snip
>Finally, I want to say that it seems to me that two factors are
>clearly discernible in Mt 18 as a whole--in the chapter on Church
>Discipline: (a) the authority of excommunication does indeed lie
>within the earthly leadership of the church, but (b) the Jesus of
>this chapter so circumscribes and warns against the use of that
>authority against individuals that one might do well to avoid ever
>exercising that authority even though it is in one's (collective)
>hands: better to bring the lost sheep back than to dismiss him/her
>forever from >God's flock. That is consistent with another theme
>in Matthew's >eschatological teaching: that judgment (i.e.
>condemnation) is a privilege of God and Christ, not one that
>the individual or perhaps even the church community should
>deign to exercise; moreover, in the parable of good grain and
>weeds, it is suggested that one not endeavor to root out the
>weeds in the acres of God's harvest but leave them for the
>Harvester to dispose of as He sees fit.
Thanks, Carl. I think, however, that the resolution to the suggested
dilemma (in "b" above) lies not in a softening or disregard of Mt
18:15-18, but in the recognition that while judgement is not to be
carried out individually (Mt 6:1ff, Rom 14), it is something to be
carried out by God's appointed civil magistrates (Rom 13) and by the
authority of the church (Mt 18).
Furthermore, I am not sure this binding necessitates an irreversible
binding, as you seem to suggest.
Paul Dixon