Deeper Reflection
CHURCH DISCIPLINE IS A NECESSITY IN COMMUNITY discipleship. Discipleship is not just about carrying the cross, but also being cleansed through the cross. Discipleship is redemptive and so is church discipline. God’s judgment on His people for their sins in the form of inflicting them with weakness, sickness and death is a redemptive discipline: “we are disciplined, so that we may not be condemned along with the world” (1 Cor 11:30, 32).The verb synanamignumi for “associate” in the church discipline called by Paul, “Do not associate with him” (v.14b, NIV), “may imply differing degrees of ostracism, ranging from the total separation involved in excommunication (as in 1 Cor 5:9, 11) to a more moderate avoidance of free and familiar fellowship” as for the Thessalonians here.³¹ The call of “Do not associate with him” is coupled and tempered with “Do not regard him as an enemy” (v.15a). The church discipline must be “friendly, not hostile”³². The culprit is to be treated “as a brother” in Christ, and the action toward that person is to “warn him” (v.15b), not humiliate or destroy him. Paul teaches that for “anyone who is caught in any trespass”, those who are “spiritual” are to “restore in the spirit of gentleness” (Gal 6:1). In church discipline, the spirit of love and grace must be felt by the one being disciplined. And when the church discipline is deemed as “enough”, there must be forgiveness and reaffirmation of love, lest we give to Satan a foothold in the church – in being unforgiving and feeling unforgiven (2 Cor 1:6-11).

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³¹ John R. W. Stott, Thessalonians, 193 ³² John R. W. Stott, Thessalonians, 194