Tell It to the Church: Matthew 18:15-20 Explained
Short answer: In Matthew 18:15-20 Jesus gives a four-step path for dealing with sin between believers. First, go privately and show the brother his fault. Second, if he will not listen, take one or two others as witnesses. Third, if he still refuses, tell it to the church. Fourth, if he refuses even the church, treat him as a Gentile and a tax collector, which in Jesus' setting meant removing him from the fellowship while still longing for his return. The goal is never punishment for its own sake but gaining back a brother. The passage is about restoring a person, and the words of Jesus at the end about binding and loosing, agreeing in prayer, and his presence where two or three gather all serve that restoring purpose.
What Jesus actually says in Matthew 18:15-20
The passage opens with a conditional sentence that assumes real sin: if your brother sins against you. Jesus does not describe a minor irritation or a difference of opinion. He describes sin, wrongdoing that has actually damaged the relationship. The instruction is not to wait until the offender notices, not to complain to others first, and not to post about it. The first move belongs to the wounded person: go, show him his fault between you and him alone. That phrase between you and him alone is the heart of the first step. The circle of knowledge stays as small as possible so that the offender can be restored without public shame.
The promise attached to the first step is remarkable: If he listens to you, you have gained back your brother. The language of gaining back is the language of recovery, not victory. The one who confronts is not a prosecutor seeking a verdict. He is a shepherd going after a straying sheep, which is exactly the image Jesus has just used in the parable of the lost sheep earlier in Matthew 18. The whole chapter is about the Father's unwillingness that any little one should perish. Verse 15 applies that same seeking heart to the private conversation between two believers. The confrontation is an act of love, not an act of war.
If the private conversation fails, Jesus says to take one or two others along. He cites the principle from Deuteronomy that a matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. The witnesses are not a jury, and they are not a crowd brought in to pressure the offender. They are there so that the facts can be confirmed and so that the conversation has witnesses who can later testify to what was said. Their presence also changes the dynamic: a person who shrugs off a private appeal may listen when trusted brothers or sisters are in the room. The goal is still restoration, and the second step is still small enough to protect the offender's reputation as much as possible.
Only after those two steps fail does Jesus say, tell it to the church. This is the step that gives the topic its name, and it is the step most often skipped or abused. The offender has now refused a private appeal and refused the appeal of witnesses. The matter is no longer private because the offender has made it so. Telling it to the church means bringing the matter before the assembled body of believers, likely through its recognized leaders, so that the whole community can appeal to the one who will not listen. The church does not exist to shame him. The church speaks with the same voice the two or three already spoke, only now with the weight of the whole family of God behind it.
The final step and what it means to treat someone as a Gentile and a tax collector
If the offender refuses to listen even to the church, Jesus says to let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. This sounds harsh until we remember how Jesus himself treated Gentiles and tax collectors. He ate with them. He called Matthew the tax collector to follow him. He said he came to seek and save the lost. So the phrase cannot mean hate him or write him off forever. It means he is no longer treated as a brother inside the fellowship. He is outside, and he is to be related to as someone outside, which is to say as someone who still needs the gospel and can still be welcomed back. The removal is real, but the door is not locked.
The context confirms this reading. Immediately before this passage Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep, and immediately after it he speaks about binding and loosing and about agreeing in prayer. The entire section is framed by the concern of heaven for the one who wanders. The final step is not the church's revenge. It is the last available form of appeal, and it is meant to bring the wanderer home. Paul applies the same logic in 1 Corinthians 5:5, where the purpose of removing a man from the assembly is that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Discipline and restoration are not opposites in Scripture. Discipline is one of the ways restoration is pursued.
At the same time, the step is real. Jesus does not say to pretend nothing happened or to keep a smiling surface while the sin continues. He says the church is to act, and the action has a cost for the one who refuses to repent. Fellowship is the ordinary means of grace, and removal from fellowship is a serious matter. That is exactly why the earlier steps exist. The process is designed so that the final step is rarely reached, and when it is reached it is reached with clean hands, because the offender has been given every opportunity to turn. The church that practices this carefully will find that most cases end at step one or step two.
Many readers notice that the words about binding and loosing that follow in verses 18-19 are also given to Peter earlier in Matthew 16. Here they are given to the community of disciples. This has been understood in different ways among faithful Christians, and it is worth naming the difference honestly. Some traditions read these words as granting the gathered church real authority to declare heaven's verdict on unrepentant sin. Others read them more narrowly as assuring the church that its faithful application of Jesus' own teaching carries heavenly weight. Whatever the emphasis, all agree the authority is derivative, not independent. The church does not invent its own standards. It applies the words of Jesus, and it does so with fear and trembling.
Two or three gathered: the presence and the prayer of Jesus
Verse 20 is often quoted at the start of a small prayer meeting, and that use is not wrong, but the original setting is the discipline process. Jesus says that where two or three are gathered in his name, there he is in the middle of them. The promise is given to the smallest possible gathering that has to deal with sin. The two who go to the offender, or the two or three witnesses, or the church however small, are not alone. The risen Christ is present in the room. That is what makes the appeal weighty. The offender is not merely being confronted by a brother or by a committee. He is being confronted in the presence of the Lord who bought him.
Verse 19 adds the promise about agreeing on earth concerning anything they ask, and the Father in heaven will do it. In context this is not a blank check for any wish two Christians happen to share. It is the promise that when a gathered church seeks God's will in a matter of discipline, asking in line with his revealed will, heaven is not indifferent. The purpose of the whole process is that the offender would be gained back, and the church prays toward that end. The promise assures them that their prayer is heard. The two or three are not left to guess whether their small, painful meeting matters. Jesus says it matters, and he is there, and the Father hears.
This is where the pastoral tone of the passage becomes clear. The gathering is small, the goal is restoration, and the Lord himself is present. The process is not a courtroom with the offender in the dock. It is a family meeting with a wandering member at the center and the Savior in the room. The church that remembers this will speak the truth plainly, but it will speak it with tears. It will not enjoy the confrontation. It will not recruit allies or build a case. It will go because the sheep is lost and the Shepherd is present, and it will keep the door open for the one who may yet come home.
The closing promise also protects the church from two opposite errors. One error is to do nothing because the matter feels too small or too awkward. The other is to do too much, to escalate quickly, to publicize, to treat a private offense like a public scandal. The presence of Christ in the smallest gathering means the first step is never too small to matter, and the goal of restoration means the later steps are never an excuse for cruelty. Both errors are corrected by the same verse. Jesus is in the room, and he is there to seek and save the lost, including the lost one sitting across from you.
How the rest of the New Testament handles the same problem
The New Testament applies this pattern in several places, and the applications fill out what Matthew 18 looks like in real churches. In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul deals with a case of sexual immorality that the congregation has tolerated, and he tells them to remove the wicked man from among themselves. He is not contradicting Jesus. The man's sin is public, the church has already been boasting about it, and the matter has gone far past the private stage. Paul's concern is the same as Jesus': the man's spirit is to be saved, the leaven is to be purged, and the church is to be a holy community. Public sin requires public handling.
In 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul commands the church to withdraw from every brother who walks in rebellion, and he adds that they should not count him as an enemy but admonish him as a brother. That single sentence holds the whole tension of church discipline together. The withdrawal is real, and the brotherly admonition continues. In Titus 3:10, Paul writes, Avoid a factious man after a first and second warning, which shows the same stepped pattern: warning, warning, then avoidance. The divisive person is given repeated opportunity to turn before the community acts. The method is consistent from Jesus to Paul, and it is always aimed at turning the person back.
Galatians 6:1 gives the spirit in which all of this is to be done. Paul writes that those who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself so that you also aren't tempted. The word restore is the same word used for setting a broken bone. It is painful and it is meant to heal. The gentleness is not weakness. It is the recognition that the one doing the restoring could fall into the same sin. Anyone who enters this process with a sense of superiority has already failed the test. The restorer stands under the same grace and the same law as the one being restored.
First Timothy 5:19-20 adds a wise limit: do not receive an accusation against an elder except at the word of two or three witnesses, and those who persist in sin are to be rebuked publicly so that the rest may be warned. Leaders are not above discipline, but they are not to be torn down by unverified rumor. This is Matthew 18 applied to the particular vulnerability of those who teach. The two-or-three principle protects both the accused and the church. Taken together, these passages show that the New Testament does not leave discipline to personal preference. It gives a consistent, patient, restorational pattern that every church is called to follow.
Why most churches never reach the third step, and why that matters
In practice, most churches either never practice discipline at all or jump straight to the last step. Both failures are serious. The church that never addresses sin allows it to spread, and Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 5 that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. The church that skips the first steps and goes public immediately wounds people who might have repented privately and teaches the congregation to fear its leaders. The steps exist for a reason. Each step gives the offender another chance to hear, and each step protects the offender's dignity as long as possible. A church that honors the order is a safe place to confess sin, because everyone knows the goal is restoration.
It also matters because Jesus ties his presence to the process. When a church follows these steps, it is not acting on its own authority. It is acting in the name of Jesus, with Jesus in the room, and heaven takes notice. When a church ignores these steps, it acts without that promise. This does not mean every difficult conversation needs a formal committee. It means the shape of our dealing with sin should match the shape Jesus gave. Private first, witnesses second, congregation third, removal last, restoration always as the aim. The order is not arbitrary. It is the wisdom of the Shepherd applied to the flock.
Faithful Christians differ on how the final step should look in practice. Some traditions practice formal excommunication with a public announcement. Others practice a quiet removal from membership and communion. Some emphasize the role of elders and the assembled congregation, others the role of a smaller body of leaders. These differences are real and should be discussed honestly rather than papered over. What is not negotiable is the pattern itself: private appeal, witnesses, the church, and a heart that longs for the wanderer to return. A church may work out the details differently, but it cannot abandon the steps and claim to be obeying Jesus.
The third step is also a warning to the one who is confronted. If the church speaks and the offender still refuses, the matter is no longer between two people. It is between the offender and Christ, who said he is present where two or three are gathered in his name. To refuse the church is to refuse the Lord who speaks through it. That is why the final step is so serious. It is not that the church has lost patience. It is that the offender has refused every voice Christ has sent, and the church can only treat him as outside until he returns. The door remains open, and the whole congregation waits and prays for the day he comes back.
How to tell it to the church without doing harm
The first protection against harm is to actually do the first step. Many church conflicts would never reach the congregation if the offended person had gone privately first instead of talking to everyone else. The tongue is the great enemy of this process. Speaking about the offender to others before speaking to him is a form of telling it to the church in the worst possible way. It spreads the matter without giving the offender a chance and poisons the congregation against him before he has even been approached. Jesus says go, not gossip. The order protects both the offender and the one who was sinned against.
The second protection is to keep the goal in view. The purpose is stated in the first verse: that you may gain back your brother. Every later step is an extension of that purpose, not a departure from it. If the process has become about winning, about proving that you were right, about protecting the church's reputation, or about getting rid of a difficult person, it has already gone wrong. The question to ask at every stage is simple: what will most likely lead this person to repentance and restoration? Sometimes that means a harder word. Sometimes it means waiting. It never means treating the person as an enemy.
The third protection is to remember Galatians 6:1 and go in gentleness, watching yourself. The one who confronts is a sinner too, and the temptation to self-righteousness is strong. It is easy to see the speck in a brother's eye while missing the plank in your own, as Jesus warned earlier in the Sermon on the Mount. A person who enters this process aware of his own need for mercy will speak differently than one who enters it as a judge. He will listen more than he lectures. He will be quick to admit his own part in the conflict. He will weep with the one he is trying to restore.
The fourth protection is to involve wise, mature believers at the second step. The one or two taken along should be people of proven gentleness and discernment, not allies chosen to outnumber the offender. Their role is to listen, to confirm the facts, and to appeal alongside the offended person, not to gang up. If the matter does go to the church, it should be handled by leaders who have earned trust and who understand the goal. The church is not a mob. It is a family, and a family deals with its wandering members the way the Father does, with truth and with tears, always hoping for the return.
Biblical fidelity check
What this passage establishes is clear. It establishes a stepped process for dealing with sin between believers: private confrontation, then witnesses, then the church, then removal from fellowship if there is no repentance. It establishes that the goal is gaining back the brother, not punishing him. It establishes that Christ is present in the gathered church and that the church's action carries heavenly weight when it follows his word. The passage does not establish that every minor disagreement must be escalated, that the church should publicize private sins, that discipline is revenge, or that the final step is permanent. It also does not remove the command to forgive, which Jesus gives just before this passage in answer to Peter's question about forgiveness.
A common misreading treats the final step as proof that we may now hate the offender and treat him with contempt, as if Gentiles and tax collectors were to be despised. That is the opposite of what Jesus means, because Jesus himself welcomed Gentiles and tax collectors and ate with them. Another misreading treats the whole passage as a tool for personal vendettas, where an offended person can summon the church to punish someone who annoyed him. Both misreadings ignore the stated goal, which is restoration, and the stated spirit, which is gentleness. The passage is not a weapon for the strong. It is a rescue plan for the wandering, and it must be used the way Jesus used it, with truth and mercy together.
Other passages that speak to Matthew 18:15-20
Several related studies help fill out the background and application of this passage. For the character required of those who lead the church in matters of discipline, see Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3 elder qualifications compared: A Biblical Leadership Guide. For the unity that discipline is meant to protect, What Does 1 Corinthians 1:10 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application is a careful study of Paul's appeal for a church to be joined together in the same mind. For the security of the believer's calling that underlies all restoration, see What Does 1 Corinthians 1:9 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application. And for a broader survey of the letter's opening themes, 1 Corinthians 1: Called, United, and Boasting in the Lord traces how Paul addresses a divided congregation. Each of these connects directly to the goal of a united, holy, restoring church.
Frequently asked questions
Does Matthew 18:15-20 apply to every disagreement between Christians?
No. The passage begins with a brother sinning against you, which points to real wrongdoing, not to preferences or minor offenses. Many conflicts are better covered by forbearance and forgiveness, which Jesus commands immediately before and after this section. The steps are for sin that has damaged the relationship and that the offender will not acknowledge. If you can overlook the matter in love, you should. If you cannot, and sin is genuinely involved, then the private conversation of verse 15 is the right next step, not escalation to the congregation.
What does it mean to treat someone as a Gentile and a tax collector?
It means to relate to him as someone outside the fellowship rather than as a brother inside it. It does not mean to hate him, because Jesus welcomed Gentiles and tax collectors and called them to himself. The removal is real, but the aim is still restoration. The person is no longer treated as a member in good standing, and the church continues to pray and to leave the door open. If he repents, he is welcomed back with the joy of the father in the parable of the prodigal son, who ran to his returning child.
When should the church go public with someone's sin?
Only after the earlier steps have been followed and refused. Matthew 18 keeps the circle as small as possible for as long as possible. Public disclosure is the last resort, not the first move. Even then, the announcement should be limited to what the congregation needs to know in order to act wisely, not an airing of every detail. Leaders should seek wise counsel, follow their own church's established process, and remember that the purpose is the offender's repentance and the protection of the flock, not public humiliation.
