Leeman - The church and the surprising offense of Gods love: reintroducing the doctrines of church membership and discipline

What happens when you bring together one of the most misunderstood subjects (love) and one of the most ignored practices (church membership and discipline) in the church today? A book like this one. Unlike the generation raised on Mr. Spocks child-rearing advice, the Good Shepherd cares for his flock by loving discipline. There is a lot of talk these days about radical discipleship, but what we need today is a lot more ordinary discipleship, where we realize not only in theory but in practice what it means to be conformed to Christs image. This is the best book Ive seen on this subject in a long time.

Michael Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology
and Apologetics, Westminster Seminary California

The Church and the
SURPRISING
OFFENSE
of Gods Love

Other IX Marks books published by Crossway

Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Mark Dever

The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel, Mark Deverand Paul Alexander

The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, Mark Dever

What Is a Healthy Church? Mark Dever

What Is a Healthy Church Member? Thabiti Anyabwile

It Is Well: Expositions on Substitutionary Atonement, Mark Deverand Michael Lawrence

What Is the Gospel? Greg Gilbert

What Does God Want of Us Anyway? A Quick Overview of the Whole Bible,Mark Dever

The Church and the Surprising Offense of Gods Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of
Church Membership and Discipline Copyright 2010 by 9Marks

Published by Crossway Books
a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers
1300 Crescent Street
Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Josh Dennis
First printing 2010
Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV Bible (The HolyBible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture references marked NIV are from The Holy Bible: New International Version.
Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

All emphasis in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-0905-6
PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-0906-3
Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-0907-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leeman, Jonathan, 1973
The church and the surprising offense of Gods love : reintroducing the doctrines of church membership and discipline / Jonathan Leeman.
p. cm.(IX marks)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4335-0905-6 (tpb)ISBN 978-1-4335-0906-3ISBN 978-1-4335-0907-0 1. Church discipline. 2. Church membership. I. Title.

BV740.L39 2010
262'.8dc22

2009024556

VP 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Mark,
who taught me much of whats here,

and Matt,
who gave me a chance to say it.

CONTENTS

In a fallen world like ours, Christian love never comes unbidden. It never comes through mere sentiment. As surprising as it may be for us, Christian love involves faith, faith that is impossible for us apart from the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit.

The apostle Paul wrote, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ (Phil. 3:8 NIV).

Counting everything as loss or rubbish involves effort and self-denial. Surely such considering or counting is the opposite of love.

Love is, for us, pleasure. We associate love with happiness, family, friends, and home. Love is, we think, by its very nature familiar. It is self-evident and immediate. Love by its nature shows itself. In that sense we think that love is simple.

All these notions of love Jonathan Leeman is about to challenge and, my guess is, challenge successfully, if you read through the whole book.

And then there is the notion of offense. We have a mixed relationship with the idea of offense today. We can take offense; were okay with that. But many people distinctly do not like the idea of Gods being offended, and certainly not by us. And we certainly dont associate offense with love.

At this point, Jonathan is leading us into another landan older landwith commitments and relationships and more defined issues of right and wrong than we today are accustomed to. These once were familiar ideas. I dont know how you deal with new cultures, but there is a cusp of discomfort that many people have to get over when they first move to a new culture. My guess is that some of you will have a similar sensation reading about love and how it can really and truly be offensive, and even how sometimes it needs to be. But the land Jonathan is leading us into is beautiful and fruitful and faithful and biblical, and it reflects Gods character.

As we come to understand more of God and his character, we come to see that Gods love involves us in self-denial. And sharing Gods love with others involves us in discipline, even church discipline. How can we love people and not treat them as Paul treated the self-deceived adulterous man in 1 Corinthians 5? How can we love people who sin against us and not treat them as Jesus instructed in Matthew 18? Im not saying that this is all easy or uncomplicated (which is why you are holding not just this foreword but an entire book)! But coming to understand what church discipline has to do with love can rock your world. It can even save your soul.

Now, if Jonathan shows us all this, we might not be too surprised to find that as we turn around, weve entered deeply into the Bibles teaching on church membership. The Bibles teaching on church membership? you ask. Where? And when youre asking that question, I think youre ready to begin reading this book.

Before you is a feast carefully prepared. Ive known Jonathan for over a decade. He has encouraged, exasperated, amused, and amazed me. It is one of my joys in life to get to co-labor with him in writing helpful materials for pastors. Jonathan has a restless, inquisitive mind given to him by God, in part to write this book, and so to be able to show us around a world hes been fascinated by and has considered as deeply as anyone I know.

This book is the best thing I have ever read on church membership. I can give you no higher commendation. Read and profit. And thank God for the gift of Jonathan. And for the gift of Gods love, which bore his own offenseto our everlasting surprise and delight.

Mark Dever, Washington DC, July 31, 2009

My wonderful wife, Shannon, supported me in humble, Christlike fashion as I spent many months and long hours either writing this book or walking around the house with my mind stuck in it. She therefore deserves first mention. Thank you, my love, for all your work, prayer, and affection. Im so grateful for you.

Matt McCullough and Bobby Jamieson read an early draft of the book in its entirety, and Robert Cline and Tom Schreiner both read a couple of chapters. All of you improved it. Thank you, brothers. Thanks also to Josh Coover, my colleague who was encouraging and interested throughout the project and was also patient with me as I repeatedly dropped the ball in other matters at work!