How to Win Them Back
Notes
Transcript
FCF: We sin against one another and don’t know how to fix it. When someone sins against us we’re quick to cut ties and let them be instead of making every effort to win them back.
Big Idea/Question:
Sections:
vv. 15-17. How to win back your brother. 3 stages of increasing intensity.
vv. 18-20. The authority of the church to declare what God has already done. Jesus is with the disciples in church discipline.
Notes:
Jesus is talking about a brother or sister, someone who acts like they are in the family of God. And this familial language informs how we should think about the terms, “church discipline.” “The two brothers stand on equal footing, and the motive for the approach is personal concern, a concern which the offending brother or sister is apparently at liberty to ignore or to reject” (France, 691).
The pastoral purpose of the approach is underlined by the verb “win,” which shows that concern is not mainly with the safety and/or reputation of the whole community but with the spiritual welfare of the individual. “Win” suggests that the person was in danger of being lost, and has now been regained; it reflects the preceding image of the shepherd’s delight in getting his sheep back” (France, 692-693).
Notice that we are charged by Jesus to approach the one who sinned against us. Also, we have to work so hard for the sake of him who sinned against us in order to win them back.
Like the Father who goes after the one lost sheep, Jesus is telling us that we should go after our brother or sister who sins against us.
Jesus is talking about sin here, not hurt feelings or personality differences.
Connections with - when God comes after Adam and Eve in the garden after they had sinned, he asked them, “Where are you?” He asked them questions, he didn’t throw accusations at them.
“The principle set out here (in v. 15) is of minimal exposure” (France, 692).
The text says go to the person and tell him his fault between you and him alone. However, when the a public person commits a public offence, it may demand a public rebuke (Doriani).
Talk about how the WCF describes “discipline” as one of the benefits of adoption! Rebuke is good for us as we grow in Christ.
Need to speak to BOTH those who are afraid of conflict and those who love a fight.
Need to talk about listening in this sermon (mentioned 4 different times in vv. 15-17).
Helpful scriptures:
; “Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt”; “The Lord disciplines those he loves”;
Notes on the Greek:
The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition Chapter 18
ἐκέρδησας
The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition Chapter 18
ἐκέρδησας
- ἔλεγξον. “tell.” to bring a person to the pont of recognizing wrongdoing. Convict, convince.
ἔλεγξον
- κερδαίνω. “gained” (see ). What’s at risk? Losing our brother or sister. We need them. ESV gained, NRSV regained, NIV won.
- What about some MSS not including, “against you”? That would significantly change the understanding of the passage.
- What’s the difference between μὴ ἀκούσῃ and παρακούσῃ?
- Listening or not listening is mentioned 4 times in vv. 15-17.
παρακούσῃ
ἀκούσῃ
- δεδεμένα and λελυμένα (v. 18) - future perfects? “Will have been bound,” and “will have been loosed.”
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke a. The Confession (16:13–20)
The periphrastic future perfects are then perfectly natural: Peter accomplishes this binding and loosing by proclaiming a gospel that has already been given and by making personal application on that basis (Simon Magus). Whatever he binds or looses will have been bound or loosed, so long as he adheres to that divinely disclosed gospel. He has no direct pipeline to heaven, still less do his decisions force heaven to comply; but he may be authoritative in binding and loosing because heaven has acted first (cf. Acts 18:9–10). Those he ushers in or excludes have already been bound or loosed by God according to the gospel already revealed and which Peter, by confessing Jesus as the Messiah, has most clearly grasped.
Either way, we are declaring something that God has already done - whether that is shut out the repentant or he’s declared something sinful.
- ὅσα. “Whatever” OR “whoever”? Is Jesus talking about things or persons? Carson and Doriani say persons - we are forbidding or permitting entry into the kingdom - or at least saying what God would declare about those things to others. France says things - “it is things, issues or actions that are tied or untied, not people. They declare God’s will by saying that something is sin or not.
Questions:
Is this text specifically for when Christians sin against one another?
What does it mean to treat someone like a Gentile or tax collector? Even at the end, we are beckoning them to come back to the cross. There’s never a “giving up” on a person.
What’s up with all of this binding and loosing language?