In my last post I examined step two of Jesus’ guidance for what to do if someone sins against you. Let me review what we’ve seen so far:<\/p>\n
Step 1: Go and privately point out the fault to the wrongdoer.
If Step 1 is successful, you have won back the offender.
If Step 1 is not successful and the offender won’t listen to you, go to Step 2.
Step 2: Go again with one or two witnesses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nYet sometimes even this doesn’t work. So Jesus moves to step three, which we find in Matthew 18:17: “If the member refuses to listen to them [the witnesses], tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church . . . .”<\/p>\n
Tell It to the Church<\/b><\/p>\n
Almost all English translations of verse 17 say more or less the same thing here: “tell it to the church.” The underlying Greek sentence uses the word ekklesia<\/i>, which is almost always translated in the New Testament as “church” (but not in Acts 19:32, 39, and 40). At times this is certainly correct, but in some cases it might “over-translate” the original Greek, and Matthew 18:17 may be one of these cases. <\/p>\n
By “over-translate” I mean “bring in more meaning than was present in the original.” Let me explain. When we hear the word “church,” we usually envision an institution with buildings, official authorities, etc. etc. But it’s highly unlikely that Matthew 18:17 ever conveyed this sort of thing to the original readers. (Jesus probably spoke Aramaic here, using either kenishta’<\/i> or qehilla’<\/i>, which was rendered by the Greek-speaking church as ekklesia<\/i>.) Rather, the first readers of Matthew would have heard in ekklesia<\/i> a reference an actual gathering of Christians, a group that, in the first century, was almost always relatively small (50 people or less). (Photo: Although the Abston Church of Christ<\/a> doesn’t have conflicts among its members, since they’re Lego people made of plastic, it sometimes has strange visitors to its worship services.)<\/p>\n