"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." -- Jesus, Matthew 18:15-17Similar to talking to your co-worker when you think they stole your stapler, only then going to your supervisor and then up the ladder. When an individual has sinned against you, it's that individual's responsibility to seek reconciliation with you (Matthew 5:23-24).
It is also your responsibility. Not to prove you're right and (s)he is wrong - it's not about that. It's about sin. We ought to be looking out for each other and wanting to win each other over from the entanglements of sin. I think the perspective is this: A person's soul is at stake!
When an individual is affected by their sin to the point that you are offended, correction is handled privately, then with a few witnesses, then before the entire church. If they still don't repent, then you've got someone who is in refusal to repent. This is not characteristic of a believer, so then you treat them as they're acting - like "a pagan or a tax collector."2
This is one of the ways confrontation is taught.
If the only way to confront is to keep things hidden until church leadership allows you to bring it up publicly, there's some serious problems with how Jesus and his apostles handled confrontation.
More on that tomorrow.
Footnotes:
2 Nothing against IRS agents here. Tax collectors at the time were infamous. It was bad enough that they were teamed up with the empire that was oppressing the people, but they were also known for cheating people out of their money with the power of the Roman empire behind them.
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