Matthew 18 vs Pauline Doctrine

There tend to 3 types of so-called “conflicts” that come up that require resolution: questions of sin, questions of doctrine, and personal conflicts And for all three circumstances, most of the professing Christians I interact with apply some form of the Mat 18 formula to finding a resolution.

There are two contexts that must be established for any passage of scripture before making a spiritual application. First: the Historical Context: What did it mean to the original audience?  Next, the Dispensational Context: Who was the passage instructing? In what dispensation, or where in the timeline of God’s various and sundry instruction? And then any Spiritual Application: What can be applied to our walk today? Or in the case of conflict resolution: what can be applied to the issue at hand.

There must also be a consideration of the prophetic versus mystery context that is included in the historic, and/or the dispensational context. And there also may be mystery information hidden in the prophetic context. The Bible is hard to understand. That’s why it requires not only reading and not only hanging up verses for décor in the living room, and not only quoting it to make theological points in an argument. But study; serious, laborious, time consuming study in search of the mind of the author. And when you find him, the reward is tremendous. But it’s an acquired taste that doesn’t come easy. Kind of like preaching.

We start with an analysis of Luke 1:59-80 to identify all the elements necessary for gaining spiritual insight from any Bible passage. While we can glean eternal truths and spiritual applications from all scripture, we have to go to the instructions God gave to the body of Christ via Paul to figure out how to resolve disputes, judge sin and affirm sound doctrine.

We then examine the popular Mat 18 prescription for dispute resolution and compare that with Paul’s instructions for believers today regarding the judgment of sin, correction of false doctrine and resolution of personal disputes.

Get the Audio Version Here.