Last week, I shared part one of three of a paper I wrote for my current DMin class. In that post, I discussed the importance of church discipline, highlighting church discipline within the Presbyterian government. I shared with you the biblical foundation of Presbyterian ecclesiology. And I closed with the thought that the New Testament church is governed by her King Jesus and His magistrates, or what we refer to as presbyters or elders. In this essay, I’m going to share with you the second part of the paper that lays out how our Presbyterian Church in America: Book of Church Order gives a constitutional form for how we do church discipline. Please note I am not breaking down each chapter of our “Rules of Discipline.” I only provide you with the main idea for those chapters.
The Practical Theology of Soul Care Discipline Within the Presbyterian Government
Since Scripture ecclesiastically prefers presbyterian government, this essay focuses on one aspect of presbuteroi duty for soul care, church discipline. Unfortunately, when the subject of church discipline appears, people think negatively. It is natural for the human mind to assume church discipline means someone is in trouble and forthright is punishment. However, that is not the crux of church discipline. Indeed, the PCA’s BCO 27-46 provides for such measures. Yet, the PCA’s biblical system of government encompasses more for its soul care. This kind of soul care cannot be made more evident than the BCO’s first statement in 27-1:
Discipline is the exercise of authority given to the church by the Lord Jesus Christ to instruct and guide its members and to promote its purity and welfare. The term has two senses: a. the one referring to the whole government, inspection, training, guardianship and control which the church maintains over its members, its officers and its courts; b. the other a restricted and technical sense, signifying judicial process.[1]
Notice that the PCA highlights two aspects of her presbuteroi duty to discipline her members. The first is preventive discipline. The preventive discipline encompasses all that promotes purity and welfare. It includes the “inspection, training, guardianship” of souls. However, people mostly think of the second discipline, the punitive discipline, which is church discipline. This discipline includes the “restricted and technical sense, signifying judicial process.” Jay Adams rightly understood this as necessary to church life and the biblical counseling process when he writes:
Discipline is, therefore, a two-edged sword that has a preventive side and a corrective side. But both prevention and correction have to do with doctrine and with life. Preventive discipline involves teaching truth in such a way that it promotes godliness. It means “teaching to observe.” It is concerned not merely with facts, but rather with facts transformed into life and ministry. When Christians are fed a regular diet of truth from the Scriptures in such a way that they grow by it, there will be far less need for remedial discipline in a church. Those matters in which one finds himself straying from the path will be met by the individual himself or, informally and early on, through the help of older brothers and sisters in the body, and formal discipline will be largely unnecessary. That ought to be the characteristic and ordinary way in which discipline functions in the everyday life of a church.[2]
Adams explicitly states what the BCO explains (27-2,3,4). BCO 27-4 says, “It is to be exercised as under a dispensation of mercy and not of wrath.” The biblical counselor, elder, and pastor can impact lives here, especially pastors and elders who biblically counsel. God gives biblical counselors the opportunity and means to provide mercy to the church’s members before judicial action needs to ensue. However, this essay will also suggest that a judicial process is an act of mercy. Yet, biblical counselors, elders, and pastors work with individuals and families so that the Holy Spirit might provide Christ’s peace (John 14:27; Rom. 5:1) before punitive actions take place. Biblical counselors can work with people’s marriage and family challenges, such as divorce, remarriage, pornography, pregnancy out of wedlock, and parenting quandaries, as well as church dilemmas, such as conflicts between members, and leadership matters through adjuration, admonishment, and advice by considering conflict resolutions, and peace-making processes.
BCO 27-5 lists the steps taken for disciplinary matters when it states:
Scriptural law is the basis of all discipline because it is the revelation of God’s Holy will. Proper disciplinary principles are set forth in the Scriptures and must be followed. They are: a. Instruction in the Word; b. Individual’s responsibility to admonish one another (Matthew 18:15, Galatians 6:1); c. If the admonition is rejected, then the calling of one or more witnesses (Matthew 18:16); d. If rejection persists, then the church must act through her court unto admonition, suspension, excommunication, and deposition (See BCO 29 and 30 for further explanation). Steps (a) through (d) must be followed in proper order for the exercise of discipline.[3]
Note that steps a-c are the preventive steps, and step d begins the punitive measures.[4]
Next week, I will share the final portion of my paper that discusses the importance of the judicial process and gives bullet points for the remaining chapters of the BCO’s “Part 2: Rules of Discipline.”
[1] “Part II: The Rules of Discipline,” 27-1.
[2] Adams, 22.
[3] “Part II: The Rules of Discipline,” 27-5.
[4] Adams suggests five steps, including “self-discipline” as the first step of the discipline process. Although I agree with his assessment, and the biblical counselor can certainly help their counselees with self-discipline as a preventive discipline, the PCA-BCO takes self-discipline as a given for a believer and therefore does not include it in the “Rules of Discipline” per se.
Andrews PCA 