The Enormous Tiny Word

The enormous tiny word on which a proper understanding of Matthew 18 hangs is IF.

"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he 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 he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector" (Matthew 18:15-17).

Let's follow the trail of "ifs."

First, "If your brother sins against you." This text applies only to situations in which one brother has committed a sin against the other. So is deviating from acceptable governance practices a sin? Not in and of itself, though it is troubling and can lead to other issues. That fact alone disqualifies Matthew 18 from being directly applicable to the present situation.

Second, "If he listens to you, you have won your brother over," and third, "if he will not listen, take one or two others along." Quite simply, the power of choice is involved. Going through the process of Matthew 18 does not guarantee gaining your brother, because your brother can choose not to be gained. Neither does the text call for endless repetition of this step in the hope of compelling the guilty party to be gained. Should the guilty party make such a choice the injured party's only option is to proceed to the next step.

Fourth, "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church." Once again, the guilty party can choose not to listen. In this step also, the text does not call for endless repetition, but rather a single visit. The guilty party might listen to reason, and then again, might not. If not, the process again moves forward.

Fifth and finally, "if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." It is possible for the Matthew 18 process to be fulfilled without having gained your brother. If/when that happens the response demanded by the Bible is that the offending party be extricated from the church. "And you are proud! Shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this?" (1 Corinthians 5:2).

In conclusion, Matthew 18 requires a sum total of three (3) attempts to reason with the guilty party. If none are successful it is the duty of the church to remove that person from membership. The story doesn't end there. Such action removes the sinful influence from the church, but it also hopes that the drastic measure will finally cause the guilty party to realize that they have a problem. In such a happy eventuality the church can work with the person to bring them back into membership.

As previously stated, Matthew 18 simply doesn't apply to the case of the Group's dealings with Takoma Park's pastors because the matter of proper governance isn't a matter of sin. Even if you choose to apply the text to situations that do not rise to the level of involving sin, all of the steps of Matthew 18 have been followed in this situation except for the removal from membership. The ideal of "gaining our brother" was not achieved, but not for lack of effort on our part.

As an example, one of the many Matthew 18 visits we have refenced took place on Oct. 27, 2007, before the vote to implement this change in structure. The reason presented for needing this change in the first place was that it would facilitate better evangelism. During that visit Brothers H and R presented to Pastor DeSilva the North American Division's plan book for evangelism, demonstrating how this goal could be accomplished without changing the governance and pleading with the pastor not to go through with the change. The conversation ended with Pastor DeSilva warning, "Don't fight me on this."