What Is (and Isn't) the Authority of the Church?

Summary

White Horse Inn – “What Is (and Isn’t) the Authority of the Church?”

Date: March 29, 2026
Hosts: Michael Horton, Justin Holcomb, Bob Hiller, Walter R. Strickland II

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Episode Overview

In this episode, the White Horse Inn roundtable tackles the authority of the church, focusing on what Jesus meant by “the keys of the kingdom,” church discipline (or, as reframed, “discipleship”), and how different Christian traditions understand these concepts. Drawing on scripture, historical confessions, and their own pastoral experiences, the hosts work through questions such as: What are the keys? Who holds them, and how are they used biblically? What is the purpose and proper use of church discipline? How should the Lord’s Supper be administered and “fenced?” Are discipline and authority about exclusion, or about restoring and assuring sinners? Moving among Reformed, Anglican, Lutheran, and Baptist views, the hosts highlight both theological insights and practical pastoral takeaways.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: What Does “Authority of the Church” Mean?

• Main Texts Read Aloud:
  • Matthew 16:13–19: Peter’s confession and Jesus’ words about building his church and giving “the keys of the kingdom.”
  • Matthew 18:15–20: Patterns of addressing sin, church confrontation, and the authority to bind and loose.
• Initial Framing: The hosts establish that these texts are foundational for any discussion of church authority, discipline, and the practice of the Lord’s Supper.

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2. What Are “The Keys of the Kingdom”? (06:02–13:57)

• Context Matters:
  • Walter notes the loaded terms “Son of the Living God” and “Messiah” in Peter's confession, connecting to Old Testament expectations. (06:02)
  • Debate over whether “the rock” is Peter himself, his confession, or Christ/the apostles.
    • Justin: The competing confessions in the context frame the meaning—Jesus is not singling out Peter’s person but affirming the confession. (08:31)
• Authority Rooted in Confession and Proclamation:
  • Mike: “You are Peter, you’re a rock. On this confession I will build my church... So this is not about Peter. This is the whole point of it is, who is Christ? And Peter gives the right answer.” (10:00–10:49)
  • Apostolic authority rests not in the person but in the office and the confession of Christ.
• Binding and Loosing – Who, What, and Why?
  • In Matthew 18, the process is corporate—never one person alone.
  • Walter highlights the contrast with the Pharisees in Matthew 23:13, who “shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces” (13:45), indicating that proper use of the keys is about opening access to forgiveness, not guarding power.
• Reformed & Protestant Recovery vs. Roman Catholic Views:
  • The Reformers argued that the “keys” are the authority to preach the gospel and administer church discipline for the purpose of repentance and forgiveness, not institutional gatekeeping.

Notable Quote:
“...the keys are about the authority to proclaim God’s promise and good news of the kingdom...to declare, you know, that God forgives or to warn that if you don’t repent, he’s refusing to forgive.” – Walter Strickland (25:57)

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3. Church Discipline: From Exclusion to Reconciliation (15:39–19:16)

• Purpose of Discipline:
  • Justin: “The whole point of the text is not how do we get to excommunicate somebody, but how much work do we need to do to pursue the one sheep?” (16:26)
  • The aim is always repentance and restoration—not punishment.
• Pastoral Tone:
  • Stories are shared of excommunication done with tears and longing for reconciliation rather than triumphalism.
  • Public confession and absolution are presented as healing, necessary practices (e.g., Calvin’s advocacy of public rites to humble the community together).

Memorable Moment:
“When Mike was reading Calvin, I was thinking, that’s the beauty of the power and the authority of the Word… we get to announce and proclaim to people.” – Walter Strickland (27:22)

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4. The Keys in Preaching and Proclamation (33:10–34:46)

• Preaching as Exercising the Keys:
  • Christ-centered, expositional preaching always calls people to repentance and assures them of forgiveness in Christ.
  • The “beeline to the cross” in every sermon ensures that the authority of the church is always being exercised toward restoration and spiritual growth.
• Law & Gospel – “Kill and Make Alive”:
  • Recounting a story from the Lutheran tradition, Justin describes reading the Ten Commandments in a congregation, resulting in conviction and tears, before proclaiming the gospel and inviting people to rejoice at the Lord’s Supper. (41:41–44:11)
  • Walter: “God’s word...is law and gospel... You gotta end on the ‘for you’...pleading with people to put faith in Christ.” (38:44–40:41)

Notable Quote:
“The pastor’s job and the preacher’s job is to be the hitman and the midwife of God’s word. So, like, you go out and you are finding sin and you are taking it out, and at the same time, once they’re finally dead, you bring forth life.” – Justin Holcomb (41:47)

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5. Discipline and the Lord's Supper: Policies and Pastoral Application (48:28–58:25)

• Fencing the Table – “Closed,” “Close,” and “Open” Communion: (49:49–56:18)
  • Mike: Description of “close” (not strict “closed”) communion—baptism and credible profession required, but within a welcoming warning/comfort.
  • Bob: Baptists traditionally “closed,” but now often “close”—members in good standing at a gospel-preaching church are welcome; for unbelievers, focus on inviting them to Christ.
  • Justin: Missouri Synod Lutherans practice “closed” communion, with an explanation and invitation to those who want to learn more—a practice that creates “wonderful opportunities for catechesis.” (54:01)
  • Walter: Anglican practice is “presumption of best intent”—all baptized Christians invited, with pastoral care for those abstaining.
• Pastoral Opportunity:
  • The act of withholding the supper can lead to conviction, repentance, and ultimately restoration (Bob’s story of tears at reinstatement, 58:25).
  • Fencing is not about exclusion for its own sake, but about protecting and preparing souls.
  • Don’t use “discipline” in a punitive sense; instead, focus on “discipleship toward the supper.”

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6. Discipleship, Not Just Discipline (59:52–67:39)

• Moving from Negative to Positive Connotations:
  • Mike: “...we’re all under church discipline. What does it mean? Well, we’re all disciples.” (45:29)
  • Discipline is the process of becoming more Christlike—so church discipline is always for the sake of making disciples.
  • Ordinary preaching, confession, and assurance of pardon are all formative “discipline.”
• Pastoral Presence Required:
  • The value of house visits and real connection (a Reformed tradition called the “house visit”): making personal care as important as public preaching, so that censure is never impersonal or bureaucratic. (64:12–66:37)

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7. Pastoral Stories & Final Takeaways

• Sensitive, Real-Time Pastoral Care:
  • Walter: Story of a pastor immediately reassuring a weeping parishioner after a law-heavy reading, speaking gospel directly to her then and there (47:10–48:24).
• Assurance for Sinners:
  • Justin: The Lord’s Supper is for sinners—don’t “self-discipline” yourself into staying away; the invitation is precisely for the weak and needy. (67:39–70:05)
  • Mike: Calvin’s critique of the tangled Roman system—contrasted with the certainty the gospel offers. (70:05)

Notable Quote:
“If you’re sitting there going, I’m too weak. I’m too sinful… No, he knows what you did. That’s why he has the sacrament, right? That’s what it’s for. So you can taste that the blood was shed for you.” – Justin Holcomb (68:53)

Memorable Pastoral Practice:
“We have a practice called the house visit… elders carve up the whole congregation into who lives where. And everyone is visited by two elders at least a couple times a year. [So] you’re coming to talk to the pastor… Unless you have that kind of tangible, real [connection]… you don’t have a right to censure them.” – Mike Horton (64:12)

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Topic Timestamps

• 00:48 – Bob Hiller: Emotional story of Lord’s Supper and church discipline
• 03:23–14:55 – Discussion of Matthew 16 & 18 on the keys and church authority
• 15:39–19:16 – The focus and purpose of church discipline; Calvin and confession
• 25:23–28:03 – Protestant view of the keys, moving beyond power toward the proclamation
• 33:10–34:46 – How the keys shape preaching, law/gospel dynamic
• 41:47–44:11 – “Hitman and midwife” illustration; stories of law and gospel in practice
• 49:46–58:25 – Communion policies across Baptist, Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed traditions
• 59:52–67:39 – Pastoral discipline as discipleship, real-life stories, house visits, assurance for the struggling
• 70:05 – Calvin on assurance versus Roman uncertainties; closing thoughts

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Conclusion – The Authority of the Church: Restoring, Not Condemning

The authority Christ gave his church—the keys—is exercised through the proclamation of the gospel and care for souls, always with the aim of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Church discipline, rightly understood, is inseparable from making disciples; it is never an end in itself, but a means to guide believers toward Christ and into his gifts. The Lord’s Supper is for sinners who trust Christ, and its administration should always be accompanied by both pastoral vigilance and evangelical welcome. The episode closes with the urgent reminder that certainty and comfort come from Christ’s own word, not from any institutional system.

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Notable Quotes Collection:

• “The whole point of the text is not how do we get to excommunicate somebody, but how much work do we need to do to pursue the one sheep?” – Justin Holcomb (16:26)
• “It is no light solace to have present there the ambassador of Christ, armed with the mandate of reconciliation, by whom it hears, proclaimed its absolution.” – Mike Horton, quoting Calvin (19:21)
• “We get to announce and proclaim to people…” – Walter Strickland (27:22)
• “If you’re sitting there going, I’m too weak. I’m too sinful…No, he knows what you did. That’s why he has the sacrament, right?” – Justin Holcomb (68:53)

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This summary captures the major threads, quotations, and practical applications from across denominational and pastoral perspectives, offering clarity not only on what church authority is, but how it is best used to the glory of Christ and the restoration of sinners.

Transcript

[Narrator]

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase spiritual formation? Is it prayer and fasting? Spiritual encounters? Carefully designed programs meant to accelerate growth. Today, many popular approaches to spiritual formation simply drift away from scripture in a heart of flame for God. Matthew C. Bingham draws from the Puritan tradition to show how believers can cultivate spiritual disciplines rooted in grace alone. This book explores prayer, meditation and self examination within a reformed framework that keeps Christ at the center of the Christian life. Support our work with a gift of any amount and we'll send you a copy. Visit solarmedia.org offers to get yours today.

[Bob Hiller]

And so during this time, he wasn't allowed to take the Supper. But then he and I were right by each other the week that the elder said he could take to supper again. And we just wept because him being included in this declaration of yes, he believed in the broken body shed blood of Christ. His exclusion really put a fine point on the fact that it's even for that that Christ died.

[Justin Holcomb]

I love this language of discipleship over discipline because, Walter, what's going on there? And I think this is fantastic. You pastors have a big job when it comes to the Lord's Supper. You're not just up there hawking wares on Sunday morning. You are serving the people of God, which means you are serving the people of God throughout the week, making sure they are prepared to come to the altar. I mean, you can't be in everyone's house every day, but you do have a responsibility to know what's going on in the lives of your people, such that if they are taking the Supper to their judgment, you need to be able to address that so that they can be forgiven and back into a situation like you're talking about.

[Walter Strickland]

Walter.

[Justin Holcomb]

There's. There's a lot of pastoral negligence, I fear.

[Mike Horton]

Yep.

[Justin Holcomb]

And I'm looking in the mirror on this one. I'm not, I'm not pointing fingers, but there's a lot of pastoral negligence, I fear, when it comes to how we disciple people to the Supper. And I think that's such a helpful way of speaking about it. We're discipling them towards the Supper,

[Narrator]

Applying the riches of the Reformation to the modern church. This is White Horse Sin, a weekly roundtable discussion about theology and culture.

[Mike Horton]

Hi, welcome to White Horse Inn. And we are in a series focusing on the doctrine of the Church. It's an important subject and we have three traditions represented here to be able to. We have four traditions represented here.

[Justin Holcomb]

Who are we leaving out?

[Walter Strickland]

I think he just absorbed Anglicanism.

[Bob Hiller]

Yeah.

[Walter Strickland]

Oh, is that What?

[Bob Hiller]

It was.

[Mike Horton]

I have a tendency to do that.

[Bob Hiller]

I'm just going to just. I thought you were talking about me. Okay, carry on, carry on.

[Mike Horton]

No, no, Walter, you're too touchy on that little bit.

[Walter Strickland]

Okay.

[Mike Horton]

We are talking about the doctrine of the Church. Jesus Christ rules to save, and saves to rule. To be in his kingdom is not just a Platonic idea. It's a reality on earth as it is in heaven. And we get to have this conversation with Bob Hiller, Walter Strickland, Justin Holcomb, and I'm Mike Horton. And I want to start off by reading two very relevant passages for talking about church discipline, the power of the keys, as it's often called in our churches. Now, Matthew 16:13. Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist. Others say Elijah. Others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter. And on this rock I will build my church. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And then, turning to two chapters later, Matthew 18, beginning at verse 15, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you've gained your brother. But if he doesn't listen, take one or two others along with you. That every charge may be established by the evidence 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, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 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. Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. So, brothers, first of all, I think it's important for us to help folks understand where we're coming from on these two passages before we engage Roman Catholic and other interpretations. Let's go first of all to Matthew 16. Yeah.

[Walter Strickland]

The amazing confession of Jesus as the anointed one. I mean, for Peter to say, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Jesus is the son of God who is alive unlike all of these other dead gods in Caesarea Philippi, which was. And it's. I mean, this is a whole bunch of Hebrew Bible is son of the living God and Messiah. Loaded, loaded term and in phrase. And so the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament promises of a divine son who's going to be the anointed king. So that stood out. Then you have your Peter and on this rock I'll build my church. There's been so many possible interpretations of what this means. Is it Peter? Basically the question you're answering is, where's Jesus pointing?

[Justin Holcomb]

Right, right.

[Walter Strickland]

This church. Peter on. Is it the disciples? Is he pointing back to himself? Is he pointing to the bubble Ab Peter's head of his confession? And so there's been debates about that, about who people go in, okay, the Petros Petra. What does this mean? But this rock has been interpreted in numerous ways. It sure looks like, well, Peter did make a confession. So this is used for kind of petrian authority, for Roman Catholic interpretation. I don't need to separate the fact that it was a real person named Peter who said this confession. Like it's okay if Jesus pointed to Peter. Using this as a proof text for your ecclesiology of authority of Peter and centrality of Peter is one thing versus this wonderful confession that he just made this announcement.

[Justin Holcomb]

So it is worth noting, like in. And I'm going to do this with both 16 and Matthew 16 and Matthew 18. But here in chapter 16, you always got to look at the context. And just before this, let's go Matthew 16. Start at verse 11, Jesus says he's talking to his disciples. And he says, how is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread because they are geniuses, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. So what you have setting us up here is false teachers, false teaching. And then Jesus says to Peter, all right, we've got these false teachers.

[Walter Strickland]

Who.

[Justin Holcomb]

Who do people say that I am? Actually, he asks, I believe the 12. Who do people say that I am? And Peter's the spokesman, always representing the others. And he Stands up and says, well, we've got all these false answers over here. And then he comes back to Peter. Who do you say that I am? But what you want to see, at least in the context, is competing confessions and competing teachings. What Peter confesses from God, what the Pharisees and Sadducees say, which is apparently not from God. And all these other strange teachings over here, that he's Elijah or he's one of the prophets or whatever. John the Bapt Baptist Part 2 with a new head. Like, you know, they're trying to figure all this out. It's a competition of confessions right here. And there's one that Jesus approves of.

[Mike Horton]

I love that you brought out the context of the leaven of the Pharisees. I didn't mean you guys are always, you know, turning tropes into literalistic language. They were Lutherans, probably at that point. They were just Lutherans. They.

[Justin Holcomb]

You're being really nice. You're being really nice. Wow. And you used it then to undermine the teaching of the Lord. That's amazing.

[Bob Hiller]

When you said literally, I thought you're coming for me. But yeah, get Bob.

[Mike Horton]

No, but that would make sense that if he is chiding them for that in relation to the Pharisees, he would be positively using it for Peter.

[Bob Hiller]

Yes.

[Mike Horton]

I'm not saying you are literally the rock of everything, the rock of the church. This confession, just as that leaven was not real bread, it was the. You know what yeast does. It rises and fills the whole thing and corrupts everything. Same with you. You are Peter for making that confession. You are Peter. You're a rock. On this confession, I will build my church. And he even, I think, further context at the end of it, verse 20, then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. So this is not about Peter.

[Justin Holcomb]

Right.

[Mike Horton]

This is the whole point of it is, who is Christ? And Peter gives the right answer.

[Justin Holcomb]

If this is all about Peter, then we're very confused in the next session when Jesus calls Peter the devil. So which one is it? Which one do we go with here? Because there again, what's Peter doing there? He's confessing something false about Jesus. Jesus says, I'm going to go suffer and die at the hands of the religious leaders and rise on the third day. And Peter's like, no, no, no, no. You don't know what a messiah is supposed to do. Let me help you out here, Jesus. And he goes, total theology of glory. So what you see is again, Peter, insofar as he is confessing Christ. Yes. The foundation of the church is built on the apostles and the prophets. That is the proclaimers of the word. It's on the proclamation of the gospel, the word and sacrament. And as soon as they deny that, they're not the foundation any longer, because it's the office, it's not the person.

[Mike Horton]

So let's go to chapter 18 now. Now, it's a different context. It's not the context of confessing Christ. It's the context of church discipline. But what they share in common is mention of the keys of the kingdom being given to the disciples, to the apostles. And he explicitly says, truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And then he says, again, I say to you, so this is the same, making the same point. If two of you, not one of

[Justin Holcomb]

you,

[Mike Horton]

if two of you apostles agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three of these apostles are gathered in my name, there I am among them. Is that a fair interpretation?

[Justin Holcomb]

Yeah, I think so. It's not one of you. One of you can't stand up and take authority over everyone else and make these decisions. In fact, every time you guys try to do it, Jesus rebukes you for it. So, you know, in fact, the whole

[Mike Horton]

passage is, who's the greatest in the kingdom? The whole chapter is under the heading, who's the greatest in the kingdom?

[Justin Holcomb]

Yep.

[Walter Strickland]

And going back to 16, just to bring up the passage on the keys, you know, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. This is the authority to admit people into the entrance of the kingdom through the preaching of the gospel. I mean, this is. And what's amazing, if you look at Matthew 23, I've never seen this before. I was just looking at a passage that came to mind, Matthew 23:13. So you have him saying, Jesus saying, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Matthew 23:13. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.

[Justin Holcomb]

Wow, look at that.

[Walter Strickland]

For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. And he put those next to each other, like, okay, he's saying, the opposite of what he's saying to the scribes and Pharisees.

[Justin Holcomb]

Yeah, that's good.

[Mike Horton]

That is. That is in the Westminster Confession, Chapter 30 on church censures. So people who are under church discipline, it says, the Lord Jesus as king and head of his church, hath therein appointed a government in the hands of church officers distinct from the civil magistrate. To these officers, the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed by virtue whereof they have power respectively, to retain and remit sins, to shut the kingdom against the impenitent both by the word and censures, and to open it unto penitent sinners by the ministry of the gospel, and by absolution from censures as occasion shall require. So this is Matthew 18. This is focusing on a church discipline situation rather than on the ministry of the keys in its public, you know, for everybody.

[Walter Strickland]

Yeah, but that's what got my attention, because your question was, what do these have in common? And what. So you have. In Matthew 16, you have. These keys are where Peter in the apostles. But Peter's the first apostle to preach. This is Acts 2, Acts 8, Acts 10. He's preaching the gospel of the kingdom to Jews and then Samaritans and then a bunch of Gentiles. And then in 18 there's this authority to exercise discipline for those who are in the kingdom. An authority that's not just Petrine, but extended to the church and the leaders of the church. So entry into the kingdom and life in the kingdom is what it looks like Matthew 16 and 18 are bringing together.

[Justin Holcomb]

And the question is, then the keys give you the authority, but what to do? Like, what is it that they're binding and loosing? This is where it gets very fun, I think, when you start really digging into Matthew 18, there's two parables that surround this teaching of Jesus. The first one is the parable of the lost sheep, where you leave the 99 and you go out to find the one who is lost. So in other words, this idea of authority to bind and loose isn't this. I'm going to sit in my office and I'm going to run through the roles of my congregation every Sunday and figure out who should be in and who should be out this week. Right? I have the authority to excommunicate and boy, I can't wait to exercise it. That would be a very unhealthy.

[Mike Horton]

I think it's called pastoral abuse, Pastor.

[Justin Holcomb]

That's exactly right. But rather what it's saying is when your pastor speaks, he speaks what the word of God says, in this situation, along with the church, two or three are gathered. It's not a pastor acting on his own, but this is the congregation saying, look, hey, there's certain sins going on here that are a problem for your salvation. They're a problem for you. They're harming the church. People are. You are in the church, and people think that it's okay to do this because you're doing it, and we're not doing anything about it. No, what the text is saying is if there's someone in your church who is caught in sin, think of Galatians 6. They're a sheep who's wandered away. So you have a responsibility to go after that sheep. And if they continue to run away, bring someone else along with you to help turn them back around. And if even then they continue to run away, the whole church needs to go out to this person and draw them back to the 99. And if even at that point they won't listen, then you need to wipe the dust off your feet and as Paul might say, hand them over to Satan for the sake of repentance so that they see just how heavy a weight this is that they're doing. Yeah, but. So the whole point of the text is not how do we get to excommunicate somebody, but how much work do we need to do to pursue the one sheep? And the next parable is about the guy who will not forgive someone their sins. And don't think like you can take this unforgiving attitude, because think of how much God has forgiven you. The whole aim of this exercise of the keys is to get people to the forgiveness of their sins, to proclaim on earth what Christ has decreed from heaven, that your sins are forgiven. And so they hear on earth what God says in heaven. You are a forgiven child of God, and there's something in their life preventing them from it. So we've got to do everything in our power to get them to that forgiveness.

[Mike Horton]

Our church order, in fact, says that the purpose even of excommunication is reconciliation.

[Justin Holcomb]

Yes, absolutely. We've got a. We've got a liturgy for it that you actually invite the person to the service and pray for them, and you send them away with tears, longing for their return. I mean, if that. If you've been invited to an excommunication service and that doesn't rip your heart out and draw you to your needs of repentance, I don't know.

[Mike Horton]

What would I know? I've cried. I've cried over my own sins when I have had to hear that a few times in my life in ministry. But the liturgy for reception of the straying, the excommunicated person, that one brings joyful tears to my eyes. It is so beautiful. It's unbelievable. It's hard to tell people. The liturgy for the reception and reconciliation of the excommunicate doesn't sound like a really great Gospel tract.

[Bob Hiller]

Certainly not.

[Justin Holcomb]

But it is handed out the doors. Oh,

[Mike Horton]

it is. Can I just some of the Some amazing quotes from Calvin on how Rome got this wrong and the Reformers got it right. Okay, this is on the confession of sin, first of all. Now this sort of confession of sin ought to be ordinary in the church and be used extraordinarily in a special way whenever it happens that the people are guilty of some transgression in common. And he gives an example, Ezra Nehemiah they could not rightly recognize the benefit of liberation had they not previously accused themselves. Besides, the fact that ordinary confession has been this is in the public service has been commended by the Lord's mouth. No one of sound mind who weighs its usefulness can dare disapprove it. For since in every sacred assembly we stand before the sight of God and the angels, what other beginning of our action will there be than the recognition of our own unworthiness? But that, you say is done through every prayer. For whenever we pray for pardon, we confess our sin. Granted. But if you consider how great is our complacency, our drowsiness, our sluggishness, you will agree with me that it would be salutary as a regulation if the Christian people were to practice humbling themselves through some public rite of confession. And then he says, this custom is observed in all well regulated churches, that every Lord's day the minister frames the formula of confession and absolution in his own and the people's name, he says. Scripture, moreover, approves two forms of private confession, one made for our own sake, to which the statement of James refers, that we should confess our sins to one another. The other form we are to use for our neighbor's sake, to appease him, and to reconcile him to us, if through fault of ours he has been in any way injured. That's Matthew 18. Yet we must also preferably choose pastors, inasmuch as they should be judged especially qualified above the rest for confession and absolution. I say that they're better fitted the others, because the Lord has appointed them by the very calling of the ministry, to instruct us by word of mouth to overcome and correct our sins, and give us the consolation through the assurance of pardon. For while the duty of mutual admonition and rebuke is entrusted to all Christians, it is especially enjoined upon the ministers. Thus, although all of us ought to console one another and confirm one another in assurance of divine mercy, we see that the ministers themselves have been ordained witnesses and sponsors of it, to assure our consciences of forgiveness of sins, to the extent that they are said to forgive sins and loose souls, namely. And then he talks about private confession, namely, that for relief he should use private confession to his own pastor, and for his soulless he should beg the private help of him whose duty it is both publicly and privately to comfort the people of God by the Gospel teaching. But he should always observe this rule, that where God prescribes nothing definite, consciences be not bound with a definite yoke. And then he goes on to say, the benefit I've spoken about is not at all to be spurned, that we may more willingly confess our sins. It is no light solace to have present there the ambassador of Christ, armed with the mandate of reconciliation, by whom it hears, proclaimed its absolution. But then he talks about what happens instead in Rome. But it is utterly unbearable that they lay down a law on recounting of all sins, that they deny that sin is forgiven except upon the condition that an intent to confess has been firmly conceived. And then they prate that no entrance to paradise would remain if the office of confession were neglected. Are all sins really to be recounted now? David, who in himself had, I believe, rightly pondered confession of sins, exclaimed, who will understand errors? Cleanse thou me from my secret sins, O Lord. Therefore he didn't catalog them, but from the depths of his evil deeds he cried out to the Lord, I am overwhelmed. I am buried. I am choked. The gates of hell have encompassed me. I am sunk down into the deep pit. May thy hand draw me out, weak and dying. The souls of those who have been affected with some awareness of God are most cruelly torn by this butchery. First they called themselves to account and divided sins into arms, branches, twigs, and leaves according to their formulas. Then they weighed the qualities, quantities, and circumstances, and so the matter pressed forward a bit. These are cruel butchers. To relieve the wounds they have inflicted, applying certain remedies, asserting that each man should do what lay in his power. But again new anxieties crept in. Indeed, new tortures flayed helpless souls. I have not spent enough time. I have not duly devoted myself to it. I have overlooked many things out of negligence. Negligence and the forgetfulness that has come about for my carelessness, it's inexcusable. Still other medicines that alleviated this sort of pain were applied. Repent of your negligence. Provided it is not utterly careless, it will be forgiven. But all these things cannot cover the wound and are less an alleviation of the evil than poisons disguised with honey in order not to cause offense at the first taste because of their harshness, but to penetrate deep within before they are felt.

[Walter Strickland]

Yeah.

[Bob Hiller]

One of the blessings of the show for me is hearing a renewed sort of Protestant assessment of what these keys are. Because I've always. In my little corner of Baptist life, I've heard this interpreted in the more Roman Catholic sense of Peter as the rock that the church has built. The keys as a means of

[Walter Strickland]

kind

[Bob Hiller]

of power to let somebody into the kingdom or not. This is a very helpful way to reinterpret that in a very Protestant way that I think is very beneficial.

[Walter Strickland]

Yeah, it's about authority. I mean, the keys are about the authority to proclaim God's promise and good news of the kingdom. That's Matthew 16, then Matthew 18 with. Especially with what Bob was doing with putting the two parables, which is beautiful. It's like, I haven't noticed that before. The text of Matthew 18 also that Mike read to start the show to declare, you know, that God forgives or to warn that if you don't repent, he's refusing to forgive. The wayward. So it's the appeal, and so it really has. Proclamation and church discipline are the authority of these keys. That. And then the pastoral application. I mean, this is the dramatic reading from Micah. Mike Horton. I think we should do a whole thing where we just have Mike read a chapter from Calvin.

[Justin Holcomb]

Calvin. It'll be great. The whole podcast we got going.

[Walter Strickland]

But he gets angry. He's like the butcher. You could even see it. You can hear it. You can feel it.

[Bob Hiller]

It was, I think, the growl in his voice.

[Mike Horton]

He says, in this word. In this word, you know, the. The opening and shutting. In this word, It. That's what this is. The messengers, not the authority of the person, but the authority of the. In this word. The messengers of the gospel can, through faith, promise forgiveness of sins to all. They can proclaim damnation against all and upon all who do not embrace Christ.

[Justin Holcomb]

Yeah.

[Walter Strickland]

The coolest part of seeing a whole congregation kneeling and confessing sin and standing in front of them and saying, if you trust in Christ, may almighty God have mercy on you. Forgive you all your sins through Our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen you in all goodness and by the power of the Holy Spirit, keep you to everlasting life. And I love watching people's faces as they kind of. Some smile, some are wiping away tears, some are kind of going. And just. Some are just like, just looking. And so there's so many different responses to that. But when Mike was reading Calvin, I was thinking, that's the beauty of the power and the authority of the Word that we get to do that we get to announce and proclaim to people.

[Justin Holcomb]

The authority is such a key word here because we just don't like that word very much in our culture. But I want you to think of it as God is authorizing your pastor to speak. So the way we say it in our absolution is in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ.

[Walter Strickland]

Wow.

[Justin Holcomb]

In the stead and by the command. So I'm standing here in his place as his ambassador, and because he told me to do it, I forgive you your sins in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Now, people, when you come to the Lutheran church, you'll hear the pastor say, I forgive you. And you say, on what basis can he forgive me? Well, Jesus says, whoever sent you forgive. They're forgiven. Again, it's just we're basing it on the authorized proclamation so that you. And at first you get a little strange with that. But then you realize when you see the Jesus doing the authorizing, you say, oh, my goodness, when I hear him, I hear Jesus on earth as it is in heaven. He's just said it to me. And now you have this confidence. In the same way with the binding, when someone says to you that sin you're committing is a violation of God's command, it's not them. I think Calvin said this. Mike, you're not just making something up. It's not just arbitrary laws that you're going after here, but you're violating the law of God. And I'm not making this up. I'm here innocent and by his command to tell you. I don't even want to tell you this, but I have a choice. I'm duty bound as a pastor to tell you you need to repent because what you're in right now is very dangerous to you and the rest of the church. And so there's this great story, the gymnastic intel somewhere. Jim Nessigan, one of the great preachers of the gospel in the American Lutheran tradition. He tells a story of a guy that he knew who had been having an Affair. And I believe he was a pastor. I don't know if that's right or not. But his friend came to Nest again and said, hey, we need to go talk to this guy, and we need to talk to him about his affair. And so they went to him, and the guy was just obstinate. Well, look. Look how she's treated me for years. Look at all of this. Like in, you know, just throwing his wife under the bus, taking no credit for it. And they were trying to counsel him. They're trying to work with him. And finally one of them said to the gentleman, I bind you from the forgiveness of your sins. You do not have forgiveness in heaven right now because of your obstinance and your unrepentance. And the guy says, I don't need your forgiveness. I'm fine the way I am. I don't need this. And he storms out. Two days go by, phone rings. Guys on the phone with Nest again, just some tears saying, you got to give it to me. You got to give me the absolution. You got to forgive my sins. I can't stand this. And that's the office of the Keys. That's the goal. Not to say, I'm not going to forgive you until you do what I say. But this is the art of being a pastor. And the art of the ministry is to say, this person is refusing to let go of their sin and cling to Christ. So I got to take their sins out of their hands one way or another. And sometimes it's going to get extreme, but once you start exercising it appropriately, watch the forgiveness flow. I mean, it's really quite remarkable. Jesus knows what he's doing with this thing.

[Bob Hiller]

In my Baptist experience, I'm having trouble finding footing because of the use of the keys is sort of way far in the background. But it does resonate with the conversation about church discipline very clearly. And one way that we bring that to the fore is with the. With those being able to or not able to take the Lord's Supper. And so what. What that does is that it puts a. If someone is walking in unrepentant sin, it puts an exclamation point in the actual service when the church is gathered, and it lets them know that your sin is unforgiven. And I think the way that we would talk about it is a little bit different because we would. I mean, it's the same, but it sounds different, but we would say, you know, of course I'm not the one who forgives you of your sins. Like Christ does. But you're. Bob, you're saying you sin. There's a representative of Christ, but it just sort of emphasizes the fact that you're not in good cooperation with the Lord Jesus, you're not in fellowship with him if you're walking in unrepentant sin. And so I think some people would say, how dare we exclude people from such a essential part of what God has called us to be a part of? But what that is doing, it's putting an asterisk there to say in more than just this area you're doing other than what Christ has called you to. And so I think that's one of the major features of church discipline. And that's one reason why I think it's actually very restorative, because it punctuates that. And I do have stories in my own church of the Holy Spirit convicting people even more of their sin in the moment of their not being able to take the Lord's Supper because they're seeing that that's a reminder of the broken body and shed blood on the behalf of those who are saying it. But right now, I'm acting in such a way that I am not looking to Christ for forgiveness of this identified sin in my own life. And we've seen that also bear the fruit of repentance as well.

[Justin Holcomb]

All right, so let's talk about this. Let's start talking about the different aspects. Then when we look at the things Jesus gives us the keys to do, we can probably use a couple categories, right? Preaching and discipline, remitting, retaining. And Walter, I'd be curious to hear your insight on this too. How do the keys influence how we preach? What does this mean for the nature of preaching?

[Bob Hiller]

Yeah, you know, foundationally preaching is expositional. Well, it's Christ centered, but it's also expositional. Interesting. And as we are walking through the text, I think it's the responsibility of that pastor to allow people to one see where Christ is. And because of Christ, it's calling them to repentance, it's calling them to this. This vision of a good life. And I think that. And it's marked by, you know, living out Christ. And so I think the preacher, as it pertains to the keys is as we are walking out our exposition of a text, it's emphasizing the calling people to ongoing repentance. And that there's a. You know, one of my preaching professors used to always say that every sermon should have this beeline to the cross. And that's. That's really how in some ways that happens because it's exposing the meaning of the text and also exposing where it is that we are falling short of the glory of God and then also pointing to how the glory is gotten again through the repentance of sin. So I think that's at least one aspect of that.

[Narrator]

It's common to put our theology in one box and our daily Christian life in another. But the Reformers saw it differently. They taught that sound doctrine and spiritual growth don't just overlap, they need each other. In the Reformation in spiritual formation, Dr. Michael Horton shows how the Reformers understood and approached this relationship, revealing how God provides the means of spiritual growth for both individuals and the community of believers. Download your free digital Copy [e-mail] offers.

[Mike Horton]

I think also in the ministry of the Word, in actual confession and absolution in the service because, and this was part of Calvin's critique of Rome, he says what we're talking about here is the public ministry of the Word and sacraments versus and he puts it this way, whispering in a priestling's ear. And he says what an actual pastor is doing either in private confession or in public confession. What a pastor is actually doing is ministering the Word. You can know for certainty that he knows what to tell you and that it is effectual because it is the Word of God. Otherwise you've got a manual for mortal sins and venial sins and satisfactions, what satisfactions of guilt, but nevertheless don't remit punishment. And then you have the calculus for how many Hail Marys for this? How many da da da da. Calvin says there is no certainty. Plus you don't. The Roman confession is based on the purity and holiness of the minister. And we know that, that they're practically all immoral. So he says the doctrine we teach is free and clear of all these absurdities. For absolution is only conditional upon the sinner's trust that God is merciful to him, provided he seek expiation in Christ's sacrifice and be satisfied with the grace offered to him. The absolution that serves faith is nothing else than the testimony of a pardon taken from the freely given promise of the Gospel. But the other kind of confession, which depends on the discipline of the Church, has nothing to do with secret sins, but rather with example that it may remove public offense to the Church. In evangelicalism, we do Rome really well, you know, you know, you know, the, the, the whole, you know. So I, I don't know if I've confessed all of my Sins. And all of you know, you need to find a pastor who actually believes that the word of the gospel is. What is the point here with the ministry of the keys? You need to go where you hear. This is for you. Who puts it in your hands, the bread and the cup in your hands and says, for you. Body and blood for you, broken for you.

[Walter Strickland]

The gifts of God, for the people

[Mike Horton]

of God, preserve your body and soul. And yeah,

[Walter Strickland]

and God's word, and this is something we want to be really clear about, is law and gospel. Also. This preaching is law and gospel. Gospel. And it is God's law and it is God's good news. I just heard this story a little bit ago, a preacher in the diocese who's dead now, but his legacy lives on because decades ago, he would start every sermon apparently the same way. I have some really good news for you. God loves you because of Jesus Christ. And he would just say it and then you go, okay, now let's look at some of the bad news too. And he would just, like. He'd go through the text and just show like, okay, what's expected, what's going on. And just when I heard that. And so what happened is every time. Well, a bunch of people who learned how to preach from him, they just started doing that. And people loved it in the church where he would just get up and it was a thing. I got great news. God loves you because of Jesus. And people just hung on that. They wanted to hear him. If he didn't do that, they would be upset. But you also have to get to that because you're not just. It's not just that God is a divine sky fairy hanging out lollipops of patting people on the head and saying, you're unique and God really thinks you're swell, you get a trophy. There's an intensity to this. There's a death sentence that you're not getting. There's wrath that is diverted. You are to be excluded. You should naked and defiled. But you're clothed, you're clean, and you're adopted. The law gospel is very important to get to all this confession stuff and the church discipline stuff. But God has two words then. But you gotta end on the. For you. And then the appeal, like, please turn, put your faith in Christ. Like, why would you not? And then the comfortable words of the promise of comfort, that comes from that.

[Mike Horton]

And the censure is directed at the individual too. For you. I mean, Paul says, fornicators, idolaters, those who practice such things will not enter the kingdom of heaven. He gives a list there that's shutting the door. Whether done in the public setting or is done when somebody's under censure and goes before the elders. And it's interesting too, isn't it, that this relates to the wake communion is practiced and what's called the fencing of the table and ensuring that people don't eat and drink judgment to themselves, as Paul says.

[Justin Holcomb]

Before we get to the fencing of the table, because I want to. I want to dive in a little bit deeper on that, can I tell a quick story about the law and the gospel doing their job?

[Walter Strickland]

I grant thee permission.

[Justin Holcomb]

Thank you.

[Walter Strickland]

As the gatekeeper.

[Mike Horton]

Do Lutherans have a lot to say on this

[Justin Holcomb]

preaching? Yeah. So Dr. Kolb, Robert Kolb, has this marvelous line where he says the pastor's job and the preacher's job is to be the hitman and the midwife of God's word. So, like, you go out and you are finding sin and you are taking it out, and at the same time, once they're finally dead, you bring forth life.

[Walter Strickland]

Right.

[Justin Holcomb]

I mean, this is. I mean, if you. If you need a biblical proof text word, it's. It's Isaiah. But this is just the way the preacher is supposed to work. You attack sin, you breathe life and the gospel into people and sure direction, third use of the law, all these things, of course, but the primary work here is to kill and to make alive. So there's a. There's a preacher that I never got to meet. His name was Ken Corby in the Lutheran Church. And he was just an incredible, incredible theologian, but he was doing a vacancy church. It was a black church in New York. And I didn't know Lutherans had black churches or churches in New York. But nonetheless, there we had one, apparently. And Corby went there and he started the service. He said, today for confession, we're just going to read the Ten Commandments. So he started and he read the first commandment and the explanation, and then he stopped for two minutes and was silent. Then he went through the second commandment, the third, and he went all the way through. By the end of the Commandments, the whole place is in tears because they're just so crushed by the law. And everybody is recognizing that at some point I need salvation for this. So then he proclaims the Gospel, and then everybody comes to the Lord's Supper and it's just rejoicing like you've never heard anything like it, he said, because it's just when. When God's word is actually being proclaimed to you. For you, we talk about primary versus secondary discourse where I'm not just describing a theory of the atonement, whatever that is, but rather saying you are the one whose sins were covered by the blood of Jesus Christ and I stand here in his stead to tell you that sin is the one Jesus died for and your name is written in his book because you are forgiven on account of Christ. And you can just say that to somebody in first order discourse. It's the difference between saying to your wife, I love you and saying to your wife, let me explain to you 12 aspects of love that I think are very beneficial for our marriage. One of those is going to be a good date. One of them is not, you see.

[Bob Hiller]

Well, just on a joking note, I wrote a book on African American churches and I didn't know there's an African American Lutheran church in New York, that's the only one I should look at or anywhere.

[Justin Holcomb]

It's remarkable.

[Bob Hiller]

But as you're telling that story historically, Baptists have kind of had discipline in two broad categories. The first category is formative discipline, which is just the state of the Christian life in the church, as in through the ordinary means of preaching, you know, and sacrament. And so this is a, you know, through the self examination and iron, sharpening iron. This is what the Christian life entails, you know. And as he's preaching the Word, that's the kind of sort of discipline, as the old Baptist would say. It is just a regular diet of that sort of formative law gospel, as you would say, in contrast with the more corrective discipline which we talk about in Matthew 18. So as we're talking about that formative discipline, I think whatever we call it, that sort of hearing the word, seeing our condemnation and responding to the gift of grace should be just a consistent part of what we call ourselves as Christians. That's the part of the Christian life. It's not as a means of condemning, it's really obviously destroying you for salvation. So anyway, sharpening.

[Justin Holcomb]

Yeah, iron. Sharpening iron kind of idea. Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Horton]

I mean, so I don't use the term. At least with the congregation, I don't use the term discipline anymore. And I'll tell you why. Because it made perfect sense in its older contexts, patristic, medieval Reformation, post Reformation. But today discipline has a, a really negative connotation of people being disciplined, you know. Well, actually we're all under discipline. We're all under church discipline. What does it mean? Well, we're all disciples. That's really what it means that there is discipleship, the three marks of the church for us, that the word is rightly preached, the sacraments rightly administered, and they're making disciples. So that's really. I think it's a different focus when we're talking about even discipline in the more negative sense of censuring people, calling them to stand back from the Lord's Supper for a while until they are repentant. This is all because we want to make disciples and so interesting. I think it's helpful if we think of it in those terms. It becomes such a wonderful appendix to the gospel ministry.

[Walter Strickland]

I want to give a going back to Bob's story. I get to visit churches almost every Sunday. And a few years ago now, one of the readings had some strong law in it. And while it was being read, a woman gasped and started crying because she was feeling conviction. But I got the sense that this, this person also had a sense of a sensitive conscience and not in a hyper spiritual bad way, just a sensitive conscience. And her pastor, he looked at me and he said, he just kind of held his finger up like, before you get to preaching, I got to do something real quick. He's like, hey, we all heard what happened. And he knew it was really powerful. He said, I know you trust in Christ and your sins are forgiven. Don't let the condemnation choke you out. I mean, just stopped right there. And just knowing her just freed her from that. Didn't say, okay, we're going to get to that in confession time. Just kind of spoke that word. It was so cool to see the effect of the law on someone and him step in and like that. And so when you're, you're telling, I mean, the hitman in the Midwife. I mean, I'm not going to be

[Bob Hiller]

able to think, yeah, that's a beautiful.

[Walter Strickland]

But I want to, I want to go through. We were talking about like fencing the table. This isn't so much fencing.

[Mike Horton]

See, another. Another term. Yeah, that.

[Walter Strickland]

Yeah, fencing. So how do you invite and explain what's happening? The whole thing is you don't want to treat it like, well, hey, here's, here's a magic cookie or something. I mean, just dismissively, like, there's a way. If you don't take it seriously, you're like, so we regularly say, this is the Lord's table. Anyone who has been baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and you are welcome to this table. And so we require baptism. The Anglican tradition has, I've heard it called the presumption of best intent. That's our fencing is you are welcome if you're baptized and trust in Christ. Come on. Come on. So I know there's other ways that can be more intense. I had one friend go, he was visiting a church, and I really admired this, that the pastor walked up to him and said, hey, I see that you're new here. I want to talk to you before we get to communion. You have faith in Christ, you trusting in Christ. And he was like, yes, I do. So who is Christ? Wanted to make sure and said, okay, I just wanted to make sure. You're welcome at the table.

[Mike Horton]

Can we go through the different views here? That might help.

[Bob Hiller]

Yeah, I think it's helpful.

[Mike Horton]

So one view is closed communion, where you don't allow anybody who is not a member of that particular church to take communion or that denomination to take communion. Then there's close communion without the D at the end. Close communion, which is broadly, you know, it's sort of. These are bleeding into each other a little bit now. But close communion is that you kind of have to have a letter from another church saying that you can take communion, you're a member in good standing of that church. And then there's open communion, which is closer, I think, Justin, to what you're talking about. I'll start with myself. And then we can go around. We practice something like close communion. Not closed, not open. If we see somebody new, yeah, elders will come up and talk to them. But there's also in the bulletin, a statement. You have to be baptized in the triune name, whether as an infant or an adult. You have to be a member in good standing of a church that preaches the gospel and rightly administers the sacraments. If that's true of you, we welcome you. And then in the liturgy itself, there is the. The warning. And so people get that. But I love. Right after the warning, the next word is, but for all of you who have confessed your sins and come to this table through faith in Christ, do not let the weakness of your faith or your failures in the Christian life to keep you from this table. For it was given because of our weakness and because of our failures for feeding us with the body and blood of Christ.

[Justin Holcomb]

Yep.

[Bob Hiller]

Amen.

[Mike Horton]

And that's, I think, how we have to fence the table, not leave it at.

[Justin Holcomb]

We check all the boxes.

[Mike Horton]

Yeah. We've had people, you know, a friend, Roman Catholic, just absolutely left loud, could not believe that she wasn't allowed to take communion. It's America, right? I mean, to be not Allowed to do something. How do we do? Yeah, I mean, so you guys go ahead, go with your policies.

[Walter Strickland]

We actually have usually bulletins that state almost exactly the same thing. If you are baptized, if you're a member of another church that's not the Episcopal Church, or this is not where you're a member. If you were baptized, have faith in Christ, you are welcome at this table. And usually some type of paragraph in most of the. If we're not just using prayer books.

[Bob Hiller]

Yeah. So I would say the historic Baptist position is closed communion, because it's, you know, if you're a member in good standing at that particular local church, there's the ability to sort of understand your reliance on Christ as far as being somebody who is repentant and humility before the Lord Jesus. And that's the way a lot of Baptist churches have done it. But there are a lot of Baptist churches who are doing close communion. Now. A lot of them will say, if you're a member in good standing of a church of like, faith and order is language that you'll commonly hear at our church in particular, we say, if you're a member in good standing at this or another gospel preaching local church, you're welcome to take the supper. And then we say, for those of you who are not looking to the broken body and shed blood of Christ for your salvation, don't settle for the these that point us to that. Take the substance that they point to, who is Christ instead. So it's an invitation for them to either receive the bread and the cup or to receive Christ and then take the supper with us next time as a believer in Christ, broken body and shed blood on their behalf. And so that's kind of how we go about doing that.

[Justin Holcomb]

Yeah. So for us, we are. We never really think about this in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, it doesn't come across our radar very often. So I don't know. Just kidding. It's like the only. If you know anything about the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, you know, we don't ordain women and we have, like, angry closed communion tables. That's all we got. No. So what we do is it's closed, but the D is in parentheses at the end of the close. So, like, you know, we can. We can argue about this. It's so weird. We are properly closed communion. And so what I say at my church every Sunday before we. If you look at the history of the administration of the sacrament, and I don't know how far back this goes, but I just know that in the ancient church, they used to have the service of the word and the service of the sacrament. And just before the service of the sacrament, the catechumens, the people being taught the faith, would be excused from the church. We don't, you know, like you said, Mike, it's America. You can't do something like that anymore. But before we get into the service of the sacrament, I'll stand up and say at this time, we're going to receive the sacrament. What we believe here at our church is that the bread and wine truly are Christ's body blood, given to us to eat and drink for the forgiveness of our sins. If you don't believe this, if you've never been taught this in a Lutheran church before, or if you're not yet baptized, we do ask you to refrain from the sacrament today. You're welcome to come to the Fraile, and you can. We. We let them know. You can cross your arms like this and you'll receive a blessing, or if you want to stay in your seat, that's fine. But then I say this, and I don't know if this is appropriate or not, but I say it anyhow. But we would love to have you join us for the sacrament. We just believe that there's some instruction that's necessary ahead of time. So after church, make sure you talk with me. Yeah. And then we're going to go through. And what I've found in the last couple of years, I've always been so. I'm nothing if not cowardly. And I've always been nervous about doing closed communion statements. But what I found recently is the more we're getting visitors to the church, the more they're not only not coming to the rail, but they are willingly coming to me and saying, I want to take it, but I want to be taught. Like, I want to learn what it means to believe this. And so what's happened is it's created wonderful opportunities for catechesis and wonderful opportunities for good, healthy conversation. And so it's actually can be done very pastorally. My fear is that too often you just have. Don't come, and that's not the heart.

[Bob Hiller]

Yeah. And so I would say the same thing, just to affirm what you're saying. Just recently, we had a baptism study at our church and a Lord's Supper study at our church about how we can start to communicate these things. I mean, as Baptists, we don't, you know, have as tight of statements that have been handed down, that have been refined for generations, which. Which I actually wish we did for this very reason. And so we have taken to writing out these statements, and as we've clarified where we are on things, people are coming to us looking for help and understanding and teaching to be catechized in these ways. And it's actually been very beautiful. And so even though we are in America, we're a place that's built upon autonomy, a place where inclusion is everything. I think there's some ways in which pastorally, you know, and the heaviness of the heart in that sort of call to repentance can. And then also to the table, you know, upon understanding what's going on, I think that could be received more powerfully than we often think.

[Walter Strickland]

I forgot to mention, Bob, that when you said, if you don't want to come up, you can come up and cross your arms. And that's always said in our churches, you're welcome to come up if you're baptized member of a church. If you do not, if you should not receive, please come up. You're invited to come up and you know, they'll pray for you. And it was beautiful. It was really funny because we had a service, an ordination service for some from deacons, and one of the rectors, one of the presbyters came up and we had. It was like hundreds of people. And he came up and he crossed his arms, and I was like, oh, no, what's going on? Is he okay? So I prayed for him. And as soon as the service was done, I was like, hey, are. Are you. Is everything okay? And he was like, yeah, why? And I'm like, you didn't receive communion? Like, are you good? Do we need to talk? And he was like, oh, yeah. He's like, I've just been fasting for the next 24 hours. And he's like, but you were worried about. He's like. He just kind of was like, I'm so moved that you were so intense about making sure. And he started laughing.

[Mike Horton]

People don't see this is the thing, especially younger generations. One of my other sons has been bringing his non Christian friends to church and have communion every Sunday. And also a few weeks ago had a new members reception receiving of new members. And you have that back and forth of exchange of vows. And this one friend broke down bawling. It's like, okay. I don't think I have ever had a lot of emotional movement during a reception of new members, part of the liturgy. He broke down and talking to him afterwards, I realized it wasn't a digital relationship right oh, gosh, yes. It was actual people making vows to be together even though they weren't a nuclear family. And that was so shocking. I think what we do when we talk about discipline, let's call it discipleship, what we do when we're doing these discipline things is pre evangelism.

[Justin Holcomb]

Yes.

[Bob Hiller]

Wow.

[Mike Horton]

It really is.

[Justin Holcomb]

That's good.

[Walter Strickland]

I want to read. This is from our prayer book on. This is related. But this is called the disciplinary rubric. But it's page 409 for the book of Common Prayer about withholding communion from someone. And that's the point of the. What's going on is going back to what you were saying about discipline, Mike. He says if the priest knows that a person who is living a notoriously evil life intends to come to communion, the priest shall speak to that person privately and tell him that he may not come to the holy table until he has given clear proof of repentance and amendment of life. The priest shall follow the same procedure for those who have done wrong to their neighbor and are a scandal to the other members of the congregation, not allowing such persons to receive communion until they have made restitution for the wrong they have done or have at least promised to do so. When the priest sees that there is hatred between members of the congregation, he shall speak privately to them, telling them that they may not receive communion until they have forgiven each other. And if the person or persons on one side truly forgive the other and desire and promise to make up for their faults, but those on the other side refuse to forgive, the priest shall allow those who are penitent to come to the communion, but not those who are stubborn. In all such cases, the priest is required to notify the bishop within 14 days at the most, giving the reasons for refusing communion. There's a lot of pastoral intentionality, and that's just a rubric, which is actually how our worship is run. Rubrics and what's there. But when you were describing both discipline, like, yeah, it's not like you're not getting this, but there's like this appeal of like, no, no, no, there's hatred here. This isn't what. You're supposed to love one another because. And you've been loved by God in Christ and you know what love is, so you can give that and you've been forgiven much. So forgive much. You can see this relational forgiveness, the fabric of a Christian community.

[Bob Hiller]

Yeah. There's a story that at our church, there's a young man who was unfaithful to his wife and he grew up in a church that they practice closed communion. And the question was, are you living right as kind of like a works righteousness, like if you're living right, then you can take communion. And for him, there was this guilt that he wore for so long because he was coming under conviction, saying, you know, I'm not living right. And then what happened was, is that over time, the gospel even took hold of this aspect of his life. And he says, even for this, if I bring it to Christ, I'm forgiven. And so over time, we were having this conversation and the gospel was really good news to him even in that instance. And so during this time, he wasn't allowed to take the supper. But then he and I were right by each other the week that the elder said he could take the supper again. And we just wept because him being included in, you know, this declaration of, yes, he believed in the dead, the broken body, shed blood of Christ even for that sin that he thought, you know, because I wasn't living right, you know. And so it was really an opportunity for him to grasp the gospel, even in that area that was so difficult and challenging. All I have to say, his exclusion really put a fine point on the fact that it's even for that that Christ died.

[Justin Holcomb]

I love this language of discipleship over discipline. Because, Walter, what's going on there? And I think this is fantastic. You pastors have a big job when it comes to the Lord's Supper. You're not just up there hawking wares on Sunday morning. You are serving the people of God, which means you are serving the people of God throughout the week, making sure they are prepared to come to the altar. I mean, you can't be in everyone's house every day, but you do have a responsibility to know what's going on in the lives of your people, such that if they are taking the supper to their judgment, you need to be able to address that so that they can be forgiven and back into a situation like you're talking about. Walter. There's a lot of. Of pastoral negligence I fear. And I'm looking in the mirror on this one. I'm not, I'm not pointing fingers, but there's a lot of pastoral negligence I fear when it comes to how we disciple people to the Supper. And I think that's such a helpful way of speaking about it. We're discipling them towards the supper.

[Mike Horton]

Yeah, I, you know, that that's. We. We have a practice called the hash bazook.

[Bob Hiller]

The.

[Mike Horton]

The house visit. Two elders sometimes the pastor. But two elders carve up the whole congregation into who lives where. And everyone is visited by two elders at least a couple times a year. And Calvin suggested, in fact, that the pastor should have appointments with people they should come to to talk to the pastors, you know, the, what, 30 or so pastors prior to communion. So sometime during the week. And, you know, it's. What I like about that is you're. You're coming to talk to the pastor. You're not being called on the carpet. The house visit, too. Some people, you know, who are new to it. Say what? The elders are coming over. What did I do wrong? No, they're coming over to get to know you. They're coming over to find out. Unless you have that kind of tangible, real people are talking about. Okay, well, you've got all these ideas and you've got fancy lingo and all these categories and everything, but what about nitty gritty on the ground? Well, we've got it. You know, churches of the Reformation have actual concrete pastoral duties that pastors and elders fulfill on the ground, and deacons as well. And they care. But I'm with you, Bob. There is a tendency sometimes say, well, I preach every week. I put a lot into my sermons, and I oversee the capital campaign, and I, you know, da, da, da, da. I just don't have time to go to everybody's house or what have you. At least there needs to be some tangible connection with the people in your congregation or you don't have a right to censure them.

[Bob Hiller]

You aren't a pastor. You aren't a minister. You're a pastor. You're just a preacher. And, Bob, I really like that language of discipleship towards or discipline towards the supper. What does he say? Discipleship towards the supper.

[Justin Holcomb]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bob Hiller]

And I think to sort of connect that with what Mike was saying. I do think that so many times we see the preached word as so central. I mean, in my context, we see the preached word as so central that the pastor can spend, you know, 25, 30 hours a week preparing for the preached word as opposed to getting the people ready for the supper, which of which the sermon is a part of that, not the actual event. And so I think that's a helpful reorientation for me as saying, you know, what?

[Mike Horton]

The.

[Bob Hiller]

The. Both the. The preparation of the sermon and the visiting are both in service of discipling somebody towards the supper.

[Mike Horton]

Yeah, both part of the mystery of the. Yeah.

[Justin Holcomb]

One quick thing I want to bring in, too, because we're talking A lot of, you know, discipleship, discipline. Towards the table, fencing the table. Luther addresses this in the Large Catechism. And I always do think it's worth pointing this out. You probably shouldn't become your own discipliner in certain sense, because there's some people who have decided, I'm not worthy to go to the table. I can't go to the table. I'm not holy enough to go to the table. Some people might say, I don't really see a need for it. Luther's got this great line where he says, if you're among those who thinks you don't see a need for it because you're not convicted by your sins, do this first. Take your hand, put it at your chest, and see if your heart's beating. If it is, turns out you're a sinner and you need the supper. But to the person who says, I'm too sinful for the supper, he would say, listen, too sinful. That's not why you're going. You're going because you've been invited. You might think you're too sinful. The Lord Jesus invites sinners to the table. My great story is that when I was in high school, I decided I was not worthy. I had a bad weekend, as you do in high school. You know how it goes. And so I decided I can't take communion this Sunday. And so I'm sitting there, and I'm the pastor's son, right? So everybody watches. You were in the back. And my mom gets up for the sacrament, and she says, let's go. And I said, I can't go today. She goes, what do you mean you can't go today? I said, I'm not going. She walks up, comes back. She's never gone to the sacrament so fast in her whole life. She's, like, furious. She gets. We're getting ready to. We get home or we get in the car to go home from church. And she goes, what was that? And I said, what was what? She goes, you didn't go to the supper? I said, mom, I said, I couldn't go today. I'm too sinful. And my mom goes, too sinful? Who do you think it's for? It was just this. Praise God for that moment where. Yeah. She's like, this is. You needed it more than ever, right? Like, this is where if you're sitting there going, I'm too weak. I'm too sinful. Like, if. If God had known what I've done, he would never welcome me to the table. No, he knows what you did. That's why he has the sacrament, right? That's what it's for. So you can taste that the blood was shed for you. You can feast on the body that was sacrificed for you. And with. Again, back to this word. That word of the sacrament is an authorized word from Christ to say, this is for you. And so it's there for your certainty and assurance of your forgiveness.

[Mike Horton]

And this is where, again, I think Calvin's argument is so good. In contrast with the Roman view of confession and absolution, whole penitential system is made up. It's 8,000 pieces, parts moving, parts of distinctions, and how you weigh this. And mortal sins, venial sins, and then you rank, like even within venial and mortal. Calvin says, first of all, the priest has absolutely no idea how to run this, how to run the numbers. Each priest does it differently, has a different calculus and so forth. And consequently, every penitent person has a different absolution, different satisfactions, different. How can anybody possibly know? And so they're anxious. If they're really. If they have any touch from God at all, they're always anxious. Yeah, but here, here there is certainty, both for the pastor and for those he ministers to, there's certainty. I know this comes from God. It wasn't made up. It comes directly from God to his people. And they can have absolute certainty. Their sins are forgiven because the word says so.

[Narrator]

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