Matthew 18:15-18 “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. But 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. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

Here Jesus lays out the process he wants us to follow when confronting sin. There are three things to note. First, when the Christian family confronts sin, he wants to involve as few people as possible. If there is a confession and apology, you can forgive your friend and the process ends. There is nothing else to say about it, no need to go the pastor about the issue, no one more to tell.

If a guilty brother or sister continues to defend the sin, then you bring more people to the conversation, but no more than needed. Maybe additional voices will help convince a sinner of his guilt. But at first we keep it to one or two. We don’t go to the press about what has happened. We don’t start a campaign against the guilty with a whole team of people we have recruited for our side. One or two may be all that is needed to show the issue is not just a matter of your personal opinion.

If that does not work, eventually we may have to involve the whole church. The intent is not to shame, or pressure, or intimidate. We are trying to keep this person as a cherished member of the family. All those voices are meant to communicate and convince. And if we can convince this member of the Christian family who has strayed off the path, then we forgive, reclaim, and restore.

The second thing to note about this process is that it is not a legal process. We aren’t following a set of policies, going through the motions, checking all the boxes so that we don’t get into legal trouble. This is an evangelical, gospel process intended to win people. It’s okay if we talk to the person who has sinned against us a number of times alone, or if we go with one or two other people more than once, or if the whole church takes some time as it puts together its appeal to repent. Patience, gentleness, and love are always acceptable when we are seeking to rescue someone’s soul.

Third, Jesus is not giving us permission to be mean when he says, “If he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” In the past, some people have objected to this whole process of church discipline and excommunication because it seemed at odds with the great commandment to love your neighbor. Some thought treating someone like a pagan or tax collector meant pretending like you didn’t see him if you met him in the store, or acting as though he was sick with Ebola, and you might catch it from him if you got too close.

No, pagans and tax collectors were two classes of people who were clearly faithless for the Jews of Jesus’ day. They were outside the family of God. They needed to be saved. On the one hand, then, Jesus is saying that you can’t treat people who have persistently refused to repent of their sins as though they were members of the church in good standing. You wouldn’t make them your leaders, or have them teaching your children, or let them have a part in the decision making process of the congregation. You wouldn’t invite atheists to do those things, either. Such people lack the spiritual qualifications and capacity for this.

But you don’t tell such people that they can’t attend, that they can’t come and learn. That is exactly what they need. To the end, everything is meant to win them back if possible. When the process works the way we want, even if it goes all the way to excommunication, and we terminate the rights and privileges of membership, the person comes to his senses, comes back, and asks for forgiveness, like the prodigal son. I could tell you stories about people I know who got that far in the process before waking up and repenting. Those stories end with happy endings. There would be no happy ending, however, if Christ’s family had not confronted the sin.