Knowing the Word in Matthew 18:15-20

If Your Brother Sins Against You

15 “If your brother sins against you [singular], go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. [This is similar to the Father’s care of the singular sheep. Some debate if this is more about pointing out the sin to the brother or about the concern of the breakdown of a relationship. I believe it addresses both. Disciples are not to ignore the faults of other disciples.] 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. [If he won’t listen to one, then perhaps other disciples will help that person see things differently.] 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church [finally and only if necessary]. [Jesus is not calling the church to take action and discipline the person. His concern is that the person listens.] And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. [The admonition is to keep one’s distance from a person like this. It is not excommunication. After all persuasion has failed, perhaps a cold shoulder will work.] 18 Truly, I say to you [plural], whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. [This is almost identical to the authority Jesus gave Peter. Here it is expanded to the disciples. The basis of the church’s appeal to the sinner was their united conviction of what was right or wrong conduct for a disciple. Bind and loose refer to pronouncements of what is and is not sin.] 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” [There was a Rabbinic belief that when two sit together and words of the Law are between them, then the Shekinah rests between them (Mishnah Aboth 3:2). Now the divine presence is Jesus himself.]