Tackling Tradition 16 - Where 2 Or 3 Are Gathered

From time to time I hear a fellow Calvinist or Christian Apologist correct what they believe to be a misunderstanding of Matthew 18:15 - 20.  It’s about baby old instance of two or three people gathering in Christ’s name.  It’s about church discipline.  Consequently, using it to support another sort of gathering is a mistake. 

The Bible disagrees.  Let’s take a look.

Matthew 18:15–20 (ESV): If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” 

The text takes the form of casuistic law, & it calls upon Deuteronomy 19:15 - 21, where the situation is civil, not just ecclesiastical.  That means both Matthew 18:15 - 20 & Deuteronomy 19:15 - 21 are shining examples of the 3 uses of the Law.  

Matthew 18 presents us with an example of the wider proposition that Christ as to His divinity is present among two or three gathered in His name in the ecclesiastical sphere in which the uses of the keys are involved, & Deuteronomy 19 presents us with an outworking in the civil sphere. 

Matthew 6:9 - 13 highlights an individual application of this principle in prayer.  This is also corporate, insofar as prayer is a corporate, not merely individual, exercise.  The Lord’s Prayer includes binding & loosing language in 6:10 in particular, & that language, in turn, is parallel with Mt. 18:18.  

So, yes, Matthew 18:15 - 20 is not just applicable to church discipline.  It applies to court room proceedings & both individual & corporate prayer.

God bless us all, each & every one.  Go & sin no more.