Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 148:590 (Apr 1991)
Article: Perimeters of Corrective Church Discipline
Author: Ted G. Kitchens

BSac 148:590 (Apr 91) p. 201

Perimeters of Corrective Church Discipline

Ted G. Kitchens

Senior Pastor
Christ Chapel Bible Church, Forth Worth, Texas

The church has often wrestled with the question, What specific sins in believers call for disciplinary action? In the Reformation, Luther threatened to excommunicate a person who intended to sell a house for 400 guilders that he had purchased for 30. Luther suggested 150 guilders and labeled the offender as one in need of discipline because of unbridled greed.1

It has been the practice to compile lists of sins deserving church discipline. Jescke writes,

Numerous writers in the history of Christianity have attempted to compile a catalog of sins that offers a reliable guide for initiating church discipline. Some have even sought to establish a graduated scale of sins that rather automatically triggers the appropriate response from the church—perhaps from mild admonition through public censure to full excommunication. When a given act is committed, it needs only to be classified in order for church machinery, set for the proper cycle, to be set in motion.2

Puritans in the time of Cotton Mather considered a broad range of sins worthy of discipline: “swearing, cursing, sabbath-breaking, drunkenness, fighting, defamation, fornication, unchastity, cheating, stealing, idleness, lying, and such Heresies as manifestly overturn

BSac 148:590 (Apr 91) p. 202

the Foundations of the Christian Religion and of all Piety.’“3 Other lists of discipline-inducing offenses have included matters of political and social evil, slave-holding, participation in the civil government, involvement in the military and in war, child labor, excessive profits, collaboration with oppressive governments, usury, racial discrimination, smuggling, cock-fighting, bull-baiting, tax evasion, and rioting.4

According to Matthew 18:15 the process of church discipline begins with the simple notice, “If your brother sins…” (cf. Luke 17:3). But this phrase is general and offers little specific guidance. Does it mean all sin, every sin? How narrow or broad are the perimeters for church discipline set forth by Christ?

A list, in itself useful enough, can nevertheless become a rulebook that quickly replaces the Word and Spirit of God for needed guidance in matters of church discipline. Lists can engender legalism and can also produce blind spots, that is, pre...