looks back in wonder at how I got over

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Scripture is quite clear that restoration and reconciliation are the preferred option, and that the hopeful goal of church discipline is to bring about repentance, restoration, and reconciliation. The sad fact is that sometimes people refuse to repent, making restoration and reconciliation impossible.

Good question, Rick. IMO, church discipline means excommunication -- turning one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. We may sometimes take other actions when people have sinned and repented, such as removing them from leadership ministries for a time, but I view those more as actions taken for the good of the congregation than as disciplinary actions. And I think that when individuals have truly repented of sins committed they are sensitive to how what they have done might adversely affect the congregation and they willingly submit to those adjustments. In some cases I think it's important for the offender to publicly confess his sin before the church and ask for forgiveness. Here again, I don't see that as a matter of discipline, but something done for the protection of the flock (so that others will not be tempted to follow their example in sinning) and for the sake of the entire church's witness for Christ.

_________________
"The person who has my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him." (John 14:21)

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I guess I would agree that perhaps the notion of "discipline" by the Church could actually belong more to the extremity of dealing with sin, but I personally think of it more broadly. I'm thinking of it covering everything from a private discussion where there is some sense of confronting the sinfulness all the way to some form of excommunication as you have described Cale (Gideon). I do agree though that when we speak of "church discipline" it really does tend to refer to issues that do need to be confronted and dealt with beyond a one-on-one approach. Perhaps Themelios could clarify just what he means by this in order to better facilitate a common ground for the discussion.

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I agree with a broad view of discipline, but I would not include excommunication. Excommunication is beyond discipline. It means that the person cannot belong to the community of disciples. In the Roman Catholic tradition it is a dreadful thing. It means that the person is no longer in communion with God as what they have bound on earth is also bound in heaven. That interpretation is not made in Protestant Churches but it is still like being 'outside the camp' where the blessings of being a part of God's people is not available. Doing it is counter to the whole tenor of the Gospel and should give us aching souls if we have to do it. When it happens I feel a sense of sharing in a failing of the Christian community.

_________________
John

My soul looks back in wonder at how I got over

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

The excommunication that I have in mind is to deal with public persistent unrepentant sin. This would appear then to require what Paul addressed to the Corinthian church in 1 Cor. 5:1-13. Expulsion from the congregation and cutting off relations with him and thus handing him "over to Satan" until such a time as he repents that he might perhaps be "saved on the day of the Lord". He also gave such instructions in Rom. 16:17; 2 Thess. 3:6, 14, 15; 2 Tim. 3:2-5; Titus 3:10 and even the treatment of false teachers per 2 John 1:10. Did not Jesus instruct the Church to treat anyone as a "pagan or tax-collector" who refuses to repent of their public sin once given ample opportunity by the wronged party (Matt. 18:15-18)? They are to be cut off from the fellowship of the saints and thereby to not participate in the life of the Church nor in salvation for that matter unless they should repent (this latter seems to be the thrust of the passage).

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John, I completely agree with what Rick has said. While I agree with you, as I'm sure Rick does, that it should and does give us aching souls if we have to excommunicate someone, doing so is not at all counter to the tenor of the gospel. If you will remember, when Jesus began to proclaim the gospel, the first word of his message was "Repent!" Repentance from sin is so closely linked with faith in Christ that Scripture often uses the terms "faith" or "repentance" to represent both faith and repentance, as in Acts 11:18. And Jesus was quite emphatic about the necessity for repentance in Matthew 7:21-23, which resonates in other passages such as Hebrews 12:14; James 1:22-24; 1 John 2:3-6, and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.

_________________
"The person who has my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him." (John 14:21)

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I have not said that putting a person out of fellowship should never occur. But I am wary of doing this with a cavalier attitude.
I grew up in the Brethren. Within the variety of Brethren were (and still are) those who would separate out (or read out) brothers or sisters with impunity. They adopted the position of "It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error." rather than "I would infinitely rather bear all their evil, than separate from their good".
They only saw Matt 18:15-18 and ignored Matt 18:12-14, Matt 18:21-22, and acted like the bad slave in Matt 18:23-35. They are the one of Matthew 7:21-23 who will claim they were expelling demons in His Name and Matt 18:6 applies to them. They do not see that The Father does not want any of His children to be lost ( Matt 18:14 ) and they never did go after the lost sheep.

In fact, I have never seen anyone go and bring back the lost sheep. YMMV.

_________________
John

My soul looks back in wonder at how I got over

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes