That discipline is a privilege does not mean that it is always enjoyable. It is often unpleasant. The wilderness wandering of Israel was a period of forty difficult (though not wasted) years.  This time of testing and humbling was the “way of the wilderness” (Ex. 13:18).  Moses describes it in Deuteronomy 8, saying in effect: “Keep in mind that the Lord your God has been disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. So keep the commands of the Lord your God by walking in His ways and fearing Him.” Looking back, Hosea described this wilderness discipline as God’s “cords of kindness” and “bands of love,” as He called His son out of Egypt and bent down to sustain His people (Hos. 11:1–4).

Churches in the Reformed tradition seem to take church discipline seriously, even to the point of including it—along with the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments—as a mark of the true church. An entire section of the Book of Church Order in many Presbyterian denominations is devoted to its proper exercise. There you will find detailed attention to the proceedings of church trials, appeals, and complaints.

Still, it is possible that even Reformed churches today suffer from an underestimation of the importance of church discipline. It is often reduced to the negative correction of sinful behavior. But discipline is much more than that. As J.I. Packer writes, “The Christian concept of discipline has the same breadth as the Latin word disciplina, which signifies the whole range of nurturing, instructional, and training procedures that disciple-making requires.” If Packer is right, then discipline is a synonym for discipleship, of which judicial discipline is only a part. Reflection on the value of positive discipline in the church is especially timely in our age of great skepticism toward institutional religion.

He Privilege of Discipline

The Rules of Discipline in the Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in America note that “all baptized members, being members of the church, are subject to discipline and entitled to the benefits thereof.” You read that right: entitled to discipline. Our struggle to conceive of discipline as a privilege reveals our restricted use of the term. To be subject to discipline is simply to be a disciple, and church membership is a disciple’s proper desire for instruction and guidance in its fullest sense.

What might that look like? The Scots Confession (1560) helps us by directing church discipline to follow the scriptural practice of nourishing virtue and reproving vice, accounting for the positive and negative dimensions of discipline. For starters, churches do well to recover the lost tool of discipleship: catechesis. This should include memorization—by young and old—of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Beyond implementing an overt catechism program, churches ought to strive repeatedly to cultivate the virtues of faith, hope, and love, and so they might frequently conduct studies on the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments.

The Second Helvetic Confession (1566) goes into greater detail when it outlines at length the duties of the minister of the Word in chapter 18, “Of the Ministers of the Church, Their Institution and Offices.” Here we see the wide scope of his (and the elders’) calling to shepherd the flock. There are corrective actions described here, but most point to positive discipline, including teaching and exhorting the ignorant, urging the idle to make progress in the way of the Lord, comforting and strengthening the fainthearted, preserving the faithful in a holy unity, catechizing the unlearned, commending the needs of the poor to the church, and visiting the sick and those afflicted with various temptations.

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