At The Church Discipline Conference, we're going to try our best to explain in-depth this entire doctrine. We are going to do exposition on many, many passages of Scripture, dedicating lots of time to exposition. We're also going to examine some of the critical issues, some of the controversial issues one-by-one.

We're going to try to answer all the questions we can think of and bring some experienced church men in to speak about these matters. We want to speak about church discipline from a legal standpoint. We want to examine church discipline from the role of elders or presbyteries. But primarily we want to find ourselves immersed in the texts of Scripture that explain church discipline.

Unfortunately, the modern church, when they think of church discipline, they only think of Matthew 18. That really is a minimalist view, because there are so many issues that the Scriptures address that require discipline, and there are particular ways of discipline that correspond with particular kinds of sins.

Church discipline, biblically-ordered, is something that's fallen out of use in the church. And there are many voices in the past who believe that you didn't even have a biblical church if you didn't have biblical discipline. Interestingly enough, discipline in the church, according to the Scripture, starts at some of the most wonderful levels, like the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is one element of discipline where you examine yourself, and you repent and you turn to the Lord. You have the counsels of your brothers, you have preaching, there are so many elements of the discipline of the Lord.

Then there is the kind of corrective discipline that the Bible prescribes, that may actually lead to excommunication. One of the reasons we have so many problems in our society is because we have not exercised discipline in a biblical way.