Every once in a while, those entertainment/news programs highlight some “tough love” program. On rare occasions, this means a lot of yelling and perhaps physical abuse. However, in the vast majority of cases, it means that consequences are consistently administered. Something has gone terribly awry when we must place the qualifier “tough” before what should simply be biblical love.

Our society has come to define love as simply forgiving (time after time after time ……..). Any notion of consequence is immediately dismissed as harsh, unloving and worse, judgmental. No one wants to be judgmental, after all, doesn’t Matthew 7:1 say “Judge not, that you be not judged?”

Yet, whatever jesus meant, we know that He did not intend for sin to go either unconfronted or without consequences, for only 11 chapters later, He gives clear and detailed instructions for doing just that, resulting in the exclusion from fellowship (Matthew 18:15-20). We know that “God is love” (1 John 4:7) and yet we see throughout Scripture God both enacting and calling His people to enact consequences for sin.

As for the modern interpretation of Matthew 7:1, we must argue that it is lacking at best and less than Scriptural at worst. Paul himself admonishes the church at Corinth for not judging the sin in their presence (1 Corinthians 5). In 1 Corinthians 5:12, he even instructs them explicitly to judge the sin in their presence, saying: “Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?” Christ’s admonition was two-fold, we are not to possess judgmental spirits and we cannot condemn, that belongs to God alone. Christ certainly did not mean that we let sin go unconfronted under some false pretense of love.

Indeed, many have done a poor job at communicating the heart and spirit behind both accountability and church discipline. The goal is never exclusion, but always restoration. The spirit is never condemning but always broken. If it is done otherwise, it is done outside the confines of Scripture. Too many professing, well-intentioned Believers have not only tolerated but promoted sin under the banner of the world’s defnition of love rather than that of Scripture.

Christians must take personal holiness and the purity of the Church with deadly earnestness. We take sin far too lightly and we misunderstand love. The result is that too many churches resemble the world far more than they resemble Christ. We must lovingly call sin sin and we must humbly be willing to enact consequences at a progressing level.

In Matthew 18:15-20 when Jesus gives instructions regarding the confrontation of sin, there is a clear progression of events:

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. 16But 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. 17If 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. 18Truly, 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. 19Again 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. 20For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.

Notice that the very first step is that the offended party must not only recognize the action as sin (something itself too commonly missing!) but must tell the offender his fault! We’re commanded! Then, if they don’t listen, go with others! If they still don’t listen, tell it to the church! If they still don’t listen, put them out of the church! How foreign from so many modern approaches that call themselves Christian.

I discipline my children because I care. I correct because I love them. If I see a friend whom I know is easily offended racing towards a cliff, I don’t say, “well, I love him, I’ll let him plummet.” No, I say, “BECAUSE I love him, I have to tell him! I’ll tackle him if I have to!”

We must be intentional in being shaped by Scripture rather than the world and we must understand that true love is always tough love.