Now, let’s suppose we have man called “elder” who is not qualified. What do we do? Well, the Bible says very little on the subject, but there is some significant guidance.
We begin with —
(1Ti 5:19-20 ESV) 19 Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 20 As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.
Paul borrows the teaching of verse 19 from Deuteronomy —
(Deu 19:15 ESV) 15 “A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.”
This passage reflects an attitude toward accusations that threads through much of Deuteronomy — and it was typical of Jewish rabbis, such as Jesus and Paul, to quote a passage briefly in order to invoke the broader context of that passage. (They didn’t have chapter and verse numbers back then.)
Thus, I believe that “two or three witnesses” also invokes the commands in Deuteronomy to “ask diligently” and to establish that the charge is “true and certain.”
(Deu 13:12-15 ESV) 12 “If you hear in one of your cities, which the LORD your God is giving you to dwell there, 13 that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, 14 then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it be true and certain that such an abomination has been done among you, 15 you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword.”
And —
(Deu 17:2-7 ESV) 2 “If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, 4 and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, 5 then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones. 6 On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. 7 The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
This is justice according to God. That is, God recognizes the value of a good reputation and how easily a man may be destroyed by rumor and speculation.
Therefore, the system is frankly biased in favor the accused. Some may well escape punishment because proof may be hard to come by. In such a case, the man is not to even be accused, much less convicted.
It’s very much like the American criminal system (innocent until proven guilty; the state bears the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt), and that’s no coincidence.
It is remarkably unlike most churches, where rumor and gossip can destroy an elder based on nothing but lies and speculation. The elders — and the members — should never allow such behavior.
* Accusations must be made by witnesses. “Witnesses” are people who actually saw the events involved. It’s not enough that three gossips all heard the same rumor. The charge cannot be brought at all unless two or three people actually witnessed the event.
* An accusation is not a conviction. If two or three witnesses come forward, then the charge must be thoroughly investigated and found to be, not only true, but certain. There must be a high level of confidence that the charge is true.
* There are no secret witnesses. Indeed, in Deuteronomy, if the penalty is stoning, the witnesses throw the first stones. They must be willing to stand up and be responsible for the consequences of their testimony. Hence, no elder may be charged based on a confidential source.
* The penalty — public rebuke — is invoked only if the elder “persists” in the sin (Greek present tense, implying continuous action; not all translations pick this up). Therefore, it appears that the elder is to be first warned to desist, after the charge has been found to be true. If he fails to do so, he is to be publicly rebuked.
Frankly, most men would resign rather than face public rebuke.
One of several challenges presented by this passage is coordinating it with —
(Mat 18:15-17 ESV) 15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
Verse 15 makes clear that this passage only applies to someone who has sinned against the accuser. If an elder sins against his congregation, the preacher for another church is not authorized to bring a charge. (And many a sermon would be ruined if these passages were actually honored by our preachers.)
Just as in 1 Tim 5:20, there is a warning. Just one person approaches the sinner and, face to face, confronts him with his sin. One advantage of this step is that it’s confidential — as there is but one witness to this conversation. If the conversation goes well, the accuser has gained his brother, but the conversation cannot be used against the accused because there would be but one witness.
This is followed by a second warning — but a warning with one or two additional witnesses, so that the fact of this second warning may be made a part of the charge against him when his guilt is to be determined.
Notice that Jesus goes to great lengths to protect the pride and confidentiality of the accused. If the accused can make it right just between the two, it ends there. The accuser is not allowed to talk behind the back of the accused.
The second conversation may be later brought up in a public accusation — to prove fair warning — but even it remains confidential if the accused confesses and repents. After all, the point of the warning is to avoid some kind of hearing or trial by obtaining voluntary repentance. If the man is going to be the subject of gossip even if he repents, he doesn’t have nearly the same motivation.
The next step is to take the accusation before the church. Just as is true of Paul, Jesus borrows language from Deuteronomy that refers to a trial. The accusation isn’t true just because it’s been made. The accusation itself (not just the warning) must be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses and diligent inquiry must be made to establish whether the charge is true and certain.
The accusation is brought before the entire church. Modern churches rarely do this, preferring to let the elders try the case. Part of the practical difficulty is the size of many modern churches and the sheer difficulty of trying a man before two or three hundred or more people.
Commentators therefore disagree as to the meaning of “church” in this context. After all, Jesus was speaking before the church had even been established.
Frankly, the idea of trying a charge against a church member — even an elder — with witnesses and the church sitting as jury is so foreign to the modern church that this would be very difficult to pull off. In fact, most members faced with the prospect withdraw as members or resign as elders to avoid such a scene.
Perhaps more importantly, when the Matthew 18 actions are taken strictly as commanded by Jesus, most people respond in repentance long before there is any prospect of a trial before the church. The first and second steps, when actually followed, tend to work very well indeed.
The real problem is not the difficulty of a trial before the whole church but the refusal of most to even begin the process. And yet this is plainly the commanded process for dealing with a sin or “charge” against an elder (or other members).
And so maybe the best way to see this is kind of a grand jury/trial process. That is, it only makes sense that no charge be brought before the congregation unless the elders agree that the charges merit such consideration. I mean, sometimes people bring truly absurd charges.
Hence, I see the elders as a clearing house to save the church from having to deal with absurdities and irresponsible charges. Obviously, the elder being charged can’t be part of the process. He must recuse himself.
But I think the elders should seriously consider putting the ultimate decision before the church — when the charges have real merit — rather than just assuming that the church will accept as true conclusions they’ve reached from evidence they’ve not heard.
But what if the elder hasn’t sinned but is rather simply not well qualified for the task?
[to be continued]
Maybe you will get to this… but I’d like to hear your comments on “And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you [KJV thee] as a Gentile and a tax collector.” The “you” in that verse is singular – referring to the individual who was sinned against. Yet generally this passage is taught as though the whole church is instructed to do this. Literally it’s not telling the church to treat the accused as a Gentile and a tax collector. Comments?
There is an over-arching larger problem here: If the church is dead and not growing and has been consistently dead for many years, then it is impossible to find elders who have somehow risen above the fray and are going to take the church in the right future direction. A healthy, vibrant, alive, growing church will give rise to a pool of healthy, vibrant, alive elders. A dead church CANNOT produce the right kind of elders under any condition. An outside intervention must be staged first but typically dead churches don’t seek outside help.
frank144 said,
That will often, not always, be true. If the church were to begin to teach a better gospel — perhaps because they hire a young, well-schooled preacher — some men will be convicted and changed. God may well give the talents needed. But it’s hard for the membership to rise above the preaching. It can happen, but it’s tough.
Part of the problem, of course, is our tendency to factionalize and fractionalize into tiny congregations, so that no one church has enough talent to get much done — and all the church’s resources are wasted on buying one more building and paying one more preacher. In economic terms, division destroys wealth — and also dilutes the talents God gives us.
Bad theology leads to division leads to inefficient use of God’s resources. Satan has found a very powerful tool in division.
Alan,
I’d not heard that before. Very interesting indeed. Let me think about it. Remind me if I forget.
“In economic terms, division destroys wealth — and also dilutes the talents God gives us.”
This is absolutely true.
The summary is that everyone wants to be a chief and no one wants to be an Indian. That is why there are so many tiny congregations; everyone can be a chief, albeit of a tiny group.
Jay, just reminding you about comment on Matt 18.
“And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you [KJV thee] as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
Alan, is there a place in the bible that tells us how we should treat a “Gentile and a tax collector.”
gentiles were later welcomed to the “olive tree” and unless my memory fails me Matthew was a “tax collector” .
Alan asked about the reason “you” is singular in Matt 18:17 —
(Mat 18:17 ESV) If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
According to DA Carson (a commentator I greatly respect) in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary,
I can’t think of a better explanation.
Jay,
Would it be meaningless that nearly all large churches became large through growth from a small seed or beginning? I am really struggling as I look for instructions in scripture guiding the followers of Christ to go into the world and build large churches. The instructions are to make disciples, you know Christians that are the Church. The visibility by the world of the Body of Christ or Church was never displayed in scripture as that congregation that was meeting in (John Doe’s) house in opposition to those meeting in another house; all were considered to be the body of Christians the Church.
It has been said that a large church can accomplish much more than a small one.
But it is my belief that the small congregation has the same instructions about teaching, serving each other and the community as the large congregation. If they do what is expected of them they will be given an increase by God, if they don’t they will die.
The one advantage of a large congregation is that many of the members can fall down and not perform their duty to God, and many members in the congregation can remain hidden within the congregation beneath the efforts of those that are doing what is expected of them, and enough accomplishments will be made to provide visible actions by the members.
I said all of that to imply that hardly any large congregation will ever perform in a capacity that it should be capable of doing.
Visible work such as this should never be utilized to attempt to compare the volume of work or good that can be done in an area between large or small churches. In other words teach the small churches to perform as well as the few in the large congregation and the world would see the Church as a whole.
The NIV uses “pagan” in place of “gentile” which to me is closer to describing the “sinner”.
Not all gentiles were pagans. See Mt6:6 “But when you pray, go into your room, close the
door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in
secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans . . .”
The centurion in Mt 6 was a Roman military officer in charge of 100 soldiers Luke 7:1-5
was gentile in birth but Jesus certainly did not consider him pagan.
I’m not convinced by DA Carson’s explanation. Every other reference to “you” in verses 15-17 is in reference to the person bringing the accusation. To suddenly change the referent at the end of the instructions is not justified by the text. It seems more likely to me that people make that leap because it’s how the passage has been taught in the past. Maybe people feel we need it to say that because that’s how we think we should handle those situations. But that’s not really what the text says.
Alan,
Another take on the singular use of “you” in Matt 18:17 may be found in this master’s thesis published at http://www.freelygive-n.com/uploads/Master_Thesis_-_Bold_etc_imbed_link.pdf
It’s a very thoughtful article that covers various views on the question.
As I’ve thought through the passage, the commentaries, and your comments, I figure that Jesus is speaking as though to a particular person, hence the repeated use of singular “you.” After all, Matthew pictures him as speaking to a group of disciples, and yet Jesus chooses to speak as though to one person.
I suppose that, at least in the beginning of the passage, he is emphasizing that the matter is to be dealt with by just the one person — the offended brother. To make it clear that this is a one-on-one conversation, Jesus uses the singular “you” despite addressing a plurality of disciples.
Jesus continues in that voice to the end of passage, because he is addressing what that single person is to do, not writing legislation: This what you [singular] do. What the church is to do is discerned by obvious implication.
I certainly disagree with the notion that Jesus is saying that only you [singular] should withdraw fellowship. That is not the thought of the passage or its parallels in 1 Cor 5, etc.
“After all, Matthew pictures him as speaking to a group of disciples, and yet Jesus chooses to speak as though to one person.”
Could it be that both are true ? I have even heard of such things today where many attended a seminar, but the lecture was intended for the individual. Saves a lot of time that way. 🙂
Jay….what if there is more than one elder, but they all participate in the same sin? For instance, if they are encouraging a man to leave his wife because she wants to leave that particular church because of it’s abuse of authority? If all the elders are in agreement you won’t have them rebuking each other. If that is the case, do church members who hold no particular position (pastor, elder, deacon) remain silent while this sin goes on?
formermember, Run !! , don’t walk, Run quickly. get out of there!! take your wife and get out.
At last, a place where Laymond and I are in entire agreement. Leave first, explain after, if needed. Frightening scenario.
Matt,
One major problem is that many of our Elders ignore Matthew 18 because they are cowardly. The skip steps and do not follow biblical patterns.