These exhortations were given by me between 1999 and 2005. That was a long time ago, and I have grown a lot since then. They may not reflect my current beliefs.

And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him. And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

The publican were the tax collectors of the Roman Empire. The taxes were often a great burden, and many of the publicans were less than honest in the execution of their duties. Not surprisingly, the publicans in first century Palestine were not regarded favourably by the population. One of the derogatory terms that the Pharisees used about Christ was “friend of sinners and publicans”. To them it was terrible to be a friend of sinners and publicans. Christ didn’t feel this way, as the two passages I have just read show. The publicans were as much his friends as anyone in Israel was. He extended kindness and compassion to publicans, just as he extended it to everyone else. One of his twelve apostles was a publican, and look at how he fellowshipped Zacchaeus.

How should we react when someone within the ecclesia sins against us? We all know the passage that deals with this sort of thing, Matthew 18, verses 15 to 17:

Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

The phrase “against thee” isn’t in all the manuscripts, but I don’t think it really makes a significant difference to the meaning of the verse. In any case, there is a four step process that Christ tells us to follow:

• Go and tell him his fault;
• If he doesn’t listen, go with two or three other people;
• If that doesn’t work, tell the church;
• And finally, if that doesn’t work, you are to treat him as a heathen and publican.

I want to look at each of those four steps.

If thy brother shall trespass … go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.

The very first thing you do is personally speak to him. You don’t discuss it with outsiders, you don’t discuss the matter with some respected brother or sister, you certainly don’t tell other people about it. You go to the person who has sinned, and you speak to them. And you speak to them in humility, and in a way that seeks reconciliation. You are going out to regain your brother, not to score points off somebody else. One verse from Galatians. It’s brief, you don’t need to turn it up. Galatians 6, verse 1:

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.

Gentleness is the order of the day, especially at this early stage. When the shepherd went after the lost sheep, he carried it lovingly back to the flock. Unless you are approaching the sinning brother with gentleness, looking for common ground and reconciliation, you aren’t carrying out the first step.

The second step is like the first, only this time you go with one or two other people. It is a little more serious this time:

But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

You are getting more people involved, which will almost certainly make the situation more polarised, and less likely to succeed.

And success, by the way, is not driving the sinner away. Success is restoring unity.

This second step, as well as being an second attempt at healing, is preparation for the third. Your accomplices were to help you in your persuasion at step two. They were also to act as co-witnesses in step three.

And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church

This is the first stage, brothers and sisters, where the sin is to become public knowledge. If you have let others know before this stage then you are as much in the wrong as the brother who sinned against you.

Suppose I wanted to write a letter to every Christadelphian ecclesia. How would I go about it? It wouldn’t actually be a particularly difficult thing to do. I’d write the letter on a computer, and print out however many copies I needed. Then I’d get the computer to print all the envelopes for me. Even if I didn’t have a list of contact addresses for every ecclesia, I could easily get that information from, for example, the ALS diary and similar lists. I could even get a machine that would put all the letters into the envelopes for me, and stamp them. Apart from writing the letter, the only time consuming thing would be setting up the machinery. Once you’d done that, I’d never have to do it again, and you could write a letter to every ecclesia every day, and it wouldn’t be any more difficult than writing to one ecclesia a day. Thanks to technology, it is possible for anyone to write to everyone with very little effort. Fifty years ago it would have been much more difficult. I would have had to have typed the letter and envelopes, and the machinery to automate the process would have been well beyond the financial reach of most people. A hundred and fifty years ago, it would have been essentially impossible. I would have had to have the letters actually printed. The envelopes would have been hand addressed, and the worldwide postal system wasn’t nearly so reliable.

Today, In a properly set up home office, it would be a couple of hours’ work to contact every ecclesia. Fifty years ago, it would have been several days’ work. A hundred and fifty years ago, it would have taken weeks, and would have been too expensive to consider doing.

For most of history, particularly before the invention of the printing press, and before literacy was widespread, it would actually have been impossible to write to every ecclesia. Even if you had the time and education to write a letter, you would have had to spend time duplicating it hundreds and hundreds of times. Even if you had the money to send the letters, getting a list of addresses to send them to would have been impossibly difficult.

Why am I saying this? Suppose somebody wants to announce a Bible school, or a newly published book, or a conference, to the whole Christadelphian body, the only reasonable way to do that is by writing a letter to every ecclesia. I do think that is a good reason for writing to every ecclesia.

And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church

When Christ said that, could he have meant the worldwide church? No. There was simply no way of telling the worldwide church anything until about 150 to 200 years ago, and it has only really become a practical proposition in the past 20, and even then it is only practical for someone in the prosperous West.

“Tell it unto the church” could only have meant “tell it to your local church, your local ecclesia”. At most it could only have meant “your local church and neighbouring churches”, because for most of history that is the only church you could have told. Telling the worldwide church anything was essentially impossible for anyone other than God. You can’t use Matthew 18 to justify sending a letter to hundreds of ecclesias world wide.

There is a distressing fashion in Christadelphian circles for some people to detail other’s perceived sins in letters circulated to much of the English speaking Christadelphian world, and to use Matthew 18 as justification for this. I don’t want to comment on any specific occurrences of this – I know of at least two circular letters sent in the past six months – because, apart from anything else, to comment on specific examples would be to break the rules set put in step one.

As far as I can see, circular letters also violate the principle of Galatians 6, verse 1. “Restore him gently”. If there is a situation where you feel a brother is sinning in an unrepentant fashion, how could writing a letter about it be considered to be “gentle”? Rather than being gentle, it is more like pouring petrol on a fire. A local dispute gets spread over a wide area. Names get tarnished needlessly.

The modern Christadelphian church – and I mean worldwide church here – has a number of non-ecclesial bodies, which do various useful things, like the Isolation League, the CBM, the ALS, and the publishing office in Birmingham. None of those organisations represent or lead the worldwide church. So nobody thinks I’m having a go at them, I don’t think that they consider themselves to represent or lead the worldwide church. Matthew 18, unfortunately, has also lead people to believe that unrepentant sinners should also be reported to the ALS, or the CBM, or whoever. Matthew 18 says you should tell the church, and just as that doesn’t mean the worldwide church, it doesn’t mean the ALS, CBM, or whoever. They are organisations composed of members of the church, and they are organisations that exist only to serve the church and to assist in its work, but they are not the church, and they are certainly not bodies that have more authority than individual ecclesias. Again, I don’t think any of the organisations I have mentioned see themselves as anything other than servants of the church, but I do know of groups that try to raise themselves up as policemen and rulers. That, however is another topic entirely.

There are two passages from the New Testament that I want to look at. The first one is First Corinthians 5, verses 1 and 2:

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this?

There was a serious moral problem in the Corinthian ecclesia, and Paul was writing about it. Is this not an example we should follow? Paul wrote about others unrepented sins, so shouldn’t we.

First of all, Paul was writing to the Corinthian ecclesia about a problem it had. He wasn’t writing to the Ephesian ecclesia about problems in the Corinthian ecclesia. By the grace of God, Paul’s letter has been preserved for us to learn from, but the original target of the letter was the place where the sin was taking place. Paul may even have been responding to a point the Corinthian ecclesia had made to him in an earlier letter. This isn’t Paul making a local matter public knowledge.

Secondly, there is no hint in 1 Corinthians who the two guilty parties are. Paul doesn’t name them. In fact the issue only seems to be addressed to the whole ecclesia because it is actually everyone in the ecclesia is guilty, because they should have withdrawn from the incestuous couple.

There is no possible scriptural precedent for circular letters here, particularly not for circular letters that name names.

The second passage is 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 20:

Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

Specific individuals are identified for us here. Could this be a scriptural precedent for the circular letter naming unrepentant sinners? Once again the answer is no. We know that Paul has withdrawn from these people, and we know something about their sin – blasphemy – but Paul has spared us the details. If Paul was a 21st century recording brother or ecclesial secretary, he would probably have put an announcement in the back of the Christadelphian magazine “I regret to announce that I have withdrawn from Hymenaeus and Alexander for conduct unbecoming of brothers of Christ.” There is no real detail of what they did, nothing that could be mistaken for gossip. Paul did not use hundreds or thousands of words telling us exactly how they blasphemed.

I have spent a lot of time on point three. I am now going to move onto point 4.

But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican

When any fellowship situation reaches this point, it is very, very sad. It implies that something has gone badly wrong. Maybe this is the point where a circular letter is appropriate. After all, we must be open and transparent in all we do, and we are actually doing a service to the Brotherhood. In any case, we are to treat the unrepentant sinner as a heathen and a publican: detestable people, people of no account, people who are so low that they do not deserve respect or honourable treatment.

And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him. And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Look at how Christ himself treated publicans. Christ ignored the murmurings and the gossip. He befriended the publicans. He treated them with dignity. He came to seek and to save them. They were never rejected. He called them from the seat of custom, and from the sycomore tree. And he certainly never listed their sins for all his followers to hear.