Matthew 18:16, commentary and pictures

If private appeal fails to win a brother, one or two others are to be taken along so that every word may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he still will not hear them the matter is to be told to the church, and if he will not hear the church he is to be regarded as a heathen and a publican outside its fellowship, and this orderly course must be followed carefully and exactly before complaints are heard or anyone is cut off. Those taken are to be spiritually minded, thoughtful, impartial persons not parties to the trouble, the matter is to be confined to the smallest number possible and not spread, and they are to labor in tenderness, humility, meekness, pity and love with prayer, with Jesus Himself present when they are in harmony. The rule forbids gossiping, evil-speaking, talebearing, listening to reports, and acting on one-sided accounts, suspicion or appearance, and requires going directly and kindly to the person, hearing both sides patiently, and establishing every word by open investigation. Faithfully obeyed at the outset it heals offenses and wounds, prevents dissension, strife and many church trials, and preserves unity, purity and peace, while neglecting it or doing it harshly wounds souls and leaves churches weak and divided.

Second Step in Process

When a private appeal to tell a brother his fault alone fails to gain him, one or two more are to be taken along so that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. This taking of others is the second step between the first private effort and telling it to the church, and it belongs to Christ's plan for settling misunderstandings and personal injuries within the church. Faithfully following this course when a brother is thought to be in the wrong helps prevent church trials and supports unity among believers. It is the next step in dealing with wrongdoing, not a license to seek out faults or to spread reports about others.

If the offender still will not hear the one or two, the matter is to be told to the church, and if he will not hear the church he is to be regarded as a heathen and a publican outside its fellowship. The issue is to be taken to the church only if he also refuses to hear the witnesses, and disagreements must not be publicized to the world where they can damage the witness of saving grace. Continued refusal after that ordered labor leads to separation from fellowship, leaving the unsubmissive member alone without help. Following this course can heal wounds and stop false accusations and criticism.

This orderly course from private appeal to witnesses to the church is God's plain direction for the course to follow and part of the Saviour's instruction that God's people are to follow carefully when dealing with erring members. Charges are to be thoroughly investigated and handled according to Christ's instructions, rather than leaders cutting someone off by their own judgment, impulse, or prejudice. The Bible's rules for dealing with an erring member must be followed in investigating the matter before disciplinary action is taken. This instruction must be faithfully followed before complaints are heard, before church officers or a committee recommend removal, or before the church votes removal from membership.

The church in her organized capacity, with appointed local and traveling elders and ministers to oversee, reprove, exhort, rebuke the unruly and comfort the feebleminded, is the highest tribunal on earth, and members pledge mutual care to advise and counsel together. Its counsel, advice and decision must be submitted to rather than each following his own judgment, even if it decides wrong, leaving vindication to God in His own time, for whatever it binds on earth is bound in heaven and whatever it looses is loosed. Resisting its authority and despising the judgment of its ministers is no light matter, and without such submission there will be confusion with no harmony or union.

The procedure concerns a personal trespass or wrong between believers and seeks to right the wrong and heal injuries privately when possible, without bringing the matter before the whole church. After laboring with the erring one alone fails because darkness of mind and separation from God keep him from being helped, the wronged one is to try again with two or three others to right the wrong, and only if that effort also fails is the matter to be told to the church. The church is not to be made the receptacle for every complaint or confession, and the fault is not to be made a subject of conversation. It does not govern public wrongs that threaten the church, which are to be rebuked publicly, while a sin between a person and God alone need not be made public. Correction should not be hidden if it is ignored, but when needed the church and experienced members must be informed so others are not misled by the person's continuing harmful influence.

Conducting the Witness Visit

Those taken along are to be spiritually minded persons who join in speaking with the one in error about the wrong. At times this means taking counsel with a fellow responsible leader and reaching decision together in deliberations concerning the church. Because they are not parties to the trouble they can act more impartially, and their counsel may carry greater weight toward restoration. No disputed matter is to be settled by one person's view, testimony, or judgment alone, but two or more are to share responsibility so that judgment does not rest on one mind. In matters requiring deliberation, including how to treat those who have erred, conferring together rather than letting one opinion control promotes unity and harmony.

The difficulty is to be confined to as small a number as possible, with only one or two more added to labor with the one in error. It is not to be spread in the church or outside it, nor made public before the whole church, lest disturbance be created, seekers after truth become confused and sorrowful, and a stumbling block be laid before those seeking to know the divine will. Failings are not to be made public to a large number, and the erring one is not to be charged, condemned, and reproached harshly in absence without prayer. Only if he still refuses to listen after this limited effort is the church to take up the matter, dealing gently with him.

Those who go are to be carefully and prayerfully chosen to labor in tenderness, humility, meekness, pity, and love for the soul. They are to do more than talk, bowing in prayer and with humble hearts seeking the Lord together for His help. When brethren come together in harmony under this direction, Jesus Himself is present as a witness, the whole universe looks on with intense interest, and the Spirit of God moves upon the heart of the erring to convict of error. If pride and self-sufficiency keep him from confessing and healing the wrong, further steps must then be taken to follow out the complete directions of the Word.

Their united appeal and agreement may enlighten the mind and lead him to yield, confess, and be healed. This is part of the Bible plan for seeking to restore one who has gone astray through prayer and loving correction rather than accusation or hasty separation from the church. Correction must not be neglected when wrongdoing threatens to corrupt the church, but the fault is to be addressed with desire to save from ruin. The facts are to be heard calmly and kindly among several thoughtful, spiritual-minded persons, seeking confession and a clear resolution.

Every word must be established by open, frank investigation on positive ground with faithful witnesses, rather than by suspicion, appearance, secondhand reports, or eager fault-finding. Care is required to avoid bringing reproach upon one who is not guilty. The accused must be brought face to face, told plainly the faults or errors charged, and given opportunity to know the charge, answer for self, and clear self if able. Nothing is to be done in secret or in an underhanded manner by taking up enemies' words, devising plans against a child of God, or seeking removal without ever telling the charges, for justice, righteousness, and mercy are the principles required.

Purposes and Blessings of Obedience

The instruction is given to heal offenses and wounds and to stop false accusation, criticism, dissension, misunderstanding, alienation, strife, bitterness and resentment. Faithfully followed when one is thought to be in the wrong, it prevents many church trials and preserves the unity, purity and peace of believers. Its united appeal may enlighten the mind and lead the person in error to yield, while keeping the evil from becoming more public and widespread. Broken relationships marked by dissension and alienation could have been healed if reproof had been received and the wrong course forsaken.

Carried out from the outset it promptly settles small difficulties, gives relief and courage and hope, and purifies and saves the one corrected through confession, repentance, humble walk with God and pardon. Rather than acting with misguided zeal, reclaiming a brother in this way brings a better spirit and better condition into the family, the school, the church and the religious institution, whereas neglecting the rules leaves disorder to prevail. The same discipline, understood and practiced by every church member to preserve perfect harmony, makes the church below like a well-regulated family and prepares God's children for the great reunion and endless life in the church above in union with Christ.

Neglecting the work entirely, or doing it with harshness and severity, wounds and bruises souls and leaves churches and institutions weak, inefficient and almost Christless. Disregarding the rule at the start, when little matters arise, manufactures church trials that distract and confuse minds and throw souls off the track. Such trials call ministers away from profitable labor for conversion until that interest wavers and dies, leave hearts divided and unimpressible, harden each party until no concession will be made, arm souls with prejudice and distrust, make the minister the sport of jealousies, set almost indelible impressions, divide believers, disrupt the work of saving souls, and lose souls, whereas following the rule would have adjusted the difficulty and left the church in far better condition.

The whole chapter must be hung in the chambers of the mind and kept in memory's hall, often read and pondered and obeyed and woven into Christian experience in the home church, the family and daily practical life. It is the only terms for securing eternal life through obedience to God's holy law, loving God with all heart and soul and mind and strength and loving neighbor as self, cultivating the garden of the soul, removing weeds and tares sown by Satan during neglect, taking one's own garden under personal stewardship, bringing thoughts into captivity to Christ, and not scattering words recklessly without considering their lodgment and result. Obeying it calls for greater spirituality, conversion, becoming Christians in practice in real union with Christ in ministerial service to help needy souls, win souls, enlighten the ignorant and relieve the oppressed, instead of remaining unconverted to annoy and perplex the weak in faith, and it requires daily humbling before God, overcoming temptation, receiving Christ's lessons in His school, correcting a selfish unholy spirit and groundless imaginings, and ceasing to withdraw to labor alone. Failure to understand and follow this principle was shown in conduct toward W. C. White and brought wrong dealing.

The chapter forbids striving for supremacy and lays down principles for disciples of the meek and lowly Jesus to act upon in every case and circumstance without dishonoring God and harming His cause. Greatness in Christ's spiritual kingdom is not position, outward splendor, authority or fancied superiority of discernment, judgment and capabilities, but inward excellence and spiritual excellence manifested in true conversion learned by continual submission and obedience to Christ as meek and lowly in heart. Self-sufficiency and self interposed between the soul and God, perversity of spirit and disposition, standing back on dignity when not specially requested, taking satisfaction in brethren's deficiencies, and inward concealed as well as open manifest strife to be first must be cleansed from the soul temple, for such unsanctified strife grieves the Saviour's Spirit, hinders the work, turns men who ought to be a blessing into a curse who retard rather than advance it, allows Satan to use their words instead of building up the Redeemer's kingdom, and prevents the Lord from manifesting His power and grace until the element is cleansed. Plain, decided instruction is to be poured out against dissension, self-esteem, self-exaltation and strife to be highly esteemed by men, tracing disaffection to criticism and faultfinding as expressly the devil's work begun in the heavenly courts where Satan by deceiving suggestion won sympathy for change in God's government, sowed undetected suspicion and distrust of God and of one another, until rebellion had to be met by God alone and the disloyal were expelled with the instigator for the good of the loyal.

Correction must not be neglected when wrongdoing threatens to corrupt the church, but the fault is to be addressed with desire to save the person from ruin. God does not desire anyone to draw apart from fellow believers.

Church Authority and Discipline

The church in her organized capacity is the highest tribunal on earth for dealing with a trespassing brother, with local and traveling elders and ministers appointed to oversee the church, to reprove, exhort, rebuke the unruly and comfort the feebleminded. Members pledge mutual care for one another and are to advise and counsel together under that oversight, submitting to the counsel, advice and decision of the church rather than following their own judgment and course, for if each follows his own judgment there will be confusion with no harmony or union. Even if the church decides wrong, the individual must still submit and leave correction and vindication to God in His own time, without taking upon himself the responsibility of keeping the church in order, and one who will not submit to its decision and counsel cannot be helped. Resisting its authority and despising the judgment of its ministers is no light matter, and the work of remitting or restraining sin belongs to wise representative men truly taught of God, possessing the inward working of the Holy Spirit with Christ-life manifested in purity, faith and obedience and spiritual eyesight to discern spiritual things, whose actions can receive the endorsement of Christ as head of the church. They have no power in themselves to cast down or destroy or to remove guilt, for remission of sins is the prerogative of God alone, but are only to give God's message of what is written, to reprove, rebuke, exhort with longsuffering and doctrine, to give censure when needed and to remove that censure when the one in error confesses and repents, carrying out with justice and faithfulness the duty toward members whose conduct dishonors God's cause.

When private reproof between the two alone and then labor with one or two more have been faithfully done, the next and last step is to tell it to the church for action according to the Scriptures, and then heaven ratifies the decision of the church in cutting off the offending member if he does not repent and in binding and loosing. That ratification rests on prayerful action with Christ as counselor seeking the offender's restoration, and on decisions made with prayer and faith according to God-given wisdom, which remain valid to the end of time. Church decisions made after the rule is fully obeyed may be ratified in heaven, but prejudice, selfish motives, and unjust judgments have no authority there. Until the prescribed steps are followed others should refuse to entertain complaints about the person, closing the ear to reports and taking up no reproach against a neighbor, for without listeners evil tongues cease for lack of a field for biting and devouring one another.

If earnest labor still fails to bring repentance, those who pursue a course of transgression and stubbornly persist in remaining at variance are to be suspended till they can harmonize, and if they still refuse to repent they must be separated from church fellowship with their names removed from the church books, left alone without responsibility, lest the saints be held accountable for their evil deeds. Decided efforts must be made to show people living unchristian lives where they are wrong, and if they do not correct their lives they should be separated from the holy so that God's people remain clean and pure and others are not misled. One person who will not come to right terms affects the whole community by the atmosphere surrounding the soul, so when someone plainly understands the rules yet keeps disregarding them and will not listen even to two or three others, he is to be set aside and separated from the institution. This applies to those who counterwork the minister, sow disaffection and evil-speaking, and to sympathizers who persist on the wrong side, who when labored with alone and then with one or two more without effect must be left to be regarded as outside fellowship.

The same careful process governs physicians and helpers in positions of influence in health and educational institutions, who as church members are subject to church oversight and must be labored with when they sin. When a physician employed in God's health institutions fails to walk uprightly and does not honor the principles that should control followers of Christ, or whose conduct is inconsistent with Christian character, he is to be admonished, and the church must take action with careful investigation of wrongdoing by judicious persons, because a position of influence makes investigation more necessary, not less. Patient labor must be given for a suitable time as directed, with thorough investigation before discipline is imposed, and whether great or small, if he refuses to submit to church discipline he must be separated from the church as unworthy of its fellowship. Grave sins and grave inconsistent lives must not be concealed or passed over without action, but if unchanged after admonition must be separated, for this purging of every evil removes reproach from the cause so blessing can rest on its instrumentalities, while neglecting the rules leaves disorder to prevail.

Charges must be thoroughly investigated and handled according to the instructions rather than leaders cutting someone off by their own judgment, and no disciplinary action is to be taken before the prescribed steps are followed. Leaders must not rule as lords or kings on self-assumed authority with harsh, hasty, overbearing, selfish judgment, impulse or prejudice, but must exercise wise counsel that protects and strengthens God's people. The matter should be handled with humility, prayer, and sorrow for the one who has erred, with a heart softened with the love of God and loving their souls, in the spirit of Christ seeking to reform and save them by giving time to the matter. Workers must labor for erring ones with exactly the same diligence they would want exercised toward themselves, dealing with one another just as they would have the Lord deal with them, seeking to retain rather than in zeal to expel cutting off a member while claiming too much business to do the work of saving.

Forbidden Gossip and Publicity

The verse forbids turning another's fault into conversation instead of going directly and kindly to the person himself, and it forbids gossiping, evil-speaking, talebearing, whispering, covert hints, watching, accusing, harassing, magnifying errors, feeding on faults, spreading reports, suspicions and criticism, and talking over faults with others while the person remains ignorant. When private correction is not heeded, one or two others are to be brought in so the matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses, and this is Christ's orderly and fair method for remedying wrong and addressing injury, not a license to seek out faults or to follow another course. After first telling him his fault between the two alone, the burdened one must next take one or two friends and tell him in their presence, and only if that fails is the matter to be told to the church as the last step.

Ministers and lay members displease God when they allow individuals to tell them the errors and faults of brethren without these steps being followed, and when they listen to reports or take up reproach without requiring the rule to be strictly followed. They must not open their ears to such reports but must close the ear, refuse to hear, listen to not a word, and refuse to take up a reproach against a neighbor, because listening to reports of evil is lifting and taking up the reproach. They must inquire whether the Saviour's injunction was strictly followed and ask anyone coming with a complaint whether he has complied with the Saviour's rules in every particular, and they must require watching one's own actions instead. Without listeners evil tongues will cease for lack of a field for biting and devouring one another. The steps must be followed before complaints are heard or church discipline is imposed, for they prevent gossip, hasty judgments, unjust treatment, and unhappy divisions, and correction must be carried out wisely and graciously with patient labor in tenderness, humility, meekness, and love for the soul.

Trials and disciplinary cases belong inside the church and must never be taken to civil courts, spread to unbelievers, enemies of the faith, other churches, or the world, nor decided by outsiders' testimony, lest the weakness and errors of Christ's followers be exposed and the witness of Christ's saving grace be damaged. Disputes among church members should be handled according to Christ's instruction, among themselves or by the church, with settlement sought within the church rather than before unbelievers in a court of justice, and complaints and charges should be handled within the church because outsiders cannot discern the principles that govern believers' dealings with one another. The injured person should seek to save the brother rather than avenge himself and may entrust the case to God, who judges righteously, going privately in Christ's spirit with prayer in a humble, Christlike manner. Charges must not be proved by questioning students about their teacher or discussing his errors with them.

No one may act on one-sided reports, impulse, suspicion, appearance, secondhand accounts, enemies' words, faultfinding, or eager fault-finding, and no words of accusation, especially from unbelievers and unreasonable faultfinders acting as Satan's agents, are to be accepted as verity and acted upon at once. Both sides of the question must be heard patiently, the matter sifted to the bottom to find whether these things are so, and only stern facts believed, with every word established by open, frank, fair investigation on positive ground with faithful witnesses rather than by secret judgment, standing aloof, condemning without trial, or letting prejudice and resentment be stirred by hearing the wrongs of others. The accused must be visited and talked with, given presence and full chance to explain matters and answer for himself before just men with all the facts presented so the case may appear as it is, with careful and thorough investigation of his work in a kind, Christian manner with love, sympathy, mercy and fatherly care, and without making his failings public to a large number or charging, condemning and reproaching him harshly in his absence without prayer. It is also condemned to artfully draw out from the unsuspecting matters they have no business with and that would do them no good to know, and to let ministers be imposed upon by the relating of church trials, encourage members to complain of one another, or repeat church trials in preaching.

Bypassing direct dealing violates the Bible rule and brings serious harm, causing needless trouble, gossip by nearly all, coldness felt without known cause, shaken confidence, weakened love, breach of unity, and breach in a band previously united. Talking over faults with others in the church while keeping the person in ignorance, or spreading the charge and making it worse before hearing him, is contrary to going directly, frankly, open-heartedly and respectfully to tell him in love the trials and fears about his course, giving him opportunity to make plain what is not understood so relief comes and the difficulty is cured where it occurred. Those who go entirely contrary to these rules make themselves subject to church discipline and should be put under censure, those who teach a contrary method are unfaithful and must be corrected, and those who depart from the plain instruction may require discipline. A wrong kept wholly secret should still be stated plainly to someone trustworthy in the light of the Word so it can be remedied, and the whole process must be carried out gently, not roughly or inconsiderately, with humility before God, removal of evil suspicion, and doing everything possible for reformation before any severing from membership.

What was said is to be established through witnesses with care in speech, establishing what was said through witness and responding with care while guarding against unkind, distrustful, careless, harsh, or disrespectful words that grieve the Holy Spirit. In dealing with damaging reports and misunderstandings, people should go directly to those involved and speak kindly, seeking their good rather than accusing them, for following Christ's directions can prevent much harm. Reproof sent as warning and counsel must be heard and received rather than dismissed as an idle tale or met with accusation and worst constructions, for accepting it recovers a person out of Satan's snares while refusing to admit any possibility of error shows a heart steeled and captivated by bewitching power, and no one must justify as obedience a course directly opposed to Christ's word while becoming an accuser of brethren and sympathizing with those not connected with God.