An Infant in a Cradle: church discipline

How should we relate to and interact with those who are under church discipline? That's a tough question and a hard one, especially because we love such people and long for their good.

I thought this passage from Zack Eswine's book, Sensing Jesus: Life and Ministry as a Human Being (highly recommended!), was especially helpful in giving a practical example of how dialogue might go:

“We had no success in gaining our dear brother (Matt 18:15). He refused to listen (v. 17). We had to ‘let him be’ to us as a ‘Gentile and a tax collector’ (v. 17).

“What did this mean? We considered how Jesus related to Gentiles and tax collectors. We would love this man. We would say hello and talk about the weather if we saw him at the store. Perhaps he would say, ‘Can we get together for coffee?’ We would say, ‘Sure, but on my mind is the welfare of your heart. When we meet, can we also talk about that?’ ‘No,’ he might respond. ‘We cannot.’ ‘Okay,’ we would say, ‘I pray for you and long for your good. Anytime you would like to talk about things, I’d welcome coffee with you. But, honestly, not until then. I need Jesus too. And I’m still hoping you will be able to admit what you’ve done with your family isn’t what Jesus would have for us and that you will want to fall into the arms of Jesus’ grace.’

“In other words, we treat him with love and dignity but not with pretension regarding what remains unfinished. When Paul says of the hardened sinner who calls himself a Jesus follower, ‘Don’t even eat with such a one,’ he does not invite us to meanly shun or disregard or mistreat such a one. Such a meal would sit like a gift on our table if the person would see his need for forgiveness. We long for this. But we wait for it. Our love, longing, kindness, and prayers for him cannot take away the reality that in Jesus the man is now identified ‘as if’ he is no longer part of the believing community. Our fellowship is neither what it was nor what it could be. Until admission of this clear wrong, we cannot pretend otherwise.”

- Zack Eswine, Sensing Jesus