Matthew 18:15-17

Matthew 18:15-17
In this section, Jesus continues His discourse on relationships between brethren and the danger of causing a brother to stumble. Our primary goal should be to avoid all such offenses, but the reality is that there will be sins that take place between brethren. However, Jesus does not allow us to let these sins create a division between us, nor are we allowed to ignore the problem. If a brother sins against us, we are commanded to go and attempt to resolve the issue privately between the two of us. If he will not listen, then we are allowed to bring with us one or two others so that every word is confirmed. If our brother still will not listen we are to bring it before the church. If he will not listen to the church, he is to be treated as an unbeliever and no longer accepted in the fellowship of the brethren.There are some important principles here. First, when sinned against, our tendency is to go and tell all our friends about our mistreatment. Often, the last thing we think of doing is talking directly to the brother who offended us. This pattern of dealing with personal sin causes problems within a church to be exacerbated. Now there is a whole group of people who are involved, creating hard feelings and ruined reputations. Jesus’ pattern solves the problem with the least repercussions.

A secondary lesson can also be learned from these instructions. Notice the different categories of people who are at work here. First, there is the individual Christian doing a work apart from the local church. There are a host of things in the scriptures that an individual Christian is commanded to do, that the church cannot do. All Christians must realize that they have a work to do as an individual Christian apart from their work in the local church.
Next, notice that two or three Christians can work together for the cause of the Lord without involving the local church. Again, this proves that there is work that Christians can do together that does not necessarily involve the whole church. Some make the mistake of misapplying Matthew 18:20 by saying that any time two or three Christians are together, there is the church. Not so. Two or three or more Christians can work together without involving the church and many times must work together in such an arrangement. Therefore, the work of an individual Christian or the work of a number of Christians together can be, and often is, different that what God commands the whole church to do. An easy example of this is the fact that God commands the individual to provide benevolence for those outside the church (Gal. 6:10; James 1:27), but the church is only commanded to provide benevolence for saints (1 Cor. 16:1-2; 1 Tim. 5:3-16, etc.)
Berry Kercheville