Matthew 18 set the Biblical standard for Christian conflict resolution. For most believers, it’s pretty clear cut… if a fellow believer sins against you, you go to him. If he refuses to listen, you bring a couple others along to address the situation. If he refuses to listen even then, you go to the church with the matter.
Pretty clear-cut, isn’t it? It would seem so, at least in the context of the local church when one person has clearly been sinned against.
Take a look again, and tell me how it applies in the blogging world, especially when you have two believers who are at odds with one another.
15“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”
It’s an interesting question, isn’t it… one that I find a bit difficult to answer. If it’s a conflict involving me, it makes sense… I still need to go to the person one-on-one to be reconciled. But what is our role as observers to conflict, especially when we see two believers at odds with one another? How do we apply the Matthew 18 principles in this context? At what point must we intervene? Do we do it privately? Publicly?
Personally, I find these to be difficult questions.
What do you think?
The scriptures tell us that we are to be ministers of reconciliation. True, this refers primarily to the evangelistic imperative, but I believe it has application on any number of relational levels. Stanley Grenz wrote a great book, “Theology for the Community of God.” In it he proposes that since God exists in community (the Trinity) the church’s primary expression must be one of community. We have an obligation to sustain and protect that position. I think there are two issues I would bring up. One of the overlooked principles of Matthew 18 is keeping the circle of information as small as possible. No one but the offended is in the know unless the offender refuses to repent. The second issue is really a caution. There is a difference between sin and disagreement. We must never substitute our offense for God’s. Just some food for thought. Thank you for your service.
John-
I think it’s also worthwhile to consider Jesus’ words when he said “If your brother sins against you.” In other words, what level of involvement should we maintain if we observe the sin from “afar” so to speak, but are not actually involved in it?
I don’t know the answer, I’m just trying to add to the discussion. 🙂 It’s Thursday night with no small group and I feel the need to express myself. 🙂
I don’t think we can apply Matthew 18 to the blog world or at least not just this passage. We have things being done in public….well behind closed doors but in a place we all should have a voice in, I don’t see any other way to go than public. Jesus throwing out the sellers at the temple was pretty public. Paul confronting those who were speaking against his ministry was addressed in public. Paul spoke of those who are teaching heresy in public. I believe Matthew speaking of more a one to one situation than anything in the blog world. On any subject I think scripture interprets scripture and not just one passage. Just my humble opinion.
Conflict resolution – however one defines the process – implies the parties agree they are embroiled in a conflict. One of the problems I have encountered in blogging is that I don’t always realize “we” are in conflict. I am happily going along thinking we are debating ideas [sort of a theological version of Ford vs Chevy or AL(and it’s designated hitter rule) vs. NL (baseball as it was meant to be played)] and you think I have deeply offended you.
How do I reconcile a relationship I don’t perceive to be damaged? Or, how am I supposed to reconcile a relationship when I’m not even sure an actual relationship exists?
Jim,
I think you’ve hit on a key part of Matthew 18… confidentiality. Verse 15 makes this clear… it’s one on one, no one but the sinner and the sinned against. Verse 16 expands the circle of who is “in the know” a bit further. It’s only after two efforts at reconciliation that the situation is made public… specifically, to the church.
I wonder how this translates to the blog world. Verse 15 is pretty clear… one on one conversation. That can occur via e-mail, IMs, phone calls, face-to-face… whatever. Verse 16 is more complicated. How do you approach another believer in this manner when you only know them through blogs, where the parties involved are separated geographically by hundreds (if not thousands) of miles? And is verse 17 really even applicable? Is a public blog post analogous to taking the matter to the church?
It’s complicated.
Micah…
I think you’ve hit on the main question I have about this… at what point do we, as believers, step in and intervene in a situation where two believers are feuding, having both apparently sinned against each other? That’s a tough one, regardless if the situation involves believers in the same church or believers separated by thousands of miles. The follow up to that is, how is Matthew 18 applicable to that, if at all?
(I’m missing small group tonight too… this isn’t quite the same!)
Debbie…
I guess the question I’m getting at (in a roundabout manner, obviously), is simply this… does Matthew 18 apply in regard to accountability, and how?
Bowden,
You snuck in there as I was replying to everyone else.
I think you’ve hit on another good question… does blogging develop relationships between believers that make these passages applicable?
Personally, I think it’s applicable any time believers are in conflict. Verse 15 makes it the responsibility of the offended to seek reconciliation, so I’d think that (so long as everyone is following Biblical conflict resolution) we need not worry about whether we’ve offended anyone until they approach us. That doesn’t excuse us from being careful to communicate clearly and lovingly, of course, so as to avoid offending needlessly.
[…] Stickley and he runs ‘Toward the Goal’. A blog that I suggest and enjoy reading. On his latest post John ask in so many words a very interesting question; how does Matthew 18 apply to blogging? It is […]
John,
One of the things I’ve found interesting through the years is that we often ‘pick’ the sins we hold to the standard of Mat. 18. For instance, gluttony is seldom, if ever, held to the Mat. 18 standard. On the other hand, ‘offenses’ – you know, the stuff people say that hurt our feelings, are quickly brought before that great standard. Certainly if one is engaged in a sin that is harmful to the body as a whole, ‘gross sins’ you might say, then brethren/sistren have an obligation to encourage that erring one to cease and desist. It seems to me, however, that the less than Christlike manner in which many topics are debated in the blog world, while certainly guilty of presenting a poor example to the outside world, may not be worthy of ‘treating that person as a heathen or tax collector.’ I’ve found that, when I am able to see ‘debate’ more as sharing my thoughts and less as trying to convince others that I’m right and they’re wrong, the ‘volatile’ nature of the disagreement generally disappears. Very thoughtful questions brother…..
Grace to you,
PTL
This is the question that needed to be throroughly discussed over a year ago. Thank you for bringing it up.
What are the issues:
Public exposure of internal church matters (1 Cor 6:1-11)
Public shame of brothers in Christ (James 4:11)
Responsibility of bringing to a brother’s attention their offense (Matt 18)
The correct response to whether our rights have been infringed upon (1 Cor 6:7,12)
The differentiation between the local church and the blogosphere
First, it is helpful to point out that the blogosphere cannot carry out church discipline as a church is instructed to do, largely in part because it cannot shun a member from the Lord’s Supper and fellowship. Church discipline, therefore, is truly only carried out in the context of a local church.
Second, despite your general references Debbie, I do not at all see in the NT room to expose anyone’s sins publicly. Rebuking a pastor for immorality is to occur “in the presence of all,” which I take to be the church, and still only enough details to get the basic idea of his sin, does not imply taking to the public exposure of a pastors sin in order to get him forced from his position. This method I think could only be justified if the man was a false teacher or false prophet. Blogs are public. Newspapers are public. It is truly a shame that we must deny the sovereignty of God by taking internal matters to external means of subversion.
Third, I think that association plays a huge role in the blogosphere, for better or worse. If a man is factious, he must be avoided- this is clear. If a man is focusing on other Christian personalities, how can one conclude it is other than factious? If it isn’t a false teacher, how is one to justify this (Phil 1:18)?
Matt 18 applies to the offender and one offended. For instance, those having trouble with a seminary president should go to that seminary president; but there is no recourse of disfellowship because they are not apart of the local body together. If he is opposing denominational organizational policies or rules, those same denominational structures should provide the right means and methods by which grievances are addressed. If those means and methods are corrupt, one must be extremely careful as to not sew discord in addressing that corruption. Once discord is being sewn, sin is bein committed.
I think it is especially important for all Christian bloggers to associate with (and publicly disassociate from) those among us that are factious and sewing discord among the BRETHREN. If one is believed to be a false teacher, I say make the case humbly and gently, and make sure you appoint a group to hold you to account. One thing i have learned is that bloggers are not held to account by other bloggers, despite what I hear. They are only held to account so far as the community that supports their beliefs is willing to hold them to account.
I have much more to say, but I think the only one that has earned the right for pages of comments is Gene Bridges!
Colin…
As far as I’m concerned, anyone is welcome to make pages and pages of comments here. This is a much needed conversation.
All…
I haven’t had time to carefully consider the most recent comments (there’s a lot to consider… a good thing!), but I would like to point out one thing… how we understand and implement Matthew 18:17 appears dependent upon our understanding of the church… is “church” the local body or the greater assembly of believers? I don’t see how that verse can be applied outside the local body, but one’s understanding of “church” could affect their understanding of this verse.
One other thing… I want to share an idea I’ve been kicking around over the past couple of days to assist with accountability in the Baptist blog world… one that might actually clarify how we bloggers apply Matthew 18 a bit.
I call it “FBC Blogtown”. I can’t take credit for this as entirely original thought (Josh King coined the term “First Baptist Bloggers” on his site, and Dorcas seemed to start the whole Blogtown thing), but here’s the basics. FBC Blogtown would be a semi-formal group we bloggers can associate ourselves with, complete with some sort of membership agreement or covenant. Membership in the group would require that members commit to real Christian accountability in their blogging efforts in the spirit of Matthew 18. Members would be publicly identified on a website, with links to their blogs. The site might turn into much more at a later date.
Of course, the idea is very much in its infancy, but I think anything that promotes real accountability amongst bloggers is worth considering. Any thoughts? If I see many who think this is worth pursuing, I’ll start another post.
John, thank you for your thoughtful post. I would like to see you continue to develop the format of which you speak. I am afraid that the “good news” isn’t nearly as interesting to most Christian bloggers as is the bad news and that as a result we are missing an opportunity to leverage our combined strengths for His glory.
(p.s. Sorry about your disappearing Tribute post. I was trying to clean up some gibberish in my blog and ended up losing about 50 or so posts that I did not want to.)
Thanks, John. Then let me add some…
I think I missed two pivotal points.
First, one of the purposes of church discipline, one in regards to the offender, is for him to repent and rejoin the fellowship of believers. Therefore, we must approach any disciplinary matter with the purpose of getting that person to remove the post/retract comments/publicly apologize, whatever, thus saving reproach on the bride of Christ corporate and universal. In this regards, there must be real and lasting consequences for non-repentance.
This means it is not enough to go to a brother, confront him in the spirit of Matthew 18, have him disagree, and everyone go about their business. Something has to happen.
Why?
To save the brother, provide a warning, provide a witness, and remove reproach on believers brought about by a bad witness, etc. In other words, even if we decide that the blogosphere is not receptive to the Matthew 18 model, whether prudently or biblically, something still must be done for the benefit of the offender and the church. He must be notified of his wrong. He must be given consequences; and those consequences must be substantial.
Second, the blogtown idea. I am all over accountability. However, we have an inherent problem, even seen in this comment stream. Believers are not likeminded- there is no unity. I think public airing sin of the church to the watching world through blogs and newspapers is sin in itself, even if it has been done for twenty years; others like Debbie and her friends do not. We have a different conception even of what constitutes sinful behavior. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, even if one does do something out of line, you have a whole host of commentors who regularly give you praise for everything you write who go right along with you- and many of these are pastors! One is only held to account by few of his own, but mainly by those outside his community of like-minded viewpoints. If many of these bloggers would have considered it sin to begin with (or commentors), they probably would not have written what they wrote. So, an impasse must be traversed. Otherwise, what we are going to have is a group of bloggers who covenant, and a faction that rails against those covenanted believers as either legalist, or liberal in their views of sin.
A lot to think through, but I definitely think this is the right track.
PTL…
I haven’t forgotten your comments, just hadn’t had time to really think about what you’ve said.
I agree with your assessment of Christian accountability… we usually do pick the “gross offenses”. Matthew 18 really is applicable more to offenses against each other, though, so maybe it’s not the right passage to support accountability in general. That’s really the thrust of this entire post, though, so maybe I shouldn’t have focused just on that passage in my original post. Matthew 18 does, however, seem to provide the appropriate methodology for addressing sin in an accountability relationship.
All that said, I would agree that most of the “misconduct” we see in the blog world is not something that jumps to the level of verse 17. I would hope that believers offended by such conduct would simply talk to the offender, and try to work through their differences… and I would hope that such offenders, being believers, would be sensitive to the concerns of their brothers and sisters in Christ.
What saddens me most, and what has really fueled the concerns behind this post, is the apparent conflict that exists between many believers in Baptist life right now. I have no problem with civil debate… but there certainly appears to be a number of believers who simply can’t stand each other… who may feel they have been sinned against by each other, and remain unreconciled. I may be reading more into things than truly exists, of course, but I struggle with how to address those concerns, how to help affect reconciliation (where needed), what my role in that may be (again, where needed), and how (or if) Matthew 18 principles apply.
Of course, perhaps that’s where my SBC Blogtown thing (the name sounds corny to me the more I think about it, but that’s beside the point) comes into play… by establishing accountability relationships where all participants agree to and expect that we will intervene in cases where we see concerns, not in an accusatory manner (given that we may not know all the circumstances), but simply to remind each other of our joint commitments to remain Christ-like in our blogging communications.
Colin…
Speaking of pages of comments, I’m getting there… 🙂
Thank you for raising the wide range of issues associated with this topic. It is definitely a multi-faceted issue, and you’ve hit on a good number of them. I appreciate your well-rounded approach to this.
I think the thing I’m most struck with by your posts is your concern for how discipline (or accountability) is implemented. I agree completely that neither one involves airing dirty laundry for the sake of embarrassing other believers… discipline and accountability exist for positive purposes, to build others up that all might honor and glorify God. It is most unfortunate that blogging does not always do this. I’d like to believe that this is simply because of the relative “newness” of the medium and the inexperience almost all of us have in dealing with it. Blogging is an amazing medium, granting individual instant access to millions of potential readers… it’s unfortunate that we don’t always exercise appropriate discipline and responsibility in what we write.
It’s funny, re-reading that last paragraph I’ve written… it’s a circular matter. In attempting to provide discipline or accountability through blogging, we sometimes err and find that we ourselves need discipline and accountability.
Anyway, good food for thought.
Kevin…
First, don’t worry about the tribute post you wrote. To be honest, I didn’t even know it was gone… 🙂 Again, though… I definitely appreciated all of the kind words you had to say! You truly were too kind.
All…
I do believe that I will put some more thought into the “Blogtown” idea. I don’t know when I’ll have a new post up about it, but hopefully soon. I’ve got a lot of ideas floating around in my head about it, and I’m going to need some time to put them into words that are meaningful. In the meantime, feel free to post any of your own thoughts here.
I know that means this discussion may stray a bit from the direction it started, but that’s one of the things I like best… meaningful free-form discussion. Don’t hesitate to post here… anything you feel might be beneficial is welcome.
Last one, I promise. In regards to when we intervene, it is a great question. In my view, I would hope that no one try to discipline if their motivations are wrong. One must be motivated by love for the offender, and all those affected by the sin of the offender. Therefore, if one’s motivating factor were truly love, it would seem to be that they could not refrain from acting in some manner, first to protect those offended or being shamed, and second to protect the offender from himself. Therefore, I would see no excuse for alerting a brother to his sin (including follow-up action), because if you let him persist, how are you loving him?
I’ll come at this from the opposite direction. God gifts us differently and gives us all different personalities, perspectives, and slants on things. Not to mention different instructions.
If we’re walking in love, and open to the Spirit, He’ll tell us what to do. And he who knows what to do and doesn’t do it, well, that’s a place where another kind of trouble starts. And I don’t think we can always (if ever) apply Matthew 18 as our motivation in a situation between 2 other people, We don’t necessarily need it to know the right thing to do.
I think we should hesitate to take up others’ offenses, but at the same time we are called, as has been noted, to a ministry of reconciliation. We also are to be peacemakers. The question for me really is whether God is leading me to intervene. If i am doing it on my own, then I will not help. If God is leading me to intervene then I should go for it with gusto.
I have, from time to time, confronted individuals in the blogosphere, but I have always either searched for and found their email address of phone number or asked them to provide it to me so that I could address them privately. In every instance it has gone well. I’ve also had someone approach me in the same way early in my blogging experience and it was the beginning of a great relationship of mutual respect (and I stood corrected). 🙂
Colin, Bob, Bryan…
I think you’ve all sounded the same basic chord (a good thing)… if God leads us to intervene in a conflict between believers, that call trumps all and we’ve got to follow through. How to do so is where the guidance of Matthew 18 seems to come in… we contact both privately and go from there. God’s leading is obviously most important, which emphasizes once again the necessity of a close walk with Christ and a heart-check prior to any action.
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