Why I Hate Discipline

The natural man hates discipline.  The new man in me is growing in his appreciation for this ordinary grace of God (more about that on Wednesday) but the old man doesn’t like it one little bit.  I find it offensive for the following 4 reasons:

1.         I hate church discipline because I want to be morally autonomous

The original sin was eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so that we could be like God deciding right and wrong for ourselves.  All sin is original sin.[1]  Every time I sin I am saying to God: “I’ve got this.  I’m a big boy.  I know what I’m doing”.  The most powerful natural urge in the modern person is the urge toward total autonomy.  I am inclined to believe almost any lie that would logically depose God and place my reason upon the moral bench in my soul.  

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. (Psalms 14:1 ESV) 

As a result of this tendency I need to be aware that I may willfully misunderstand the teaching of the Bible with respect to church discipline in order to preserve my own freedom to decide and to act autonomously.  I may say such foolish things as: 

• “This is all a giant control game.  People just want to control my mind.  That’s what cults do.  The Bible doesn’t teach that I need to be under anyone’s authority other than Jesus’.”
• “Membership is optional.  I don’t see membership taught in the Bible.  As a Christian I am already a member of the Body of Christ, regardless of whether I belong to a local church or not”.

In my desperate desire to avoid moral accountability, those things sound very reasonable to me.  I know there are many verses that would contradict those sentiments, but they appeal to me nonetheless.  My flesh desires freedom from the authority of my Creator.  My flesh does not want to submit to the leaders appointed by Christ for my good and His glory.  As a Christian man, I need to know that. 

2.         I hate church discipline because it suggests that I am needy

In this I have great company.  All people, even Christian people, are status conscious.  We don’t want to look bad in front of other people.  We often care more about our status than we do about our souls.  That seems to be the point Paul is making in 1 Corinthians 5:2 when he says:

And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? (1 Corinthians 5:2 ESV) 

I used to think that the arrogance being spoken of here referred to their being proud of their Christian grace and liberty, as though they were saying: “We’re proud of how we are able to be tolerant of this sinful fellow” – but upon reflection, that is almost certainly not what Paul is saying.  Paul has been talking about their pride since chapter 1.  They make too much of the wrong things.  They make too much of leaders, they make too much of cultural values and here, in contrast Paul is saying, they have made too little of sin.   The sin of this man is being UNDERAPPRECIATED, while the STATUS of this man is being OVERAPPRECIATED.  Quite simply, they don’t want to make a great man look bad.  

In my flesh I find that I still care a great deal about how people perceive me.  Too much of my identity is built upon the fact that when people look at me they see a man who is smart, moral and hard working.  That’s how I see myself and in my flesh I want others to see me that way as well.  Discipline threatens that.  The idea that my church might pry into my affairs and shatter my well-crafted personae is terrifying.  Perhaps they will discover that despite being smart, I can be remarkably stupid!  Perhaps they will discover that I sometimes still delight in unrighteousness.  Perhaps they will discover that I am sometimes lazy in my spiritual disciplines.  Perhaps they will discover that I am still a man in progress.  The very existence of discipline threatens my management of appearances.  Paul calls that arrogance.  Actually he calls it being falsely “puffed up”.  He uses the word phusioo which means to over inflate something.  Paul says I think too much about those things – I’ve exaggerated their size and importance - and I think too little about the state of my own soul before God.  He’s right.  I do.  As a Christian man, wanting to mortify the flesh so as to live for Christ, I need to know that.

3.         I hate church discipline because I don’t trust other Christians 

In my flesh I don’t trust other believers to act towards me as I would act towards them.  Many times over the course of my ministry I have been in a position to extend mercy to others.  I’ve had brothers and sisters in Christ weep and mourn over sin in my office, confessing their guilt, hating their failure and begging for mercy.  It has been my greatest delight to give it.  Not because it is mine to give, but because they needed to hear a Christian brother say the words “you are forgiven.”  As Protestants we do not believe that sins need to be confessed to a pastor or a priest.  David when he committed adultery against Bathsheeba and murder against Uriah and dishonor against Ahithophel his Prime Minister (Bathsheeba’s grandfather) prayed this way to the Lord: 

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight (Psalms 51:4 ESV)

God is always the most wronged party and it is to him and him alone that confession of sin is made.  And yet, we often need to own our sin before others.  The Apostle James said:

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. (James 5:16 ESV)

There is enormous cathartic value in disclosing wrong to a brother or a sister in Christ and hearing the words: “You are forgiven. The blood of Christ is greater than your guilt!”  We need that.  I’ve been blessed to do that for others, but in my flesh I worry that others would not do that for me.  We often don’t trust others to be to us as we would gladly be to them.  I have discovered that this fear in me lessens with practice. Over the course of my adult Christian life I have had occasion to confess sin to Christian brothers and sisters and it has always gone better than I thought.  No one has raked me over the coals.  No one has made me feel indebted or exposed.  Often forgiveness is given before apology is fully spoken.  People are better to me than I expect them to be.  In the flesh, I tend not to trust the mercy of my brethren.  As a Christian man, learning himself by supplies of the Spirit, I need to know that.

4.         I hate church discipline because I don’t think about God’s glory as often or as highly as I should

I suppose that is the primary reason that I hate church discipline; I think too rarely and too little of God’s glory.  I forget that who I am reflects upon how God is perceived.  The trouble with being one of “God’s people” is that people will judge God based on how they perceive me.

“The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Romans 2:24 ESV) 

I’d rather that wasn’t the case, but it is and I think too infrequently about that.  Jesus called on me to make God’s name great by my righteous works, done in faith. He said: 

let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16 ESV) 

God’s glory is not always uppermost in my mind when I decide to behave.  I think that’s the main reason I don’t value church discipline the way I should.  Church discipline is you helping me remember that other people are judging God by my actions.  I need you to do that.  I need you to keep that thought uppermost in my mind because I will forget.  I will become more concerned with my glory than God’s.  I am a glory hog, in the flesh.  Church discipline threatens my glory but it serves the glory of God.  In my flesh I know that I will hide from anything that threatens my glory.  The solution is to mortify my flesh – to eschew all self glory – and to remember the chief end of man; the chief end of me.  Its not enough to jot down some initials at the end of my pastor blasts in Latin script (SDG) – I actually need to crucify myself.  I need to die to self glory and live for the glory of God in Christ.  That’s an impossible task.  I’ll need DAILY supplies of the Spirit; I’ll need EVERY ordinary means. And I’ll need you.  In my flesh I hate church discipline; but I need it and I thank God for it.

SDG – Soli Deo Gloria which is to say, ‘for the glory of God alone’;

Pastor Paul

P.S.  I’ve written the above post in the same spirit that many scholars believe the Apostle Paul wrote Romans 7, as for example: 

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. (Romans 7:18 ESV)

The Apostle Paul was not announcing via pastoral epistle that he was a secret idolater or murderer or tax fraud, he was simply saying that when he looked into the deep places of his soul he saw evil things lurking in the dark.  He wanted to name those things, so as to “know himself” and so as to mortify the flesh with light, confession and truth.  That is the spirit in which the above article is written.  Occasionally I have written or preached in this fashion only to have dear souls in the church write to me concerned that I was depressed or in need of care.  Thank you for your touching concern!  To be clear, I am the chief of sinners and a great debtor to God’s grace, but I am also very happy in my salvation and calling.  I do however, want to mortify my flesh.  I want to look into the dark with a candle in one hand and a sword in the other and I invite you to join with me in the hunt.  For God’s glory, and for my (and our) common good.

Pastor Paul

[1] To be clear, “original sin” is our inherited tendency toward sin, “the original sin” is the first sin, which was eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

^[2]Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, Pillar New Testament Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 203.