Question: Pastor John, what do you do if you confront a chuch member with an offense and they do not respond. You then get another witness to confront them and they will not respond. Then the two of you go to the church eldership with the whole matter because the offender will not respond. Then the elders take the position of the offender. What in the world do you do then?
Thanks for your question. In Matthew chapter 18, Jesus outlined the sequence of steps we are to take when there is an offence between an individual and a fellow brother or sister in the church. This process is something rarely enforced today, much to our shame. However, Jesus’ words still stand. He expects His disciples (including those privileged with the task of leadership) to follow His word in these matters.
Jesus, in Matthew 18:15-20 says, “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. 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. 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. 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. 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. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
If you have indeed followed Jesus’ protocol, once you have exhausted the biblical steps mentioned here, there’s really not much you can do. You have discharged your duty before God in doing all in your power to see the matter brought to justice. The Lord knows that.
The elders have then taken a position you do not agree with. Not knowing the situation, I do not know if the disagreement you have with the elders is because the they do not see enough proof that the other party is in violation of Scripture in their conduct, or whether the elders know of the violation but will not implement Church discipline. It is hard for me to comment further on the matter, not knowing any more than what you have revealed.
The only question that remains is whether you believe the matter to be so serious and such a violation of Scripture that your conscience will no longer allow you to submit to the leadership of the Church.
Continue reading
A transcript from a Question and Answer Session at the Ligonier Ministries National Conference, Bought with a Price, 
Jesus made it very, very clear that Moses, because of the hardness of their heart, gave them the right for divorce on the basis of the “unclean thing,” which is not specifically adultery but its “unclean” and so the whole debate amongst the Jewish Rabbis was, “What constitutes the unclean thing?”
Question: How do you interpret Paul’s qualification of “the husband of one wife” for a local church elder? (1 Timothy 3:2)
I think it is clear as can be, that what the issue there that Paul is addressing is polygamy. And in the Early Church in its formation, it took a while for the principle of monogamy to be firmly established within the Christian community because there were guys who had two or three or four wives (concubines) and that was opposed to biblical marriage, and if you have two wives, that’s one too many (at the same time, obviously).