A Biblical Analysis of Corrective Church Discipline: God's Loving Plan to Rescue and Restore Believers

God is the one who has raised the issue and spoke about church discipline. It’s His topic, and it’s His business! Christ talked about it, the Apostle Paul spoke of it, James mentioned it, and other New Testament authors dealt with it as well. We are commanded to preach the whole counsel of God, so we shouldn’t pick and choose the topics we like and avoid the ones we dislike. However, it is clear today that this vital aspect of God’s counsel is largely being neglected and rarely practiced. Despite its biblical basis, the idea of church discipline can be controversial among Christians and churches. Even though virtually every organization or business practices it, for some reason, we think it’s wrong when done in the church. For example, a fraudulent lawyer can be debarred, an abusive player in the NBA can be fined, an employee can be dismissed, a doctor who is accused of malpractice can lose his or her medical license, a teacher can be fired, and so forth. The fact that other organizations or groups have some means of correcting or removing its members is widely accepted, however, if it’s done in the church, many negatively react. There is a lot of confusion and differing views regarding this biblical doctrine. However, when it’s carefully looked at, it’s not really that hard to understand. This book tackles this important doctrine head-on and seeks to let God say what He intended to say about church discipline.