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The Issue
It is often stated that the minimum number of people it takes to have a church congregation is two or three because Jesus tells Peter, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matthew 18:20). Yet a closer examination of this passage within context indicates that Jesus does not have in mind the minimum number for a church congregation, but rather the heavenly authority for discipline.
There are two issues to entangle in this passage: (1) the authority to discipline; and (2) whether the passage refers principally to the New Testament church.
Authority to Discipline
The overarching context from verse 15 is how to handle a brother who “sins against you.” What follows is a process of confrontation with a view to reconciliation. The steps escalate from telling the brother his fault privately to bringing along two or three witnesses to establish testimony, telling it to the gathered “church,” and finally shunning the sinner as one would a “Gentile.”
The passage nowhere talks about the essential makeup of a church congregation nor a minimum gathering requirement. The focus is on confronting a brother who sins.
What is in view is the authority necessary to confront or ultimately purge the unrepentant offender. The key to the interpretation is in verse 18 and its verb tenses that serve to stress that action taken on earth has heaven’s authority.
“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
The ESV translation is accurate because it is the natural way we speak in English. I will stress the verbs in the following translation for emphasis, even though it is not how we naturally speak.
“Truly, I say to you (all) [Gk. 2nd person plural], whatever you (all should) bind (as a firm decision) [Gk. aorist, active, subjunctive] on earth shall be [already] bound (in the most complete sense) [Gk. future infinitive + perfect participle] in heaven, and whatever you (all should) loose (as a firm decision) [Gk. aorist, active, subjunctive] on earth shall be loosed (in the most complete sense) [Gk. future infinitive + perfect participle] in heaven.”
No one-to-one correspondence between languages exists, making the translator’s job difficult. And so, in this case, the Greek text is able to convey clearly what the English text needs more emphasis to communicate.
Overlooking the choppy-sounding translation, the context is not church membership but the surety of heaven backing up the decisions on earth because, as we discover in verse 20, Jesus will be with the two or three with His authority to judge.
The two or three now come into focus. The phrase is repeated in verses 16, 19, and 20. In view is the Mosaic requirement for establishing the testimony against someone.
“A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.” (Deuteronomy 19:15 /ESV)
The Lord is saying that in delegating His authority to judge on earth, we have the assurance that heaven will back the earthly decision.
Is the New Testament church in view?
The second issue relates to whether or not this passage refers to church discipline, though it is applied within the church as a process for such. As an application of the principle, the church is on solid ground to apply the process that begins with a private confrontation with a view to reconciliation and then, if necessary, progresses to greater degrees of confrontation or expulsion.
But the challenge comes in using ekklesia as the Greek term for “church” in verse 17. The difficulty lies in the fact that this New Testament church did not exist till the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. That means that Jesus was either laying out the discipline process prophetically for when the soon-coming church would need it or that He was using the term ekklesia in a broader sense than the New Testament Church.
Again, the application of the process of confrontation to reconciliation or expulsion is not the central issue. Rather, the central issue is whether or not His reference is prophetic to the yet-future church or instead was indicating a broad principle of confrontation. Either way, it reinforces the context of this passage is not about the minimum membership requirements for a local congregation.
The term ekklesia became narrower over time to refer to local congregations or the church at large. But the term was historically broader than that. It is often erroneously reported that ekklesia means the “called out ones” because it is a compound word consisting of the Greek preposition ek (out from) and verb kaleo (called). However, when combined into a single term, ekklesia, the term does not designate those “called out.” Actually, it designates the opposite, those “called together” as in a public meeting. In its broadest sense, the term refers to a gathering of people.
In Matthew 18, the ekklesia refers to a gathering of those making a righteous judgment in the Name of the Lord.
The reference to treating an unrepentant sinner as a “Gentile” is the key. Verse 17 instructs the gathering to treat the unrepentant offender “as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Giving such admonition to the church makes little sense since the future church will be comprised of both Jew and Gentile. It is hardly a threat for Gentile to treat an offender as a Gentile. The admonition only makes sense from Israel’s point of view, where Jews are the chosen of God and Gentiles are everyone else, not of the chosen.
In other words, Jesus does not have the mixed Jewish/Gentile church in mind when referring to the actions of the ekklesia in treating the unrepentant as a Gentile. He must instead be using ekklesia in the more general sense as an assembled body.
But who is that body at that time? As these are righteous, He must be referring to those who, by faith, are following Him. He divides the righteous from the unrighteous. In the future, the application would certainly be to the coming church. But at this point, it is only important to note that the yet-future church is not prophetically instructed by His admonition. That further strengthens the argument that the entire context is not speaking about the coming church, nor is it specifically giving the minimum number of people it takes to constitute a local congregation.
What then defines a “congregation?”
Matthew 18:20 is often misunderstood as a definition for the local church, usually with good motives, because we need a working definition of what it means to be a church congregation. After all, if we are planting churches, we need to know what a church is—not THE church universal, but what it means to be a “congregation?”
We tend to use “church” and “congregation” synonymously. We can get away with that as we speak because context usually indicates what we mean. Sometimes we mean the gathered people. Sometimes we mean the one church as it exists worldwide and in heaven. Sometimes we only mean the building where the people meet. Context helps us when we speak.
For greater precision in this writing, I separate “church” from “congregation.” When using “church,” I mean the one universal body of Christ indwelt by the Spirit and existing as His temple. By “congregation,” I mean the local manifest presence of God in a particular place, among particular people, for a particular time, to accomplish God’s particular purpose.
An article will follow to unpack this definition. But the discussion has practical outworking. What does it mean to be a congregation"? So, if we are church planting (congregation planting), what does it mean to plant a congregation, and how do we know we have not instead started a Bible study, fellowship, or evangelistic small group?
We will unpack these issues in the next article, but for now, suffice it to say that we cannot use Matthew 18:20 as the definition of a congregation for church planting purposes. In essence, believers getting together in groups of more than two or three does not mean we have planted a church nor that a congregation exists.
But to avoid despair, the next article gives us a more accurate working definition.