Becoming a Community of Disciples

Chapter 6 Spiritual Teachings – Virtues and Discipline

A good life is one where we seek to be virtuous, wherein we treat everyone well and respect the rights of others. This is, in part, made possible when we submit ourselves to others and give those in leadership over us the right to discipline us. As the Bible reminds us, even the Lord disciplines us in love (Hebrews 12). At the same time, discipline can be abused and leaders can use discipline as a form of control and even abuse. Moreover, most of us do not necessarily like discipline. Getting up and exercising each day is hard but the health benefits show that this kind of bodily discipline is good. Thus, discipline is necessary but must be exercised with caution and great wisdom. Leaders who abuse their power will use discipline as a weapon but good congregational leaders will not only use discipline sparingly (and only in accord with the Scriptures) but will also exercise it out of love. Further, strong leaders will submit themselves to discipline too.

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