Christian Resolution, Matthew 18

I have no less than three situations in my life in which I am advising the use of Matthew 18 to come to a Godly conclusion to a conflict among Christians. I still find is surprising how few people know the basis of this and of those that have the basis mess it up. I have been in church leadership meeting where this has been mishandled. So, today's blog is for my Christian reader who are in conflict, but are not sure how to resolve the situation.

Matthew 18:15 - "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.

Look at the specifics of this verse. It calls to action the wronged person, the person who has been sinned against to take action. This mean, if someone wrongs you, you are called, by this verse, to go to them. There is no sulking in silence, there is no going to other people. You don't get a go between to talk to them for you, you go to them. As a note, I recommend you are prayed up and it is clear to you the sin which has been committed. If you run to them without a clear head, it will increase your burden.

Not only are must you, and no one else, go to them, but you are to do it privately. A phone call, an email, or even better face to face. You don't involve your mutual friends. You don't post or hint at your beef on Facebook. This is a private a personal matter and needs to be handled delicately. Usually when I have seen these situations, by the time I have become involved, this part of the command has been disobeyed. As a note, this means, you need to go to that person and confess before them that you were spreading their business around. They may have sinned against you, but you turned around and sinned against them. Just to be clear, two wrongs do not make a right. God is not please by you handling sin by adding to it more sin.

If this works, and if handled right it most always does, you will have a stringer relationship with that person then you did before. Unfortunately, this doesn't always work.

Matthew 18:16 - 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.

Again, this verse puts the responsibility on the sinned against. Again it is pretty specific on what we are to do. It says you are to take one or two others with you. Now, this can be tricky, so lets walk through what this means. First, it does not mean you tell everyone and see who will take your side.. It does not mean that anyone is an eligible candidate. You are to only talk to the one or two you select. To them, and only them, are you to explain the situation.

You should pray for God to lead you to those people. They should be wise and able to rightly divide the word. They should be capable of understanding the serious of the duty you are asking them to do. They need to be someone that you trust enough that if they tell you, you are wrong, you would be willing to listen to them. You may feel victimized, when in fact you are not. See, this person, or people, are these to clearly establish the wrong. They are there to make sure the sin you are charging is, in fact, a sin and it is clear the the person you are accusing has actually committed it. Note, they are not to confront without you, they are to go with you. You can't sic them like dogs to do your work, this is still yours. They are your wise witnesses. It helps, if possible, to make sure they are someone the person across the table respects and will listen to. The goal is to make it clear to the sinner that a sin has been committed against you, and give them an opportunity to repent.

Matthew 18:17 - 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.

It is at this point, and only at this point any of this should become public knowledge, in this day when we know everything about everybody and keep silent in those things we should speak up about, this nearly never happens. I would also note, that the public I am talking about is the church and the goal of this is not to embarrass, but so they would understand their wrong. If step one and step two have not been done, we can't skip to step three, it is inappropriate. If the earlier steps are mishandled in anyway, there needs to be repentance for that sin. It will complicate, but does not invalidate this process.

Someone has sinned against you, take it to them. No gossip, no silence. If they won't hear it take a couple wise people. Again, no gossip, no self pity saying I tried and stopping. If they won't hear the group of you take them before the church.

I would add that if it gets to that point and they reject the council of the church, the church is to remove them from the congregation. Such a person will destroy and hurt you ministry if they are not removed.