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MATTHEW 18:15 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Matt 18:14Matt 18:16
“Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.”
If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. The community discipline procedure begins: private confrontation. The brother who sins against you receives a private audience — no public accusation, no community involvement at this stage. The goal of the confrontation is not punishment but recovery: you have gained your brother. The gaining language communicates the relational restoration that successful private confrontation produces.

Church Fathers on Matthew 18:15

Having above given a severe sentence against those who were the cause of offence, making them to fear on all sides; so now that they to whom the offence is offered should not fall into the opposite fault of supineness and indifference, seeking to spare themselves in all things, and so be puffed up; the Lord here checks such a tendency, commanding that they be reproved, saying, 'If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go, tell him his fault between thee and him alone.'

Chrysostom · 4th century · Hom., lx

Our Lord admonishes us not to overlook one another’s faults, yet not so as seeking for matter of blame, but watching what you may amend. For our rebuke should be in love, not eager to wound, but anxious to amend. If you pass it by, you are become worse than he. He by doing you a wrong hath done himself a great hurt; you slight your brother’s wound, and are more to blame for your silence than he for his ill words to you.

Augustine · 4th century · Serm., 82, 1

He does not command us to forgive indiscriminately, but him only that will hearken and be obedient, and do penitence; that neither should forgiveness be unattainable, nor sufferance be too far relaxed.

Rabanus Maurus · 9th century
Read all 23 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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Matthew 18:15 — Community Reflections | HolyStudy