Church Discipline and Agape Love

What makes for a healthy church? Are there any? Do all local bodies have their issues that need to be overcome? Probably. To one extent or another, there is always room for improvement. The spirituality of a local congregation is a major factor in the health of a church. Does your church walk in the spirit? Do they seek Christ and His righteousness? Do they long to know Him in ways they have never known Him before?

And what about knowledge? Where is your congregation at with regard to knowledge of God's will as revealed in scripture? Does that knowledge translate to faith motivated action? Does the membership of your local body really know each other and work together, pursuing each other as they pursue Christ together? Does knowledge of scripture inspire your church to love in that very Christian and agape sense.

Lots of questions here. Do I have any answers? Left to myself, probably not, but if I read the New Testament, I get an idea of what should be...what must be...if a church is to be healthy.

The apostle Paul was a letter writer. The New Testament is mostly made of of his letters to the churches that he helped to plant. Chances are good that if your church got a letter from Paul, there was a problem or problems there. So in the pursuit of church health, Paul would send letters advising what to do about issues of the time.

The Corinthian church was no exception. It had problems. It was not a healthy place. Even so, Paul did not give up on them. He addressed their issues in his first letter to them and he was very direct in his approach. It was a divisive church. People tended to group together according to who they were first taught by. They abused spiritual gifts, allowing some to dominate and bring disorder to their worship. They would not share with those of the congregation in need and they really did not have a good understanding of how to celebrate the Lord's Supper in the proper New Testament spirit.  They also tolerated open sin by certain members. This was made worse by the pride they had in their tolerance.

Beyond all that however, their worst problem was that Christian love did not temper everything they did in their pursuit of Christ and their salvation. They were clannish, cliquish and self centered; more interested in their importance and rank in the church than the welfare of their brethren. It was a mess of pride and opportunism that did not fit the model of what a church should be.

Let me ask you something. How well do you know your brothers and sisters in Christ? So you have relationship with them or are they mere acquaintances?  Do you know and love them well enough that you would be comfortable addressing personal behaviors with them, even sin that might not be good for them? What about you? Are there people in your church that you love and respect and would listen to if they were pointing out your sin and bad behavior urging you to repent?

You see, pride gets in the way of that kind of interaction in most churches. Sometimes it is a lack of knowledge about what is sin or it's our desire to avoid feeling judgmental or judged. There is also a misunderstanding of what Christian love is...because it is not judgmental or self righteous. The motivation of Christian love should always be to restore, to build, to improve upon whatever foundation was laid. It wants the very best for each of us including the death of what once was to enable the growth of what Christ wants us to become. We should be helping each other in love and not lording it over each other in self righteousness. Love and relationship determine the effectiveness and even the possibility of a successful discussion in this realm. 

Does your church do love right?

If we do not do love right, if we do not do relationships right, then how can we do church discipline right?  

I think what we find in both ancient and modern churches is that if the love is not there, not much else works well. If we do not know and care about each other and our spiritual health, the church just becomes another shallow social group; The Elks or the Lyons Club. You get my drift here.

I  Corinthians 13
   

13 If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

You see, none of what we do in church matters without love and relationship among the members of the local body. None of it will be understood without love. Intention and context is everything. If I do not have love and relationship with someone, should I be advising them about how to live? How will it be perceived if all I know about them is what I heard or read elsewhere?

And if I do have a relationship with them, a loving Christian relationship with them, do I not have an obligation to them to help them with their spiritual needs? Not the preacher, not the elder, but me?

Ya, I think so. 

We often wonder why we Christians do not live consistent with the things we believe. Could it be that we tolerate that situation so that we do not have to do the heavy lifting that goes with Christian love and relationship? We see Brother Bob's car in the parking lot of the strip club, but we say nothing to him because we do not know him all that well and we do not want to seem all judgmental. So instead we tell someone else, a church leader or pastor. We want them to do the heavy lifting. We do not want to be involved. What happens after that can be a calamity. Brother Bob ends up feeling condemned and punished, but not loved.

We have to be careful. Brother Bob may simply end up at another church. But the absolute worse thing is when Brother Bob throws in the towel and does not go to church at all because what little relationship he had with Jesus and the truth was destroyed by the punitive, judgmental actions of his church.

Do we love Bob or do we just want him to knock it off?

We need to love each other, consider the circumstances and try to help each other in love.