Best Books on Church Discipline
Church discipline is the practice by which a local church, following Christ's instructions in Matthew 18, corrects sin in its members and, in cases of persistent unrepentance, removes them from membership and the Lord's Table. Reformed churches have historically treated it, alongside Word and sacrament, as a mark of a true church, exercised in love with the goal of restoration.
Start Here
basic
Church Discipline: How the Church Protects the Name of Jesus
Top pickJonathan Leeman · 2012
A concise, contemporary 9Marks guide to why and how churches practice discipline.
A Guide to Church Discipline
J. Carl Laney · 2010
A practical, biblical handbook walking pastors and members through the process.
Biblical Church Discipline
Daniel E. Wray · 1991
A short Banner of Truth booklet making the case that discipline is a neglected biblical duty.
Nine Marks of a Healthy Church
Mark Dever · 2021
Places church discipline within the broader marks of a faithful, gospel-shaped congregation.
Go Deeper
intermediate
The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love
Top pickJonathan Leeman · 2010
Reframes membership and discipline as expressions of the church's covenant love.
Handbook of Church Discipline
Jay E. Adams · 1974
A biblical counseling approach to walking a congregation through Matthew 18 discipline.
40 Questions About Church Membership and Discipline
Jeremy M. Kimble · 2017
Answers the hard practical questions pastors and elders actually face.
The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel
Mark Dever and Paul Alexander · 2005
Shows how discipline fits into building a whole church's ministry on the gospel.
For Study
advanced
The Church of Christ
Top pickJames Bannerman · 1869
An exhaustive 19th century Presbyterian treatment of church order, government, and discipline.
The Church
Edmund P. Clowney · 1995
A scholarly Reformed ecclesiology covering church order and discipline in full.
Manual of Church Order
John L. Dagg · 2005
A 19th century Baptist systematic treatment of church polity, membership, and discipline.
Democratic Religion: Freedom, Authority, and Church Discipline in the Baptist South, 1785-1900
Gregory A. Wills · 1997
An academic history of how 19th century Baptist churches actually practiced discipline.
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A tiered reading guide of the best books on Church Discipline.