Church discipline is often seen as distasteful for those on both the giving and receiving end. Few of us are used to seeing church discipline done well; there are too many examples of unfairness, harshness, hypocrisy and poor explanations. In the worst cases discipline can be used merely as a weapon to punish those who do not appear to give unconditional support to the leaders or agree with them on everything. But the reason why Christ gifted discipline to His church was for the purpose of edifying people, not damaging them. Like medicine, the dosage should be measured out for the specific individual in question, and although it may be temporarily unpleasant to take or administer, it should lead to better health both for the member and the body overall. James Durham wrestled seriously with the question of how church discipline can be done edifyingly. In the following extract from a new edition of his work, Durham sets out the goals of church discipline and explains how each case needs to be treated on its own merits. Rather than being heavy-handed, the church leadership should act with sensitivity, and rather than being punitive, discipline should be healing and restorative.

The gift of governing (if we can call it that) reveals itself especially in the right managing of discipline in reference to the various different temperaments and characters which church leaders have to do with. For as in physical diseases the same cure is not appropriate for the same disease in all constitutions and times, and as ministers in their preaching are to apply the same things in different ways for different audiences, so this cure of discipline is not to be applied equally to all persons, not even to those who are have created the same stumbling block. For what would scarcely humble one may crush another, and what might edify one might be a cause for stumbling to someone else who has a different temperament and personality.

Therefore, we suppose there is no peremptory determining of rules for cases here. Rather, how you proceed in the application of rules is necessarily to be left to the prudence and conscientiousness of ministers and elders according to the particular, real-life case they are dealing with, in all the details of its actual circumstances. Yet we may lay down some general principles.

The Goals of Church Discipline

All disciplinary procedures which the church follows with people who have caused stumbling must be done with respect to the ends and goals for which Christ appointed church discipline and so as to achieve these selfsame goals. This, I suppose, cannot be denied, for the means must be suited to its end.

Now the ends or goals of the censures administered in church discipline are:

1. To vindicate the honor of Jesus Christ, as this is what suffers when a member of Christ’s church goes astray.

2. To preserve the authority of Christ’s ordinances and to chasten disobedience to Christ’s authority. This is why church discipline is called the punishment that was inflicted (2 Cor. 2:6), and it is said to revenge all disobedience (2 Cor. 10:6), because it is appointed as a kind of ecclesiastical whip to maintain Christ’s authority in His house and so to identify those who are unruly in it (2 Thess. 3:6–14).

3. For the good of the person who is being disciplined. As it says in 1 Corinthians 5:5, church discipline is intended for the destruction of the flesh so that the spirit may be saved. By this discipline, admonitions, reproofs, and indeed threatenings may have the more weight to bring the person to humility and to stir them up and constrain them at least to a more orderly walk in the church, as the apostle says in 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14.

4. For the good of the church. Church discipline should prevent the leaven of profanity from spreading, and it should teach others to fear. This reason is given in 1 Corinthians 5:6, 7, and so on, and 1 Timothy 5:20.

When we speak of the end or goal of investigation and censure in church courts, we are referring to all these but especially to the more public and general ends, yet without neglecting the edification of the individual undergoing church discipline. Therefore, in disciplinary procedures, particular and special respect should be had to the manner which will most successfully achieve these ends.