between the righteous and the wicked; i.e., those who have accepted forgiveness and those who have not.
In between the two appearances of the king, there is a group of servants who are distressed about an
injustice that has occurred, but they have no power of their own to do anything about it. Instead, they have to
see the king and get it sorted out. I hope I am not stretching the parable too far by suggesting that this group
of powerless servants represents the church throughout most of its history without a Sanhedrin or any united
authority that can make decisions on behalf of others. All we can do with our divided and disunited church
councils is wait for Messiah to come; and then we can tell him about all the injustices we have seen.
Rebuke and Forgiveness
The first step is to go to the other person privately and state your case, making sure that you carefully
explain the problem that needs to be resolved:
―But if your brother sins against you, go and reprove him between you and him alone, if he hears you, you
have gained your brother" (Matt 18:15 KJV).
The Living Bible Paraphrased reads,
―If a brother sins against you, go to him privately and confront him with his fault. If he confesses it, you have
won back a brother."
(3) ―Take heed to yourselves: If a brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him,
(4) And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turns again to you, saying,
I repent; you shall forgive him" (Luke 17:3-4)
―Then Peter came to him and said Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?
Perhaps seven times? Jesus said to him, I say not just seven times, but seventy times seven" (Matt 18:21-
22)
Many assume that the sin noted in these Scriptures is merely some sort of personal affront or a wrong that
one person has done to another that can be ignored if the offended party does not want to resolve the issue.
However, this matter is far more serious. The Greek word ̳hamartano‘, which is translated in English as 'sin'
in the above verses has to do with breaking YHWH's law.
There are two very important things to learn from the verses cited above: First, when you become aware that
a brother or sister in the faith is sinning, you are responsible before YHWH to go to the offender in private
and confront that person with their sin. There is no option to go or not to go – you are commanded to go. The
only exception to this instruction is given in 1.John 5:16-17:
(16) ―If anyone sees a brother commit a sin that will not bring the death penalty, that one shall ask, and
the father shall give one life that does not commit a sin worthy of death.
(17) There is a sin worthy of death. I'm not saying to pray for that one. All unrighteousness is sin: but
there are sins that are not worthy of death." (Para.)
The second thing to understand is that the reason for confronting the sinning individual is to bring it to their
attention in hopes that they will repent; thereby, they can save themselves from the second death in the Lake
of Fire. See Rom 6:23.
After you have brought the problem to the attention of the one who is in error and the problem is not
resolved, due to the individual‘s unwillingness to work towards resolving the problem, you are obligated to
proceed with the second step in the problem resolution process:
―But if he will not hear you [Greek: 'parakoe'], then take with you one or two more, that in the mouth of two or
three witnesses [Greek: 'martus'] every word may be established" (Matt 18:16).
There are two very important points to understand in verse 16 concerning this step in the process of problem
resolution:
The first point is that the individual will not listen to you. The English word 'hear' is translated from the Greek
word 'parakoe', which means 'to disregard'. In this case, an individual has been given an opportunity to
resolve a problem that he may or may not be aware of; but either refuses to acknowledge the problem exists,
or refuses to resolve it.