Embracing the Penitent

Luke 15:11–31

Although not everyone who has been subjected to church discipline repents, there are many times when a disciplined sinner is humbled by the church’s treatment and, forsaking sin, returns to the fold. When this happens, church leaders and laypeople must ...Read More

The Authority of the Church

1 Corinthians 5

Today’s passage is a proof text for question and answer 85 of the Heidelberg Catechism, which deals with how church discipline opens and shuts the door to the kingdom of heaven. Excommunication shuts the door by declaring that the excommunicated ...Read More

The Process of Discipline

Matthew 18:15–20

Dr. John MacArthur writes: Church discipline “is not merely to punish the offender, or to shun him completely, but to remove him as a detrimental influence from the fellowship of the church, and then to regard him as an evangelistic ...Read More

The Key of Church Discipline

Psalm 7:11–13

Dr. R.C. Sproul has often said that we must first understand the bad news if we are going to know the good news of the gospel. There is bad news for all the natural-born sons and daughters of Adam: ...Read More

The Church and Forgiveness

John 20:19–23

John Calvin comments that Christ “does not convey to [the Apostles and their successors] what is peculiar to himself. It belongs to him to forgive sins… . [Instead, He] enjoins them, in his name, to proclaim the forgiveness of sins, ...Read More

The Keys of the Kingdom

Matthew 16:13–20

There are two extremes when it comes to church authority. One extreme says that the church is always right no matter what it says. The other extreme says the church has no authority over the individual Christian. God’s Word tells ...Read More

Discipling and Disciplining

Do you accept discipline as well as discipling from your local church body? Ask God to make you more receptive to His discipline.Read More

Ordain with Discernment

1 Timothy 5:22-23

John Calvin writes, “Every person should attend to his own health, not for the sake of prolonging life, but that, as long as he lives, he may serve God, and be of use to his neighbors.” While we must be ...Read More

In the Presence of the Court

1 Timothy 5:19-21

John Chrysostom says, “As it is wrong to condemn hastily and rashly, so not to punish manifest offenses is to open the way to others, and embolden them to offend. …The threatenings of hell show the care of God for ...Read More

Unlimited Forgiveness

Matthew 18:21–35

It is not as if unforgiving people lose their salvation, Matthew Henry says, for “those who do not forgive their brother’s trespasses, did never truly repent of their own, and therefore that which is taken away is only what they ...Read More