Knox’s Book[s] of Discipline were drawn up as books of church order. They were intended to be the practical outworking of the doctrine summarised in the Scots Confession. Since doctrine is always intended to shape life, so the Reformer wisely saw fit to spell this out under specific headings as it related to the life and worship of the church. 

It was John Knox, the Scottish Reformer, who added discipline to the word and sacraments as the third mark of a faithful church. Perhaps it was because the Celts are an unruly lot by nature and he felt the latter two needed the firmer hand of the former to bring the Scottish churches into line! Nevertheless, he rightly highlighted the need for this third element of church life for the church to be what it ought to be under Christ, its sole King and Head.

Sadly, however, discipline has too often been misperceived as some kind of blunt instrument only to be used as a measure of last resort when things go wrong in the church. Although it clearly does have this function, it would be utterly wrong to see it only in these terms. John Knox certainly did not see it narrowly in that way and neither do the Scriptures.

Knox’s Book[s] of Discipline were drawn up as books of church order. They were intended to be the practical outworking of the doctrine summarised in the Scots Confession. Since doctrine is always intended to shape life, so the Reformer wisely saw fit to spell this out under specific headings as it related to the life and worship of the church. The Westminster Divines did something very similar over 80 years later when they drew up the Directory for Public Worship and the Form of Church Government. Both these documents put practical flesh on the doctrinal bones of what the church was taught to confess.

These aspects of ‘discipline’ are a healthy counterbalance to the narrow view of its only having to be invoked to deal with those who refuse to respond to gentler means to encourage godliness. They remind us that, just as with our natural human families, the church needs to be a well-ordered community as the family of God. And the order to which it conforms must be that of God himself in his triune wisdom and glory.

Scripture provides a further insight into what discipline entails and how God uses it for the good of his children. We see this towards the end of Hebrews where the writer is speaking of the means God uses to enable his people to go the distance in the life of faith: persevering to the very end.

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