How Church Discipline Can Be Like Doctor Shopping

How Church Discipline Can Be Like Doctor Shopping

Article written by Dr. Moore

"Law enforcement officials use the term “doctor shopping” to refer to the way those addicted to prescription pain medications seek to avert accountability. If you go to your doctor to ask for Vicodin, and your physician refuses to prescribe it, you are doctor shopping if you then seek out multiple doctors until you find the one who will prescribe the Vicodin. Sometimes an addict will have multiple doctors going at once, all prescribing different medicines, often those that are dangerous to mix. I’ve noticed the same thing going on when it comes to church accountability.

The truth is, there’s a certain type of personality that doesn’t want accountability, but affirmation. If one wants to divorce someone one shouldn’t divorce or marry someone one shouldn’t marry or do something one shouldn’t do, he seeks out a pastor’s “accountability.” When the pastor tells him the opposite of what he wants to hear, he leaves and goes to find a pastor or counselor who will. And this goes on and on.

This isn’t being shepherded. It’s the same old autonomy of the self, that first manifests itself in the life-cycle of a child saying, “But Dad said it was okay…” except now grown up into something with a far more malevolent motive and a far more dangerous outcome.

Sadly, there are too many ministers of the gospel out there willing to empower this sort of behavior. If you have a church member who has been warned or disciplined by another pastor or church, you have a responsibility to investigate what’s going on. True, it might be that the old church spoke where there is no authority to speak, disciplining a parent for not homeschooling, for example. But, even then, if you will give an answer for the soul of this person, you bear the responsibility to find out what exactly is going on.

If you’re the kind of minister who refuses to acknowledge the discipline or accountability structures of other churches, you might simply be more enlightened than those churches and leaders. Or you might not know what you’re dealing with. And you just might be fighting against a word spoken by Jesus himself, handing over an unrepentant soul to Satan, with the hopes of ultimate repentance (1 Cor. 5:4-5).

Your affirmation of an unrepentant and fugitive-from-discipline church member isn’t an act of love or mercy. It’s an act of hatred. You are empowering the unrepentant to “bear the name brother” or sister (1 Cor. 5:11), to assuage a conscience that should be convicted by the Spirit. If so, you’d be better off just prescribing an addict another round of Percocet." 

Originally posted in 2013.

Church Discipline: What, Why, and How Come? (Matthew 18:15-17; 1 Corinthians 5:1-13; Luke 17:3-4)

CHURCH DISCIPLINE (see Matthew 18:15-17; 1 Corinthians 5; Luke 17:3-4)

"Though the word discipline carries negative connotations, the practice of church discipline ought to be motivated by a positive, loving desire both to preserve the purity of the church (2 Cor. 7:1; cf, Acts 5:11; 1 Cor. 5:1-13; 2 Thess. 3:6-15; 1 Tim. 1:19-20; Titus 1:10-16) and to restore sinning brothers and sisters to the fellowship (cf. Luke 15:3-8; Jude 23), Church discipline should never be motivated out of self-righteous pride, political agendas, a desire to exercise power in an unbiblical way, or an intent to embarrass people.  Rather, it should be overseen by the elders who, as shepherds of the flock, sincerely long to see wandering sheep repent, return, and be restored (cf. Gal. 6:1)

The process of church discipline is outlined by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 18:15-17; 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.  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.  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.

This passage delineates a four-step process for how churches are to deal with sin among their members.  First, believers are to address sin on an individual level, approaching the offending party with a spirit of gentleness and humility.  If the sinning brother responds to that private confrontation in repentance, the church discipline process comes to an end.  He is forgiven and restored (Matt. 18-15). But if he refuses to repent, the process moves to a second step, in which one or two more believers join in confronting the sinning brother.  These witnesses (cf. Num. 35:30; Deut. 17:6; 19-15; John 8:17; 2 Cor. 13:1; 1 Tim. 5:19; Heb. 10:28) primarily confirm that the sin was committed, and they also observe how the offending party responds after being confronted a second time (Matt. 18:16).  It is hoped that the added weight of their rebuke will be enough to prompt a change of heart in the sinning brother.

 Should he still refuse to repent after being given adequate time, the process moves to a third step.  In light of the sinning brother’s persistent hardheartedness, the witnesses are to bring the matter to the church (Matt 18; 17) by notifying the elders, who in turn communicate it to the congregation.  Because of the public nature of this step, the elders must perform due diligence to confirm the facts of the situation—that the church member has sinned, has been confronted, and has refused to repent—before announcing it to the entire congregation.  The purpose of alerting the church is twofold; to remind other members of the seriousness of sin (cf. 1Tim. 5:20) and to encourage them to confront the sinning brother in the hopes that he will repent and be restored.

10 Concerns Francis Schaeffer Took to the Grave (pt. 2)

"Penned just before his death in 1984, Francis’ Schaeffer’s forgotten tome ‘The Great Evangelical Disaster’ drew attention to various concerns that lay heavily upon the Protestant thinker’s mind before he passed into glory. Today, rereading this book some three decades later seems to almost verge on the prophetic (small case "p"). The Switzerland-based American teacher was able to pinpoint several major themes that have come to plague the evangelical scene in our days. In this article, we are going to highlight ten major fears that Schaeffer took to the grave which should be of concern to all of us who identify ourselves with the Gospel-centred, Reformation-rooted Protestant faith.

Yesterday we considered the first five fears namely:
1.- Growing Relativism

2.- Lack of Discipline 

3.- Compromise of the Truth

4.- Social Work (Misplaced Priorities)

5.- The Temptation of Ecumenism 

Today we will consider the remaining five concerns that Mr. Schaeffer wrote about shortly before his death.  As you think about the past 35 years, how many of these concerns were valid?  What can we do to address these ten concerns as individual believers and as local churches?  

6. Abortion 

Far from assenting to rife abortion-justifying euphemisms such as the ‘quality of life’ or ‘the happiness and well-being of the mother’ or ‘the need for every child to be wanted’, Schaeffer believed that mass abortion was simply the outworking of a revived hedonistic attitude which put a person’s happiness above a sacred respect for human life.  He was unable to understand how anyone confessing the name of Christ could remain within a pro-abortion denomination. In the final analysis, abortion was an all-out attack on the precious image of God which is made known through humankind. “The unborn child is a human being created in the image of God, and to deny this is to deny the authority of the Bible. It is impossible to read Psalm 139 and truly believe what it says without realizing that life in the womb is human life. It is impossible to truly believe in the Incarnation and not realize that the child conceived in Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit was indeed the Son of God from the time of conception”.

7.- Liberalism 

The fruit of theological liberalism had left many formerly-sound churches completely destitute of any spiritual power. Modernism, influenced by German Higher Criticism, had all but baptized the cardinal doctrines of the Enlightenment in the name of Christ. What did such an approach entail? Schaeffer answers: “The denial of the supernatural; belief in the all-sufficiency of human reason; the rejection of the Fall; denial of the deity of Christ and his resurrection; belief in the perfectibility of man; and the destruction of the Bible”.  Liberal preachers like the acclaimed Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) had no authoritative Bible left to preach from. Secular humanism took centre stage therefore any doctrine that did not put the spotlight upon man was ultimately done away with. Rather than the church influencing the world; the world took the reins of the church into her Gospel-denying grasp. Today this is seen in the emergent church and in the seeker sensitive/church growth movements.

10 Concerns Francis Schaeffer Took to the Grave

Penned just before his death in 1984, Francis’ Schaeffer’s forgotten tome ‘The Great Evangelical Disaster’ drew attention to various concerns that lay heavily upon the Protestant thinker’s mind before he passed into glory. Today, rereading this book some three decades later seems to almost verge on the prophetic (small case "p"). The Switzerland-based American teacher was able to pinpoint several major themes that have come to plague the evangelical scene in our days. In this article, we are going to highlight ten major fears that Schaeffer took to the grave which should be of concern to all of us who identify ourselves with the Gospel-centered, Reformation-rooted Protestant faith.

1.- Growing Relativism 

Relativism came about due to the Enlightenment’s focus upon the autonomy of man. No longer was God to set the rules and call the shots; but rather humankind was to determine what was good and evil, true and false (as in the wicked day of the Judges in ancient Israel). Ethics and epistemology became absorbed by an inordinate passion for egoism and self-interest. Once the infallible, inerrant Word of God was openly decried; there was nothing left to take its place but human fancies. Schaeffer realized that a church built upon the sandy-foundation of relativism could not withstand the onslaught of fallen reason. Only the non-negotiable absolutes of Scripture could enable the church to keep waging a good warfare. It was those “absolutes which enabled the early church to withstand the pressure of the Roman Empire” A relativistic church would have nothing left to say to a sinful culture. 

2.- Lack of Discipline (Polemics)

Given the resurgence of pagan relativism throughout post-modern society, many churches had fallen into the trap of downplaying Christian doctrine (absolutes) by refusing to take action against false teachers. Schaeffer identified a lack of church discipline (2-3 John, Jude) as the real breeding ground for heretics. It was this deficiency which explained the victory of the liberal party within early twentieth-century American Presbyterianism. The Great Evangelical Disaster, by Schaeffer. As Schaeffer makes clear, “Discipline had not been consistently applied by the faithful men of the church”.  Without ecclesiastical and denominational discipline for doctrinal reasons, the church would be left vulnerable before the avalanche of false teaching. Hence Schaeffer’s proposal: “The practice of the purity of the visible church first means discipline of those who do not take a proper position in regard to the teaching of Scripture”.  And again: “Where there is a departure from the historic view of Scripture and from obedience to God’s Word, then those who take this weakened view need to be brought under discipline”. Only a high view of Scripture could justify the reestablishment of biblical discipline. If unorthodox ministers/teachers/bible study leaders were not dealt with, how could their churches stay true to sound doctrine? (Note this theme in 1-2 Timothy, Titus)

 3.- Compromise of the Truth