"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; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. "I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
"Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."
Jennifer Gill says that the Matthew 18 model ". . . is meant to be a tool to rebuke and call fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to repent and come back to the fold."
I personally am convinced that the church would suffer from much less "hypocrisy" if we practiced this model of conflict resolution. Notice that the first step is to go directly to the person who has wronged you. It doesn't say tell everybody what happened and make sure they are all on your side before you go to the person.
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2 comments:
what's with the name calling???
No name calling, I know I've had times when I needed to be confronted.
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