January 20, 2013
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Church Discipline and Unexpected Repercussions
I thought about writing this last week when everything was fresh on my mind. I opted not to because I didn’t want to set myself up as an example to follow.
Apparently…. people thought my example was just that… something to follow. You’ll read more on that near the end.
In our church we have a few “celebrities” from the Taiwanese culture. There’s Pighead Skin (don’t ask… I’ve never understood it myself) who literally is Taiwan’s Larry Norman in the Christian Rock movement. He’s been trying to use rock and roll to reach kids for nearly 30 years now.
On the political front we have a few politicians and people who work to make the Laws that Taiwanese society is governed by.
There is one woman who is dear to my heart. She and her husband stood up against the tyrannical oppression of Chiang Kai-Shek during the 50′s, 60′s & 70′s… and helped make Taiwan into the democracy it is today. Her name is Tian Mama and she’s a strong believer in both democratic freedoms and in Christ. It’s been a pleasure getting to know her over the last 4 years. She’s a real celebrity because she stood up for human rights during a time when that would have gotten her killed for even thinking about it. God protected her and has used her powerfully over the years.
And this story is partly about her.
Legend: This is to help those who want to understand my color coding of Scripture, it is a separate Key apart from what I post below merely to help give understanding of why I highlight things the way I do, namely so as to bring out greater clarity from the Word of God. Here’s the Key:
- Any shade of BLUE = Judgment of God on or over sin.
- Any shade of GREEN = grace, forgiveness, salvation, redemption.
- Any shade of RED = sin, lawlessness, transgression, evil
- Any shade of ORANGE = the Character or Nature of God — Who God is.
- Any shade of PURPLE = commands to obey, passages that speak with authority on how a Christian should live.
- White on Black is merely there for emphasis. Kind of zeroing in on the key part of a passage.
Please likewise note, this only applies to Scripture passages. What I write of my own is merely off-colored to give greater emphasis to certain thoughts. Sometimes this highlighting does follow my themes…. just as often it doesn’t.
We had another death at our church the week before last, and this man likewise was one of those who labored long and hard to bring about democracy in Taiwan. Though I never took the time to get to know him, what I did know of him was his faithfulness to our Church. Come Sunday before last (ok… let’s start dating things here… On January 13th, 2013), after the pastor had said something regarding our former member — Tian Mama asked to say something as well. Not unusual for her, she loves to talk and what she says usually is funny and uplifting.
The moment Tian Mama was given the microphone —- HRUMPH!!!!! was heard loudly through the whole church and one woman got up from her seat and made a show of her displeasure as she walked past Tian Mama disrespectfully and then walked into the bathroom.
“Wow… that was sorta dramatic… what was that all about?“ I asked my wife…. who then proceeds to tell me that this particular woman has long held a grudge against Tian Mama, and has been very vocal about it for years. She often will bad mouth Tian Mama, and will try to persuade others to view Tian Mama the way she does. It goes deep — If Tian Mama makes some special dish for our Sunday meal, this woman will openly talk about how it’s not fresh or tasty or any number of ways “bad”.
REALLLYYYYY………
Matthew 5 says that if you remember someone has something against you (and I would not hesitate to reverse that… if you have something against someone else….) ….. and you are coming to God in worship …… LEAVE. Go, fix that relationship first…. then come worship God.
Matthew 5:23-24…. it’s all right there.
And no one had ever taken the time to point this out to the lady. No one ever sought to silence her bitter accusations or take the steps to bring about reconciliation between her and Tian Mama (FOR THE RECORD: Tian Mama holds no grudge against this woman and has openly and publicly stated so…. even openly forgiving her for slandering her!) No one ever thought to consider Matthew 18:15-17 as a serious passage intent on showing us how Jesus expects us to work through Church discipline.
…….. except me, who takes the Bible as literal as necessary.
After Church I approached this woman, Bible in hand. I asked her “Do you understand English?“, because I wanted to be perfectly clear on what I had to say. At this point it was just me and her — though I had pursued my wife to be there for translating what I had to say. (My wife wanted no part of it… but reluctantly agreed after I forced the matter.)
The woman said “Yes, I understand English.“
I said, “I have a Bible verse I want to give you….” and my wife walked off to find a Chinese translation. I flipped my Bible open to Matthew 5:23-24 and started reading in English —
Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.
By this point Kai was back with the Chinese translation and I dropped this bomb.
God commands you to fix your relationship with Tian Mama, telling you that your worship isn’t accepted by Him until you’ve done so.
When I said Bomb… I literally meant it. This woman exploded…. loudly… so that the whole church now knew something was going on.
Matthew 18:15 — 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.
Having taken Kai with me I figured this would be the second step of the process. Radically this skipped from being a private discussion, to one the whole church was now privy to. And it got wild. Quickly.
There was much yelling and screaming by this woman as if to intimidate me into silence — but I know the truth and I stand by it and I would not back down. For everything she fired against me, I had a biblical answer.
You don’t know this woman the way I do, I’ve known her 20 years and she is a hypocrite. (Note: Yes…. this bitterness was allowed to stick around for 20 years without anyone saying a word!!! Ouch.)
I don’t need to know the gossip, the situation, the reasons or your slander — you have a commandment from Christ, Fix the relationship. (Matthew 5:24)
What gives you the right to say anything to me?
Galatians 6:1-3 says plainly, if anyone among you sees someone else sin, go to that person with the aim of helping them. The Bible gave me that right. Matthew 18:15 also says that if I see a brother in Sin I am to go work towards helping them.
You are a hypocrite, you don’t know her and you are judging me!!!
No, you are the hypocrite by refusing to obey the clear word of God. Matthew 5 gives you a command…. by refusing to obey, you are being the hypocrite by calling yourself a Christian.
I HATE YOU! Be quite, shut up, I don’t want to hear any more.
No man can love God and hate his brother — you are a liar if you think you can call yourself a Christian and hate someone else. 1 John 1:6, 8, 10 and 1 John 4:21 all say this. 1 John 3:15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. You have no eternal life so long as you are holding on to hate — you are a murderer.
You are a poison that does not belong in this church, be gone! (Yes… I said that. I was basing it on Hebrews 12:15.)
This went on for over 20 minutes with the whole church in stunned silence and only her and I ….. nose to nose at times!!! ….. speaking in English and quite loudly. She was explosive, and in serious anger but I was able to maintain a civil tongue and keep from getting angry myself. At one point I prayed that God would keep me from reacting and keep me calm throughout all of it…. He graciously answered that prayer.
In the end she gave me the bitterest, angriest, most hate-filled stare and she shut up. She wanted to keep the argument going, but as I kept pointing back to the Bible every step along the way…. she gave up —- because she wasn’t winning. She saw that I knew my Bible and that I was ready and willing to use it, I wasn’t just arguing pointlessly —- I was holding her accountable to God, and she resented that.
Immediately I had people gathered around me…. thanking me.Thanking me? For what? I only did what the Bible commands us ALL to do. There’s nothing here to be thankful for…. no one was reconciled and this poor lady is deluded into thinking she was saved and could hate whomever she wanted, spread lies about whomever she wanted, slander and gossip about whomever she wanted…. and for all that…. the Church had done nothing but let it grow for 20 years. There really wasn’t anything to be grateful about.
Anyway, people were thanking me left and right for standing up to her, for saying what I said to her, and for not backing down. Some of them were talking to me as if I was some kind of hero…. I was not. What I did wasn’t anything new — Paul had to take the same route in Philippians 4
Now I appeal to Euodia and Syntyche. Please, because you belong to the Lord, settle your disagreement. And I ask you, my true partner, to help these two women, for they worked hard with me in telling others the Good News. They worked along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are written in the Book of Life. (Philippians 4:2-3)
I left to go to Subway to have a sandwich and study the whole issue a bit more in depth in my Bible — coming across Matthew 6:14-15 in the process which is crucial to understanding the gravity of this whole matter — and upon my return to Church I found the Chief Church Elder in deep conversation with my wife. (She had choir practice… hence why I went out to eat alone.) The matter of Church discipline was the topic of discussion and at the point I walked in, it sounded like I was the one who was going to be disciplined!!!!!
Then I said something that silenced everyone in the room and turned the whole matter back upon itself. It’s nothing new, I wrote a whole post on this topic 2 years ago entitled “Defending my wife’s honor“.
If I say “I love you” to my wife, but I remain silent when someone calls her a whore, or a slut, or a prostitute — by my silence I am not saying that I love her, but that I agree with the speaker.
If I have a friend who is slandering another friend, and I stay silent — then I do not love either one of my friends.
I kid you not — the whole issue turned on that one statement. All of a sudden the people of the church saw themselves guilty for not having spoken up for Tian Mama all these years. Everyone understood that they were guilty by their silence.
That’s how Sunday 1-13-13 ended for Kai and I, with the whole church pondering the matter of Church discipline and what our personal responses should be to gossip and slander.
We did not go to our Taipei church this Sunday (January 20th), instead we choose to show up at the church local to our home. It wasn’t because of the explosive situation from the week before, that had long been forgotten, we just wanted to sleep later… isn’t that spiritual of us? Anyway, we heard afterwards what happened….All this week this woman has been firing out emails to everyone she knows… filled with hate-speech and venom. And all week….. people ignored her for the first time in her life. People blocked her. People responded back saying that she needed to fix the relationship with Tian Mama. My sole action of confronting her has led the church to understand it needs to be obedient when dealing with it’s own members. I didn’t set out to rebuke the church, merely to correct one individual. My actions had unexpected repercussions throughout our whole church…. simply because I did what I knew was right.
She came to Church this Sunday …. and stayed silent throughout the whole service and no one talked to her and no one fed her bitterness. She’s learning — to obey is better than sacrifice. God desires our obedience to him, not merely our words.
Two things I said on Facebook this week pertain to this whole matter —
Both sum up the point — God isn’t looking for lip service, He wants people who will do what’s right. Defending widows, taking care of orphans, speaking up for those no one else will…. these are the things that God desires. Our words are meaningless if our lives don’t show a changed heart.
- Any shade of BLUE = Judgment of God on or over sin.