This is from the “God’s law in brief” column of our latest ChristianGovernance e-letter.

II Thessalonians 3:14-15 – “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.”

The family and the church also have governmental structure. That means there is also law and punishment particular to those spheres. If ethical behaviour is preserved here (and in people’s commitment to self-government), and if effective discipline is exercised, this limits deviant criminal behaviour, thereby reducing the level of policing required by the state.

The passage in question is a reference to church discipline. What I find very interesting in this passage is the references to 1) disassociation, 2) shame and 3) enemies.

Most people on the receiving end of shame feel that they are being treated as enemies. There is a real aversion in our culture and in our churches today to using disassociation and shame in punishment. Maybe that is why discipline is so ineffective, and why we see so much criminal behaviour, justifying an ever greater role for a heavy-handed, regulation-crazy state.

What the apostle Paul reveals with his counsel here is that disassociation and shame are not inherently hostile methods of discipline even if they are treated as such by the recipients. I think we see around us how easily they can be abused but the same would have been true in Paul’s day as well.

Despite their ability to be abused, however, Paul, after urging their use, does not then launch into a 200-page treatise about how to use them properly and without sin. In fact, he does not provide any counsel at all in that regard. He simply tells the Thessalonians how to deal with rebels, and leaves it at that. No psychologizing or equivocating at all. Make sure you don’t treat them as enemies, but they need to experience shame and social isolation. Serious stuff. I can’t pretend to know how to apply this model in every situation.

Is this principle applicable to parental discipline as well? I can envisage situations, especially when children are older, where I would think it could be used. But I wouldn’t want to take a firm position on this at the moment.

It is important to see how specific the Bible is in many places when it comes to how we should live in the different relationships of life. And it is very important to learn how to apply law and discipline when it comes to self-government, parental government and church government – and then to apply that Biblical truth. When we don’t live righteously in these important relationships of life, the level of deviant behaviour grows in our communities, and God judges us with an increasingly invasive and oppressive civil government to manage that growing anarchy.