Peter 2:1 (NIV)

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind...

 

II Tim. 3:3 (ASV)

...without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, no lovers of good.

 

 Ex. 23:1-2 (The Message) 

Don't pass on malicious gossip. 2 Don't go along with the crowd in doing evil and don't fudge your testimony in a case just to please the crowd.

 

 

Staying alive in the church is a story of personal relationships and resolving conflicts, but it is more about second chances. In fact, everything about the Christian life around people of the church is about getting and giving second chances. It's not about sinless living; that's not going to happen, but second chances are realistic and attainable.

 

This essay could well be entitled:

 

                        Second Chances: How to Get 'em... and How to Give 'em." 

 

In every conflict where someone has offended another, if a second chance was not proffered, or if it was offered and rejected, then a new sin was added to the ledger: that of failing to give others or receiving graciously, another chance—a way back to peace. Jesus' admonitions in Matthew 18 on the proper process of resolving conflicts between believers is all about restoration and second chances. 

 

Before we look at the powerful process of conflict resolution in Matt. 18, it may be beneficial to examine the various ways in which second chances are sabotaged. The negative actions listed below violate scriptural mandates having to do with healing personal conflicts in the church, and as a terrible consequence, destroys all possibilities of a second chance.

 

Malicious Gossip

 

The Bible has several synonyms for this sin: backbiting is an exact one.  He/she who maliciously gossips about someone, bites that person behind his back. The backbiter is engaging in malicious gossip. 

 

Gossip is "malicious" when it casts aspersions on someone's good character, ethics, moral resolve, devotion to Biblical principles, or ascribes to them ill intentions. Any talk behind someone's back that accuses them of any moral, ethical or Biblical failing is malicious gossip. Whenever someone is disparaged, or lessened in moral stature, or cast to be unethical, that person is the victim of backbiting. 

 

Slander 

 

But what if the accusations are true? No matter: truth value in backbiting is irrelevant. Another synonym for malicious gossip is biblical slander.  I say "biblical slander" because it must be differentiated from civil slander. In the world (outside the church) ruled by civil law, one can make disparaging comments about another, bringing into question that person's integrity, honesty or ethics, and if they are brought before a court of law and charged with "slander," they can escape the charge by demonstrating that the "slanders" were in fact true.  If truth value can be proven, the slander disappears. Thus, a person accused of slander need only prove that he was speaking the unfortunate truth about someone and he is absolved, regardless of the viciousness of the "truth-telling."

 

Not so in the church.  There is no get-out-of-jail-free card if one slanders another, but is speaking the "truth," whatever that elusive wisp of a thing may be. Biblical slander is malicious gossip, regardless of whether the slander is a lie or the truth. The reason is too obvious to belabor: Pilate said it: "What is truth?" No one has the omniscience to know what truth is in every case. Furthermore, where in heaven's name is the slandered person's due process? Where is his day in court and his right to confront accusers? Where is his right to question witnesses or present his own witnesses? Where is his chance at a defense? Where are his judge and jury? The slanderer becomes that judge and jury and presents no depositions to examine nor witnesses to cross-examine. The slanderer omits all second chances.

 

Just Avoid the False Kind of Slander?

 

The Scriptures clearly tell us to avoid malicious gossip, which is backbiting, which is slander. Holy Writ tells us which kinds of slander to "rid" ourselves of - this kind: "slander of every kind." Think of a kind of slander... be imaginative... any kind... got one in mind? — "rid yourselves of [it]."

 

The Giving of a Bad Report

 

There is yet another synonym that adds a little bit of verbal clarity to the picture. It is a phrase: "the giving of a bad report." This is a more modern phrase and was used extensively in the "Studies in Youth Conflicts" seminars. When you give a bad report of someone to another, you indulge in malicious gossip. You bite that person behind his/her back. You slander that person, and obviously you fail to give that person any hope of a second chance.

 

Cause of Death of Second Chances

 

Where do second chances fly to in the face of malicious gossip? They fly into the night are replaced with suspicions and reviling.  No matter if one is later found to be unjustly slandered, the damage is already done.  Like the imps out of Pandora's Box, the words can never be called back to the tip of the tongue and stuffed back down the throat past the larynx into silence. The words of malicious gossip cannot be unspoken and in many cases, the real truth, whatever that may be, will not be accepted belatedly by some tainted people who have been permanently corroded by the lies and exaggerations of false malicious gossip. This is why the Bible makes no distinctions between whether gossip is true or false. No one is permitted the right to determine "truth" behind someone's back, leaving that slandered person no recourse and no process to rebut lies and exaggerations. Thus all gossip, regardless of "truth," is malicious. 

 

Avoid Gossipers and Slanderers

 

The following verses, all from Proverbs, vigorously counsel us not even to associate with big-mouths, revilers, talebearers, slanderers, and gossips, much less give an ear to their bad reports on others: 

 

Prov. 11:13 - A talebearer reveals secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit conceals the matter. (KJV)

 

Prov. 11:13 - A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret. (NIV)

 

Prov. 20:19 - He that goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets: therefore meddle not with him that flatters with his lips. (KJV)

 

Prov. 20:19 - A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid a man who talks too much.1 (NIV)

 

Prov. 20:19 - He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets, Therefore do not associate with a gossip. (NASB)

 

The Double and Triple Sin of Slander

 

These verses and others tell us that when slander and malicious gossip are disseminated, not one but two sinners are involved. The slanderer sins by telling the tale; the listener sins by receiving it... with no exceptions. Whoever hears out a malicious gossiper has doubled up the sin, and if that person perpetrates the gossip by passing it on, a triple sin is committed. Clearly, then, the hearer of slander is in an unenviable position to be the foremost wrongdoer in this sordid tale-bearing caper.  If it is sin to spread slander, it follows that it is sin to hear it and yet another sin to pass it along. Furthermore, each time malicious gossip is passed on, and a new willing hearer is recruited, another sinner joins the chain. Passing on slander creates multiple vector lines of sins each time the gossip is given and received.

 

Church Leadership as the Secret Service

 

Church people and especially concerned leaders of the church, including pastors, sometimes get the wrong-headed idea that they are private detectives for the Lord, and attempt to excuse their hearing of slander by mislabeling it as "protecting the flock," or "staying aware of dangers." This is pure nonsense and a baseless rationalization. One cannot protect the flock by disobeying biblical principles, and it is a biblical mandate to refrain from malicious gossip, which covers every conceivable situation. Church leaders, in their misguided desire to protect the church by accumulating slander-as-information, are not exempt from the commands of scripture. They too must avoid giving or hearing any and all bad reports on another, told behind their backs, and without any justice or due process... or second chances.

 

Slanderers often seek out church leaders to "warn" them of "dangers" in their midst, and in so doing, attempt to sanitize slander by couching it as concerned sacred/civic duty. These gossipers cast their slanders as being heartfelt concerns for the church's well-being. They will attempt to tell pastors, deacons, elders, and church officers slanderous information on congregants or church staff under the guise of wanting them to be aware of "dangerous" or otherwise unsavory people that are within the walls of the church.  

 

Unfortunately, many church leaders are duped into listening to malicious gossip, believing that they are authorized to collect dossiers on people in the church "who could cause problems." None of this private-investigator-for-the-Kingdom-of-God's-sake is scriptural, and all of it is the sin of mouthing and hearing malicious gossip. It is not possible to launder malicious gossip by misrepresenting it as investigative safeguards. There is no situation allowed by scripture that anoints church leaders as intelligence agents who can freely collect slander as if it were necessary wartime knowledge.  It is not necessary: it is sinful maneuvering, and it is not true knowledge; it is slander masquerading as prudence.

 

Typically the conniving slanderer uses this “concern for the flock” gambit to press his/her own evil intentions against someone they perceive as a foe or a rival in the church. All malicious gossip has an evil agenda of some kind, and very often this sordid purpose is to diminish, lessen the authority of, or remove a personal rival or adversary from influence. The slanderer is hoping to perhaps fill the void vacated by that person he/she destroys with gossip. It is sin to attempt to ship slander to church leaders while masquerading under the guise of supplying sensitive and needful intelligence on “dangerous spies" within the church. The sin is made the more egregious by its cynical craftiness and sleight of hand. 

 

The Three Tiers of Slander Acceptance in the Church

 

I have seen three levels of response to slander that was shipped to church leadership under the ruse of caution and wariness. In one church, the pastor himself did not wait until the slanderers approached him, but preemptively went out and solicited malicious information on certain people in the church. His misguided rationale was, he was "protecting the flock," by finding out who in the congregation had sinned sins in the past, before they had even set foot in the present church. He then used this information to control the unfortunate victims of his private-eye information collecting business. I have also seen church boards of elders who gladly received slander on members of the congregation and never even asked why the principles of Matt. 18 were not put in place. The boards then used the information, gathered by malicious bad reports behind people's backs, to institute "church discipline" and to mete out punishments and sanctions.

 

On a second, not as egregious level, I have seen slanderers approach the church leaders with bad reports on third parties. The leadership seemed vaguely aware they were not following Biblical precepts, but were afraid to ignore the slanderous content for fear (an unfounded fear) that unscrupulous people would infest their flock. However, instead of directly using the malicious information to challenge and punish the victim, they began a program of trying to verify the facts of the slander in order to whitewash it somewhat. In this sense, the board set themselves up as an investigative and intelligence-gathering agency, but acted more like a star chamber than a court of justice. The victim still had no recourse, no due process, and no chance to defend him/herself. 

 

if you begin to despair at this point as to whether the average church leader even knows the definition of malicious gossip... if you wonder how any flesh can be saved if the church leadership are themselves in the slander business on an industrial and commercial level, take heart.  For on this third level, I am happy to tell you that mercifully, out there are church boards, sessions, and pastors who know the truth: there are no investigative agencies of the Lord that can whitewash malicious slander by pretending that it is pertinent info to have on file.  

 

I have happily been in a church where any and all persons who attempted to come into talking distance of a church leader to give a bad report on someone were stopped in mid-slander with an ominous warning that they (the church leaders) would not listen to slander for any reason, on anyone, at any time of day or night, while the world spun on its axis. I have seen a church board that at the first utterances of any negative information behind the back of another, would bolt out of their chairs, demand that the bad-report bearer stop his/her mouth, and immediately throw the would-be slanderer out on his/her ear. I have personally seen slanderers bum-rushed out of the room, with dire warnings not to ever come back with bad reports behind the backs of others. This is not only the right thing to do biblically, but it necessarily defaults the would-be slanderer back to Matt. 18, where the issue should have been in the first place. If one has some trouble with another in the church, that troubled person cannot lay that problem on third parties by means of malicious gossip. That person must confront the supposed wrong-doer personally and directly. Church leadership cannot be invoked to hear slander...yet.

 

The Difficulty of Avoiding Slander

 

Sometimes avoiding slander is difficult and tricky. One must at times actually shut the mouth of a gossip, saying, "Stop talking immediately!  I refuse to hear bad reports behind anyone's back. It is anti-biblical, and it is mean-spirited!" Try saying words to that effect to a friend! It isn't easy to shut off the slander conduit, especially when the bearer of tales is your favorite source of juicy gossip and likes the same kind of latte you do.  

 

One of the Biggest Challenges in Christian Ethics

 

This brings us to one of the most difficult right things to do in the wide scope of Christian life. Many reading this will certainly say: I've been there... didn't do that! I've been in this situation on numerous occasions, and the times I did the wrong thing badly outnumber my right decisions. Why?.. because one of the hardest things to do on earth, ere we await the Kingdom, is to refuse to hear a bad report about someone who's already not our cup of tea. It's easy to turn down slander on a friend. Try being that biblically correct and magnanimous when the malicious gossip is about an adversary, or someone with whom you have had personal conflicts, or some rascal who would never be on your dinner guest list. The real test lies here: turn down gossip opportunities that slander people you don't like! Dirty and demeaning information about those whom you think desperately need to be cut down a peg and properly humiliated for all of their evil doings, is so delicious to the itchy ear, that resisting it takes a momentous effort of the spiritual will. It's easier to run the 4-minute mile.  

 

Second Chances Must Come First

 

Back to second chances: they are only possible before bad reports are given, not after. Second chances are only viable in the sanctuary of well-kept confidences, or secrecy, if you will. We will see later that Matt. 18 is all about maintaining the integrity of personal confidences and discretion until the conflict, if it is valid, can be examined, resolved, explained, repented of, denied in good faith, dealt with further, and/or made to be irrelevant. Until any conflict, or disagreement, or offense can ever see the light of day (be known by a third party), it must have had a real chance at a second chance.  

 

And here's the kicker: If things go exceedingly like our Lord wants them to, and as he describes in Matt. 18, the conflict may never be known by another mortal person on earth, and secrecy, that is, personally shared confidences and discretion, will be in place until glory. How's that for a first rate, premium, solid gold second chance? 

 

People who engage in malicious gossip are defying the life-affirming principles of Matt. 18. They are judging, trying, and sentencing someone to a bad reputation without discussion, explanation or recourse. They are annihilating the second chance with a vicious preemptive strike at someone's character. If the gossiper is mistaken, if they are confused, if they have misconstrued the facts, if they have seen something that they really did not see, if they have misunderstood the intent of language, if they have jumped to conclusions, if they have erred in any way, the malicious gossiper goes ahead and does his/her damage and ignores any possibilities that the gossip is full of errors, exaggerated, or a pack of lies.

 

Avoiding Mistakes in Accusations   

 

Matt. 18 tells us how to avoid ruining someone's reputation and besmirching his/her character in error. It gives us a step-by-step process of recognizing the possibility of error in an accusation that will harm someone. It shows us how to resolve conflicts and heal offenses without taking a perilous chance that the conflict in question is all a misunderstanding, or is pumped up to 100 times its real size and importance, or is perhaps a completely false set of mangled facts. Matt. 18 gives us the great secret of how to keep a godly second chance available for holy use. Matt. 18 is the antidote and the alternative of ruinous malicious gossip, backbiting, slander, and the giving of a bad report. It's the way to live with the saints of God in harmony and also justice. 

 

Matthew 18: God's Way to Stay Alive in the Church with Honor

 

Matt. 18:15:  “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you."

 

The contrast between this action described in verse 15, and the actions of malicious gossipers is as big as it can get. Instead of immediately sharing with others the sins of someone (slander), you are to "go" — not to the first phone to call a friend to indulge in backbiting, but "go" to... who? The supposed sinner... the presumed offender... the person to whom you are now giving a big fat second chance. 

 

Do you run and give a bad report on the supposed sinner? No, you "go" to that sinner. Do you tell anyone else about this situation? No, it is "between the two of you." Christ tells us to immediately draw a veil of secrecy over this whole ordeal. You don't even inform someone else you are "going." You go in secrecy and you see the person in secrecy. Need we say that if every saint of God resolved his/her personal conflicts with others in the church by doing this, instead of maliciously gossiping about it, the church would return to its NT glory days wherein observers said, "Behold, how they love one another." Nowadays, the world is more apt to say, "Behold how they loath one another," such is the epidemic of unkind backbiting, vicious slander and bad reports in the church. 

 

Confrontation

 

Before we get to the rest of the process, I am aware of one strenuous objection that may be raised here, and that objection may be sincerely posed by many. There is a giant elephant in the room with the "two of you." That elephant's name is Confrontation, or precisely "fear of confrontation."  Many people simply have not been raised to embrace confrontation on this level. Many others are much too meek and mild to mount a face-to-face on this order. What is going on here? Has Christ commanded us to do the impossible, or at least the improbable, and certainly the uncomfortable? Is the admonition to "go" to someone and accuse them of sin an impractical expectation?

 

I have sympathies for this objection, in that I like many, don't see the good times in engaging in this kind of confrontation with a person I am about to call a sinner. I know people who would rather eat a lubber grasshopper than do this. There must be a resolution here that brings this admonition to confront someone into harmony with our natural inclinations to avoid that kind of angst. We must be able to obey this commandment or else Christ would not have said it. God is not in the business of providing us with impractical and undoable solutions to real problems in our lives.

 

I have talked to people who said that they absolutely could not do this task: "go" and "point out their fault," "just the two of you." I am sympathetic to a point. But I must conclude that the task isn't impossible. It isn't even impractical because Christ isn't impractical. But what is it then? It's an alternative to malicious gossip and unjust accusations behind the backs of perhaps, innocent people. It's a way to live, and as such, it must be a reasonable and pragmatic action. It is the only way to do it right.

 

If You Cannot "Go," You Cannot Tell

 

If someone finds him/herself incapable of this kind of face-off, that person must come to this sober realization: he/she must also refrain from telling anyone else about the situation. In other words, the offended one will have to live with no resolution and no easing of the offenses they feel. They must live with all the pain, hurt and confusion... in secrecy. I believe, in more cases than we want to think exist, people engage in malicious gossip as an escape valve to let off their steam, in that they cannot confront that person with whom they have "ought," as the King James Translation phrases it. Sin is then committed by the reluctant confronter because he/she will not confront. Slander is used as a way to vent when the right way of solving the problem seems untenable. 

 

Therefore the ultimate answer is this: either "go" or clam up forever about it and suffer any resulting emotional trauma. Either "go" or live with no resolution to the conflict, which may well burgeon. Either "go" or don't go, but then maintain silence. Do not refuse to go and then gossip about it. The gossiper's sin may well be worse than the original offense.

 

Confrontations: Real Opportunities to Give/Get Closure, Peace, Forgiveness

 

I will say this: there are some occasions when I have been the victim of malicious gossip, and that sin of which I was supposedly guilty could have been explained and resolved if the gossiper had come to me first. There are also times when I was actually guilty of the sin, and my guilt was spread maliciously as slander. I would have loved the second chance of having an accuser come and lay that sin on me, soliciting my apology, my repentance, and, if they asked, just restitution. Then, I would have earned the secrecy and discretion promised in the passage. One can only earn this secrecy with honesty, forthrightness, and proper repentance.  But I could have had all of this, if the gossiper had come to accuse and restore me, instead of maliciously trying me in the court of public ridicule. 

 

Some who know me may make this observation: "Yeah, right!.. but you are big and scary, and you debate and argue with the best of them; you talk a blue streak, are no shrinking violet, and a confrontation with the likes of you seems like a nightmare to me!"

 

Point taken... but I am more than that sum total of negatives that seem to promise a bad time to anyone who would confront me: I am a lover of logic and anyone coming to me with the goods stands an excellent chance of shutting my big mouth. I also am intimately aware of Matt. 18 and its great value to the church. I would not hastily ignore the power of Christ's process of peacemaking. Finally and most importantly, anyone who would "go" to me is someone exhibiting their goodwill not to "go" the other direction and slander me into oblivion. The offer of a second chance is too valuable to dismiss, be it an opportunity to explain away a misunderstanding, or an opportunity to own up to a sin I have committed against someone. I would know that, in either case, my second chance would be wrapped in discretion and a malicious gossiper would not be on the loose. 

 

I submit I am not the only person who has the above sensitivities and knowledge. Therefore, the "going to" might not be the ordeal some deem it to be. That person they "go" to may well want a second chance to replace gossip and slander with healing and resolution. They may even want to be accused, in that they are aware of their sin and desperately want to be forgiven. They may be in the throes of a guilty conscience. They may know that the alternatives are all bad: irresolution, unrest, and possibly malicious gossip. 

 

The Rules of Engagement

 

The verse that tells us to "go," also reveals some important rules about how we are to go and with what. We go with an accusation that sin has been done, but it's not just any sin: it's a sin that the goer knows about. And it's a sin that's "just between the two of you." It is then, a sin that concerns just two people: it concerns the one going and the one being accused. Conversely it is not a sin that is outside of the small circle of these two people. It is not a sin that concerns a third party. In other words, the one going has to know about the sin in one of two ways: he/she must be the one that was sinned against, or he/she must have personally observed the sin. 

 

One cannot invoke Matt. 18 with an imported sin. One cannot go as a proxy for someone else who was the victim of the offense (or saw the offense). One cannot bring secondhand sins before someone to accuse them. The reason is obvious: there is no way a person can learn of a sin by secondhand methods unless those methods involve malicious gossip. Anyone who has received knowledge of a sin by proxy and attempts to accuse a person, goes having received slander, and the first rule of Matt. 18 must be that you must "go" with clean hands. You cannot go with knowledge of a sin by secondhand means, for that indicates the goer is already a receiver of slander and goes unworthily as a sinner, him/herself. 

 

Thus, the goer must be an eyewitness to the sin he/she will accuse that person to whom he/she goes.  Someone else's offense cannot be taken. Someone else's eyewitness to a sin cannot be invoked. Whoever the offended someone else is, that person must be the goer. A receiver of gossip who has knowledge of the sin second-handedly cannot go.   The goer must always be the first party to the conflict.

 

The practicality and wisdom is obvious regarding this important requirement: that you may only "go" with a firsthand observance of a sin to the one you think guilty of that sin. This prevents goers from accusing someone of sins about which they have no real proof or knowledge, and if they go with imported sins, they leave behind the real (supposed) victim, and the only authentic witness.Justice cannot exist in such a vacuum of confidence. It is difficult enough to begin the process of restoration with firsthand accounts. Second and third generation sins are so untrustworthy as to be worthless, plus, these kinds of imported, by-proxy sins have been attained by the sin of malicious gossip, which casts them out of the realm of justice and biblical principles.

 

We are talking about personal conflicts in the church, which include personality clashes, run-ins with people with whom you do not fare well, and perhaps arguments that got out of hand, where hasty and intemperate words may have been uttered.  We may also be talking about those rarer circumstances whereby someone observes a person supposedly doing wrong in a situation where the observer was in the right place to clearly see a sin being committed. Perhaps some practical examples would help delineate these kinds of firsthand, personally witnessed wrongs — the only kind of sin you may go carrying an accusation, with hopes for restoration and second chances.

 

Therefore in these two cases: when something, say harsh and intemperate words has passed between two people, if one of these in the exchange is greatly offended, this person can "go" and seek an apology and upon receiving that apology, grant forgiveness and put discretion, secrecy, and second chances in place. And secondly, when an observer personally witnesses an unbiblical or unethical (same thing) action of another, that observer can invoke Matt. 18 as justly as an offended victim of personal conflict.

 

It Must Be Worthy of the Matt. 18 Process 

 

If an offense rises to the level of having to go and accuse another of sin, using the precepts of Matt. 18, that offense must be substantial. The situation must be sufficiently weighty to invoke such an accusatory process. We will see that there are checks and balances to gauge the necessary egregiousness of a sin when we discuss the second phase of Matt. 18. One must not blow the whole ship out of the water unless there is ample reason to do so. If the harsh words in question were brief and relatively unremarkable, and perhaps not overheard by others, which is an exacerbating circumstance, it may be that going with Matt. 18 in mind is an overreaction. Again, the second phase of the process provides a way to check any excesses and overreaching in this regard.

 

The other way a person can satisfy the ground rules for "going," is to be a firsthand observer to someone committing a sin: an eyewitness to some unfortunate event that seems to require an answer. Perhaps you see a church member emerging from a notorious house of ill fame, and this observance is sufficiently disturbing that the one who observed this action feels he/she must "go" to the person and challenge them on the event. After all, that person, as unlikely as this seems, could have been leaving Bible tracts in the bordello. It seems to be something that needs some sort of intervention from a concerned Christian friend, but the "friend" who sees this or another event that suggests wrongdoing, is the only one who can "go." And the need for discretion is immense. If the observer is wrong, then malicious gossip on this volatile level could ruin a person's reputation and maybe annihilate a marriage.

 

At this point, I am aware that some might say, with some wisdom: mind your own business. Minding one's own business is a forgotten art in these days. In the church butting into the personal business of others is sadly an epidemic. For this reason, if upon seeing the event mentioned above, some decided to do just that: refuse to become embroiled in another person's private maneuvers outside the church, I would not second-guess them. I would venture this: if someone sees a person in his/her church doing something, or seeming to do something against Christian principles, and this action is outside the church walls, that is, out in civil society, the eyewitness should have a resoundingly good reason for going to accuse other than mere self-righteous offense-taking in general. The observer should be a close friend, or at least in a position to "go" with some gravity on their trip to accuse.

 

What about being an eyewitness to a person berating or otherwise being unkind to a third party? Who "goes"... the mere observer or the one actually berated?  I would say that the first responsibility to invoke Matt. 18 belongs to the one sinned against over the one merely observing the sin. The berated person goes. If he/she does not go, I deem that the observer should not go either. We have enough chaos around the church as it is without people taking up the quarrels of others just because they happen to be on the scene. In such rare specific cases like this, they may both go: the observer and the berated, for both satisfy the requirement to "go": both are firsthand eyewitnesses.

 

Before we take up what happens next in the Matt. 18 process, let us summarize the rules of engagement:

 

• Only firsthand witnesses to a sin may accuse another in the process.

 

• Imported sins, by-proxy sins, sins against others, or in other words, all sins learned about via slander and gossip cannot be a part of the healing process of Matt. 18.

 

• One must go to the person to accuse in complete secrecy; no one must know of this action. If discretion has already been compromised, as through gossip, or even a chance mention to another, sans the details, that you are "going" to accuse, you have already subverted the process and it cannot then be invoked. You cannot go, and you cannot speak any more of this situation to anyone, ever. 

 

• The situation should justly warrant invoking Matt. 18's process. If you are a person who is quick to offense, or have a hair-trigger temper, perhaps much reflection and reconsideration should be employed. Matt. 18 is only for the temperate.

 

• If you observe firsthand someone being mistreated by another, that person who suffered the mistreatment must either go alone or go with you, the observer. Some may disagree with this particular parsing of the problem and that is quite acceptable. I personally favor erring on the side of caution regarding when to act and when to keep to the side.

 

 

The second part is concerned with what can happen when you "go" with clean hands, not having previously engaged in slander, and keeping second chances alive, in other words, obeying all the rules of engagement.  

 

 Go to: Staying Alive In the Church - Part II