Can I Church Discipline People Who Aren't Members of My Church?

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Christ Alone in the Face of Divine Judgment

But doom and despair on the radio. The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of Almighty God is hanging over our heads. They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed, and they will perish.

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

Whether Church Discipline Applies Outside One's Local Church

Darrell Bock. All right, Tim. The question for today's episode is, can I church discipline people who aren't a member of my church?

Tim Cynova. Well, I want to say yes, so we'll just go with that. Darrell Bock.

You just want to say yes, so that's your answer? Tim Cynova. Yeah, yeah. Darrell Bock. Tim, surely you have some other reason besides just that.

Tim Cynova. Obviously, no, in the sense of the full procedure or process or whatever. So when you think about the full process of church discipline, you have a variety of steps that start with a personal confrontation, and then you go and bring two or three witnesses that every fact may be established, and then if they refuse to listen to the witnesses, then you're going to essentially take it to the church.

And so in that kind of framework, that whole procedure is known collectively as, quote-unquote, church discipline, but then a lot of people misunderstand what's actually happening with that procedure in general, meaning that that's just kind of a procedure that is like a peacemaking procedure, like a biblical peacemaking procedure that is applied specifically to a local congregation.

But then just because you may or may not be a member of the same church with the individual who's sinned, who's a brother, if you see your brother sin against you, just because you both might not be formally members of the same church, like let's say that you're a member of a church that's two miles down the road from him, a different Baptist church or something like that, that doesn't mean that there's no peacemaking procedures that the Bible would call both people to, if that makes sense.

I mean, God says, blessed be the peacemakers, right? Blessed are the peacemakers, for theirs is the kingdom of God. So when you think about peacemaking, that's just a part of life. You think about conflict, that's a part of life in a fallen world.

So if your brother sins against you, you can have a brother of a local church sin against you, but then you can also have a Christian brother who sins against you who may work at a same job as you or live in the same home as you.

Like it could be your literal Christian brother in your immediate family who sins against you, who happens to go to a different church than you for whatever reason. So what do you do in that kind of situation?

Well, it would be very bizarre for you to talk to him about your brother, like your literal brother who sinned against you, to talk to him about his sin against you and confront him about it, and him just to look at you and say, hey man, Church Discipline doesn't apply to me because we're not members of the same church, right?

So that would be kind of ludicrous. So I mean, I think the Bible doesn't really imagine that kind of situation where someone would cop out in that kind of way. And so, I mean, these are just, I mean, this is just a good, these are good principles of peacemaking that can be applied to a wide variety of circumstances in general.

So you can apply them within like the immediate family, within a home, through, you know, Christian relationships that you have that are outside the church. You can apply these same kind of things to some degree, right?

Like, I mean, particularly the first couple steps. I mean, like, so let's say your Christian brother at work, like you work at the same job, he sins against you. What do you think you should do? You know, well, I guess I can't ever confront him because that's only applying to people in my church, you know?

It's like, well, no, I mean, go talk to him about it. And then, you know, if he refuses to acknowledge it and there's no one who's going to hold him accountable for it, yeah, you may bring two or three other people that you're not going to prepare.

So not prepared witnesses, but two or three other people just to establish every fact. And you say, hey, you know, man, like you stole my stuff, you know? Like, and I want to talk to you about this because we're not cool, right?

We're not right. And so I want to talk, so bring two or three other people with you in order to establish every fact. And so, like, I mean, I think you can, you just go as far as you can go, but I mean, you may not be able to get to a step where you tell it to the church, so to speak, right?

I can term, but I mean, you may talk to his church about it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like reach out to a pastor or something. Yeah. So, I mean, so I think that like, you're not meant to envision some sort of scenario where you're just completely and utterly hamstrung, no reconciliation is possible whatsoever.

There's no procedure that you can possibly follow just because you happen to go to a church that's a few miles from his church or something that are different churches. And so, I mean, yes, there's not like some kind of ecclesiastical authority that can decisively declare who's going to be in the right in this kind of scenario, um, you know, with the third step.

But I mean, these are just good principles in general that, you know, if your brother sins against you, you don't go gossip about him, right? You go talk to him between you and him alone that you may gain a brother.

If he refused to listen to you, like, you know, bring a few other people along as witnesses and say, Hey, you know, man, we're not seeing eye to eye. We're Christians. We should be able to resolve this.

God, can you help us like have a conversation? Because any kind of conversation we have is not proving fruitful. So, so I just think they're like, they're good kind of principles in general that can be applied, um, in a lot of different situations.

And, you know, I mean, if you're a father or a husband at home, I mean, these are like, these would be your principles that are operating, you know, step one and step two, way before you ever get to step three or something along those lines.

Right. Yeah. I, you know, I guess in my mind, I think of, um, you know, Paul with Peter, for example. So, so they're obviously not a part of the same local church. I mean, Paul is going all over Asia minor.

Um, you know, he's traveling all over the place, planting new churches, but then he, he, he hears about Peter, um, you know, basically refusing to refusing to eat with certain people and then going and claiming that those people are perfectly fine, you know, um, and they're welcome into the kingdom of God if they repent and, and, um, you know, so, so they have this issue and, and Paul says, he's telling other people, hey, I went to Peter, you know, and I, and I confronted him to his face about it.

Um, and, and so I guess, I guess in my mind, that's kind of the, that's the example that I jumped to. And they're, you know, uh, they're on the same level playing field in terms of, you know, their authority, they're, they're both apostles.

I mean, you could make, you might could even argue that Peter has, has more authority than Paul because Christ said that, um, Peter was the rock on which, uh, he would build his church, you know, so I, I, you know, I'm not necessarily saying that's, that's reality, but Catholics argue for sure.

Yeah, yeah, sure. They, but I'm just trying to point out, you know, they were, they were on the, you know, they were on the same level playing field. It's not like Paul had some kind of one-up on Peter in any, any, any kind of way, but then he felt totally free to confront Peter about, uh, what was truly sin.

And then, you know, thankfully Peter responded to that, right. And he, and he repented, right. Yeah. I mean, so personal.

Confrontation is not some, you know, principle that's unique to, you know, Matthew 18 or, or something along those lines. And so, you know, if you're asking me, like, should you church discipline? Well, all I'm trying to say is, well, this passage is collectively known as the church discipline passage.

You know, that's how we refer to it, but these are principles that should apply to a wide variety of situations where confrontation between brothers is going to be a reality, regardless of whether or not you're in the same church.

You know, if they're in your life, if you've, you're, you know, concerned about Christ's testimony, um, if you have preexisting relationships with them, this should just be natural part of life where you confront your brothers.

Right. So if you see your brother sin, you confront them. That's just, that should be your normal impulse, regardless of whether or not in the same church. Right. And then if like, it doesn't go well, you should be a peacemaker and you should want to try to fix it.

So you should want to bring people along to establish every fact at that point, you know, and there's been situations like this in my life where, you know, people are sinning against me in certain ways.

And like, I'm not content just to, you know, have like a relational break. And so I try to bring, you know, two or three other, you know, um, uh, people who are connected to the, you know, the individual in question.

And, you know, I mean, there is an impulse people have just to kind of cop out and say, yeah, no, I mean, I'm, this is a church discipline thing. This is part of a local congregation. It's like, but Hey, are you a peacemaker?

Do you want to fix the situation? Right. Do you want to help fix the situation? Like you can be like, you can be a part of that and blessed are peacemakers. So like, we, um, like we, we need to, um, deal with sin.

And, you know, I think sad reality is like most families, they don't really deal with sin like they should. And so then people just build bitterness and resentment. And, and, you know, a lot of it may be because, you know, they all go to different churches and there's no mechanism.

And then even the churches they go to, they're not going to actually practice these things. And so I just think, you know, um, everyone has to say, Hey, I take peacemaking seriously. I take reconciliation seriously.

As far as it depends on me, you know, I'm going to do everything possible like to live at peace with others. So, you know, it may not be possible. There may be a time where I shake the dust off my feet and say, Hey, I tried, but I want to know that I tried.

And that may be involved like me, like doing a personal confrontation, trying to work out with them. If that doesn't prove fruitful, getting a couple of people along, you know, that doesn't prove fruitful, go actually talking to the church and see if their church will help.

Out. Right. Now you're saying, you know, you're sort of using language like, Hey, this may involve this. It may involve this. It might be this, but then I guess the only, the only real question I have is, you know, the, the church discipline passage there in Matthew, it's a command from Jesus.

Like you do this. And then if that doesn't work, you do this. And then if that doesn't, you know, if that doesn't resolve the issue, then finally you do this, you know, and, and you're expected to go as far as it's required, you know, to resolve the situation up until that, that last, that third, you know, step where you're, you're essentially kicking them out of the church.

Now that's a command from Jesus. So when we're avoiding that, you know, we're, we're disobeying Jesus is, is it the same when we're talking about people outside of the church? Cause you're, you're using, it seems like you're using more of like a, you know, it could be this, but then Jesus is saying, do this, this, and this.

So, so, so if I'm, if I'm the person who's like, Hey, you know, I confronted them. I confronted them, but then, you know, it, it didn't work. You know, maybe I even tried to bring in a few more people, but we just, we just can't really see eye to eye on this.

You know, I'm not going to take this to the church. Are they are to their church? Are they in the wrong at that point? I'm saying they may not have a church.

You get what I'm saying? So there could be any number of situations that you could, you'd have to deal with. And so like you have one, like you have a very specific scenario about how to deal with, like how to pursue peacemaking within the context of a local assembly.

But then what I'm, what I'm trying to say is this assume certain principles that have broad and far reaching application in general, but because there's so many different kinds of scenarios that you can find yourself in, then like, I'm like, it's, it's hard to nail, like map down a universal procedure that's going to be able to be followed in every conceivable situation.

But I mean, I, if you read Matthew 18, 15, it says, if your brother sins gets you go tell him his fault between you and him alone, if he listens to you, you've gained a brother, which seems to me that you don't like that, that has universal application.

Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. Like meaning like you could just take that as at face value. You don't have to.

It doesn't take anything. It, you know, it doesn't take anything to go and talk to someone other than to just go and talk to someone. So that should apply in pretty much every single situation. Right.

Yeah. I mean, and as I've worked like secular jobs or whatever, those people who like say that they're a Christian and they're sending in certain ways, I mean, I'm not shy about saying, Hey man, you say you're a Christian.

How, why would you do that? Right. Like that doesn't honor the Lord. So I'm, but then, you know, if they were to look at me and say, Hey, yeah, man, church discipline doesn't apply because we're not in the same church or something like that.

I would say, Hey, you bear the name of you claiming to be a Christian. I'm a Christian. You're dishonoring the Lord. I don't need, you know, special permission to talk to you about it or something like that.

Right. So, um, so, and just because we're in a different church doesn't mean that you're free to send within, you know, impunity in my presence or something along those lines. So, and I think looking at that, like, that's obviously just a first step that everyone should do.

Like who's my, like who wants to restore relationships, who wants to, um, you know, be, uh, Christ's witness. Like if you see your brother sin, you just talk to him, you know, have a conversation about it.

Why did you do that? You know, that doesn't honor the Lord when you do that. Uh, so like, that's just, I think that has broad reaching application. And then, you know, if he refuses to listen to you, it says, bring one, you know, two or three others along that every fact may be established.

So then I think I'm just looking at that and trying to say, well, is it possible to like, what kind of scenario are you in? Are there two or three people that can, that he will get in a room with and talk to you or she will, you know, you get what I'm saying?

Yeah. Like, is, is that kind of thing possible to bring, you know, other people along.

And assuming it is, then it's like, well, yeah, you need to do that. Right. Yeah. I mean,.

Peacemaking, Witnesses, and Reconciliation Before Escalation

Why, like if you're a peacemaker, you should have some burden to try to reconcile the relationship to whatever degree is possible. Right. And maybe they just never talked to you again and, you know, so there's not much you can do at that point.

You're not in the members of the same church. There's no, you know, ecclesiastical, they may not be a member of any church. Right. So like, so yeah, that's where the, where the language of may is coming from is more just to say, like, yes, this is a passage applying to Matthew 18, like to a church specifically, but these are principles that you can carry over to any area.

You know, like you could imagine, like, um, even if you had a Christian business or something like that, and they spelled out like a Christian business procedure for dealing with conflict. Right. So if someone's sending against you, you talk to them first.

And then if they refuse to listen to them, you know, bring a few other people, like, you know, you have a mediation team or something like that, who's going to help settle these kinds of things because they don't want workplace conflict that could, that could be very much in the spirit of what Matthew 18 is.

Like talking about, you know, being a different application in a different area. Does that make.

Sense? Right. Without requiring an actual formal church. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, like you should.

Be doing this at your home. Like, you know, if one of your kids sends against one of the other kids, you know, you need to teach them, Hey, go talk to them about it first. Don't come talk to mom and dad and talk to them about it first.

Step one, you talk to them about it, see if you can resolve it. If not, then, you know, we'll get mom and dad to come and listen to be two witnesses. Right. That every fact may be established. You know, we may bring another kid in to establish every fact.

Did you witness this, but you're just a practicing church discipline there,.

The first two steps. And then if they, if they still don't repent, then it's time to kick them.

Out of the family. Yeah. Hey, but there may be, you laugh about that, but there may be scenarios like that where the sin is so high handed. Sure. Everyone is having like a confrontation to where, like, this is a person who claims the name of a brother.

Right. You know, maybe they're addicted to drugs or something like that. And, and they're stealing stuff from someone. Right. Right. And then you get two or three of your brothers along and you say, Hey man, like, it's got to stop.

Like, or we're done. Like we're done, done. You know what I'm saying? We're going to disown you until you repent of this. Like we're like, we like you, you know, you're visiting prostitutes every week, like, um, cheating on your wife.

You know, you're not a member of any church. We're going to be done with you. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. And so I, I have a category for saying, we're going to do whatever we can do to work out the spirit of what's supposed to be.

If we're the only form of accountability in your life, then we're going to be the only form of in your life that you have. And, you know, just because maybe you refuse to go to a church and have any kind of accountability, that doesn't mean that every one of your relationships are just going to tolerate indefinitely this claim that you're making to be a Christian.

You know, it may be that your brothers look at that guy and say, Hey man, like you have no right to name the name of Christ. You're dishonoring him. You're worse than an unbeliever right now. And we're not going to just sit there and let you treat, um, you know, your, your wife that way, uh, and think that you can have the right relationship with the Lord.

You won't, you know, you don't. And, um, one day you'll be judged for that. But I mean, I think that there's, you know,.

You do what you can, you know, at this point. Okay. Fair enough. This has been another episode of Bible bashed. We hope you have been encouraged and blessed through our discussion. We thank you for all your support and ask you to continue to like and subscribe to Bible bashed and share our podcast with your friends and on social media.

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