What Matthew 18 Does—and Does Not—Require
One of the most common attempts to prevent public theological criticism is the question:
“Did you contact him privately first?”
Sometimes that is exactly the right question. Private correction can protect reputations, prevent unnecessary escalation, clarify ambiguous language, and provide an opportunity for repentance without public embarrassment.
But the question is often asked as though Scripture establishes an absolute rule: no public statement may be criticized publicly until the critic has first contacted its author and completed the process described in Matthew 18.
Scripture establishes no such universal requirement.
Matthew 18 governs real personal offenses and the church’s process for addressing an impenitent brother. It is not a mechanism by which public teachers may require their published doctrine to remain unanswered until every reader has obtained a private appointment with them.
Public teaching is already addressed to the public. Its author has voluntarily placed an argument before an audience and invited its acceptance. A public response examines that public material for the benefit of the same audience.
That does not grant permission for slander, reckless accusation, or needless humiliation. The fifth and ninth commandments remain in force. But neither command makes public theological arguments immune from public examination.
The biblical principle is proportionality: the correction should ordinarily correspond to the nature, reach, evidence, and effects of the original error.
What Matthew 18 Actually Says
Christ teaches:
“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” ().
Several elements should be observed.
The matter involves a brother who has trespassed against another brother. The offended person possesses knowledge of a particular fault affecting their relationship. He must not spread the matter among others, recruit allies, or publicly shame the offender. He must go directly to him.
The initial conversation is private: “between thee and him alone.”
The purpose is restorative: “thou hast gained thy brother.”
If the brother refuses to hear, one or two others are brought so that every word may be established. Only after continued impenitence is the matter brought to the church. If the offender still refuses to hear, ecclesiastical consequences follow.
This process restrains gossip and personal vengeance. It protects the accused from public harm before the facts have been established. It requires the offended person to seek reconciliation rather than cultivate resentment.
Matthew 18 is therefore not optional advice when its circumstances apply. A Christian may not turn a private grievance into public content merely because public exposure would be more satisfying.
Yet the passage does not describe every possible kind of error, offense, teaching, or correction. It does not say that all public doctrinal analysis must begin as a private conversation. It does not require every reader of a book to contact its author before publishing a review.
To make Matthew 18 the universal procedure for all criticism is to extend the passage beyond its stated situation.
Personal Trespass and Public Teaching Are Different Acts
A personal trespass is ordinarily committed within a limited relationship. A public teaching is deliberately communicated to an audience.
If a Christian privately says something offensive or unwise to another person, the injured party should not immediately publish the matter. He should pursue the brother privately.
But when an author publishes a book, article, sermon, podcast, video, or social-media argument, he has already made the relevant material public. The critic does not expose private information by quoting it. He directs readers back to something the author intentionally placed before them.
The critic is also addressing more than the author. He is addressing those influenced by the teaching.
Suppose a published argument misrepresents the doctrine of preservation. Privately persuading the author to reconsider would be valuable, but until he corrects the public record, the readers who received the original argument still require an answer. A private conversation cannot by itself repair a public effect.
This is why the purpose of public correction must be understood. It is not simply to make the author feel the weight of disagreement. It is to restore truth within the sphere in which error has operated.
The author may be entirely unwilling to engage. He may never read the response. The public answer can still serve readers by showing them the evidence and reasoning they need to evaluate the original claim.
The Biblical Pattern of Public Correction
Scripture repeatedly records public answers to public conduct and teaching.
When Peter’s conduct at Antioch publicly compromised the truth of the gospel and influenced others to dissemble, Paul “withstood him to the face” and rebuked him “before them all” (). The offense was not merely a private disagreement between two apostles. Peter’s conduct had produced public doctrinal consequences, and the correction matched the public nature of the problem.
Paul identifies dangerous teachers and public offenders by name. Hymenaeus and Alexander are named in . Hymenaeus and Philetus are identified in because their teaching concerning the resurrection was overthrowing the faith of some. Alexander the coppersmith is named because of the evil he committed and the danger he represented ().
John publicly addresses the conduct of Diotrephes, who loved preeminence, rejected apostolic authority, spoke malicious words, and cast brethren out of the church (3 John 9–10).
Christ publicly answered the Pharisees and scribes because their public teaching and example misled others. Matthew 23 does not contain a private letter sent only to the religious leaders. It contains a public warning to the disciples and multitude concerning leaders whose doctrine and conduct endangered the people.
The letters to the seven churches openly identify false teaching, tolerated immorality, compromise, spiritual deadness, and misplaced confidence. Public churches received public evaluations from the Lord who walked among the candlesticks.
These examples do not authorize casual public shaming. Apostles and Christ possessed authority that ordinary Christians do not. But the examples establish the underlying principle: public error affecting others may require public correction for the protection of those affected.
Scripture nowhere teaches that public doctrine becomes untouchable until a private procedural requirement has been satisfied.
Matthew 18 Is Not a Copyright over Criticism
A person who publishes an argument does not retain control over who may answer it.
He controls what he publishes. He does not control the judgments of readers, the conclusions they draw, or the responses they write. Public argument necessarily enters a realm of public examination.
The author may object that he has been misunderstood. If so, he should demonstrate the misunderstanding. He may say that a quotation has been removed from context. The context should then be supplied. He may show that a supposed logical consequence does not follow. The inference should be tested.
But he cannot establish misrepresentation merely by saying that he was not contacted first.
Prior contact and accurate criticism are separate questions. A person may contact an author privately and still publish an unfair response. Another may publish without prior contact and nevertheless represent the argument with complete accuracy.
The moral quality of the response depends principally upon its truthfulness, justice, necessity, and purpose—not upon whether the critic obtained permission from the person criticized.
When Private Contact Is Especially Wise
Although private contact is not universally required, it is often wise and may sometimes become morally necessary.
Private inquiry is especially appropriate when a statement is ambiguous. A short quotation, informal remark, or isolated social-media comment may not provide sufficient evidence for a serious public conclusion. Asking the speaker what he intended can prevent false accusation.
Contact is also important when the critic possesses private information. Private correspondence, personal conversations, confidential pastoral matters, and unverified reports should not be converted into public evidence merely because they appear relevant to a controversy.
A potentially reputation-destroying allegation concerning dishonesty, immorality, abuse, or ecclesiastical disqualification requires much greater caution than disagreement over a published interpretation. Serious accusations demand reliable evidence, proper witnesses, and often formal church procedure.
Private contact is also particularly appropriate when the person is a member of the same local church or stands in a direct pastoral relationship. Existing covenantal relationships create additional duties that do not necessarily exist between distant public writers.
Finally, contact may be wise when the apparent error can be corrected easily. An author may have made a typographical mistake, linked the wrong source, relied upon outdated information, or expressed himself poorly. A simple message can resolve the matter without controversy.
In such cases, refusing private clarification because public criticism would generate more attention may reveal an improper end.
When Prior Contact Is Not Required
Prior contact is not ordinarily necessary when the matter consists of a clear and established public argument.
A published book may be reviewed without asking the author’s permission. A sermon may be examined according to Scripture. A theological article may be quoted and answered. A recorded debate may be analyzed. A public textual claim may be compared with the available evidence.
Contact is less necessary when the author has repeatedly defended the position, when the relevant qualifications are already available in his published work, or when the critic is responding to a settled school of thought rather than seeking clarification of one ambiguous sentence.
A timely public response may also be needed when an influential error is spreading rapidly. Requiring private exchanges of indefinite duration could leave readers without an answer while the original claim circulates freely.
The critic should still make reasonable efforts to understand the author. He should read the relevant sources, search for qualifications, and avoid constructing a position from fragments. But research is not the same as obtaining personal authorization.
The author’s public record is ordinarily the proper source for evaluating his public teaching.
The Internet Requires Careful Distinctions
The internet complicates the distinction between public and private.
A published article, publicly accessible video, open podcast, book, public sermon, or deliberately public social-media post is public material. It may ordinarily be cited and examined.
A private email is not made public merely because it can be copied. A message sent within a restricted group does not automatically become public teaching. A secretly recorded conversation is not equivalent to a published lecture. A screenshot stripped of its conversational setting may create a false impression even when the words themselves are genuine.
The mere ability to expose something does not create the right to expose it.
Even public material differs in formality and weight. A carefully edited book represents a more deliberate statement than an improvised sentence during a long discussion. A formal doctrinal article ordinarily deserves more exacting analysis than a casual reply typed in haste.
Publicness establishes that the material may be considered publicly. It does not eliminate the duties of context and proportion.
The critic should ask:
- How deliberate was the statement?
- How widely was it distributed?
- How influential is the speaker?
- Is the statement isolated or repeated?
- Is the matter central to the person’s argument?
- What harm could result from leaving it unanswered?
- What harm could result from magnifying it beyond its significance?
The appropriate response should reflect those circumstances.
Public Correction Is Not Necessarily Personal Accusation
A theological response often evaluates propositions rather than moral character.
The critic may argue:
- This interpretation is exegetically unsound.
- This historical assertion is factually incorrect.
- This method assumes what it claims to prove.
- This principle contradicts the confession.
- This premise leads by necessary consequence to a conclusion the author disavows.
None of those statements necessarily accuses the author of dishonesty or deliberate rebellion.
A person may sincerely hold inconsistent beliefs. He may overlook evidence or fail to recognize the consequences of his own principles. Demonstrating the inconsistency does not require claiming that he secretly believes every conclusion following from it.
This distinction is crucial when examining someone such as Lane Keister. Keister expressly affirms providential preservation. A responsible criticism must report that affirmation. It may then argue that his interpretation, textual method, or practical conclusions are inconsistent with what he affirms.
The argument should take this form:
Keister explicitly affirms preservation. Nevertheless, the following operative principles appear to undermine the confessional doctrine he claims to hold.
That is stronger and fairer than asserting that he simply never professed preservation.
The same standard applies to Mark Ward. His stated arguments concerning intelligibility, translation, archaism, or textual matters should be quoted in their strongest available form. The critic may then challenge their premises and consequences.
Public theological correction becomes much more serious when it moves from propositions to character:
- The author is dishonest.
- He is deliberately deceiving his audience.
- He is a coward.
- He is a heretic.
- He is unqualified for office.
Such conclusions may sometimes be warranted, but they require additional evidence. The critic must distinguish what was stated, what follows logically, and what is being inferred about intention or character.
Public access to an argument is not public access to the author’s heart.
Public Correction and Elders
Elder status requires greater care but does not eliminate public accountability.
First Timothy 5:19 commands that an accusation against an elder not be received without two or three witnesses. This protects elders from rumor, resentment, and unsupported allegations. Formal accusations of misconduct should follow lawful ecclesiastical procedure.
But not every disagreement with an elder’s published theology is a formal accusation against his character. If an elder publishes an interpretation, another Christian may answer it from Scripture. If he makes a historical claim, a reader may supply contrary evidence.
Published words provide a public object of analysis.
If the criticism alleges censurable sin or seeks removal from office, it should be presented through the proper court with the necessary evidence. A website cannot depose an elder.
Yet a church court’s exclusive authority to censure does not give the court exclusive authority to recognize, discuss, or document theological error.
A layman may say that a public argument appears contrary to Scripture. The church court must decide whether the matter constitutes a formal ecclesiastical offense.
Criticism and censure are different acts.
Public Correction Should Seek Public Restoration
The goal of a public answer should not be the permanent attachment of shame to someone’s name.
If the original author corrects his position publicly, the critic should acknowledge the correction. If an article is retracted, the response should be updated where reasonably possible. If a misunderstanding is resolved, the clarification should be made visible to the same readers who encountered the accusation.
This is one reason a corrections policy is indispensable for polemical websites. Search engines can preserve an accusation long after the underlying matter has changed. A retraction hidden at the bottom of an old article may not adequately repair the original public harm.
Public reproof must remain capable of reaching a good conclusion.
The ideal outcome is not that the critic wins and the opponent loses. It is that truth is clarified, error is corrected, those misled are protected, and Christian fellowship is restored wherever possible.
Some teachers will not repent. Some will intensify their error or answer evidence with evasion. Public warning may then remain necessary.
But the critic’s heart should remain open to restoration. Otherwise correction becomes punishment administered without jurisdiction.
Matthew 18 Must Not Be Used to Protect Public Error
The misuse of Matthew 18 can become a form of procedural evasion.
A public teacher freely distributes an argument. When someone answers it, defenders insist that the response is illegitimate because no private conversation occurred. The original argument remains public, but the correction is required to remain private.
This produces an obvious asymmetry.
The teacher may influence thousands without consulting those affected. The critic, however, must secure private access to the teacher before addressing the same audience. Procedure becomes a shield protecting the original claim from timely examination.
That is not the purpose of Matthew 18.
Christ gave the process to gain an offending brother, establish truth, restrain gossip, and preserve the church’s holiness. He did not give it to grant public teachers control over criticism of their public work.
A procedure intended to correct sin must not be transformed into a means of preserving it.
Safeguards for Public Theological Response
A public response should satisfy several requirements.
First, the source must truly be public. Private information should not be exposed merely to strengthen a public case.
Second, the original material must be documented. Readers should be able to verify quotations and examine their context.
Third, the strongest reasonable form of the argument should be answered. An opponent’s qualifications must not be concealed because they complicate the criticism.
Fourth, the response must distinguish fact, inference, logical consequence, and motive.
Fifth, the severity of the language must correspond to the evidence and seriousness of the matter.
Sixth, the critic should decide whether private contact might materially clarify the issue. The fact that contact is not always mandatory does not mean it is never wise.
Seventh, formal accusations against church officers should be taken through lawful ecclesiastical channels.
Eighth, the person criticized should have a reasonable opportunity to respond, and material corrections should be acknowledged.
Finally, the response should aim to defend truth and protect people rather than enlarge an audience through conflict.
These safeguards do not weaken public criticism. They distinguish principled correction from irresponsible controversy.
Confessional Bibliology and Public Controversy
Confessional Bibliology examines public claims concerning Scripture, preservation, textual criticism, translation, and Reformed doctrine. Its principal sources are published books, articles, sermons, videos, debates, and other publicly available materials.
The site does not need to obtain permission before analyzing those arguments. Nor must every article be preceded by private correspondence with its subject.
It must, however, represent each public teacher fairly. It must document claims, preserve relevant context, distinguish professions from consequences, and correct its own errors.
When a public argument threatens the doctrine of Scripture, the audience affected by that argument deserves a public answer. The lay status of the critic does not remove that need.
The website’s response remains non-ecclesiastical. It can expose error and call for correction; it cannot impose censure. It can present evidence concerning an elder; it cannot remove him from office. It can argue that conduct appears sinful; it cannot pretend that its conclusion is a formal church verdict.
Those limitations preserve the proper difference between Christian publication and church discipline.
Conclusion
Matthew 18 protects Christian fellowship by requiring private confrontation for private trespasses and orderly escalation when a brother refuses to hear. It must be obeyed where its circumstances apply.
But it must not be expanded into a universal prohibition against publicly answering public doctrine.
A private offense should not be publicized merely to shame the offender. A public error should not be protected merely because its author prefers private criticism. The scope of correction should ordinarily correspond to the scope of the original matter.
Public teaching may receive a public answer.
That answer must be truthful, documented, proportionate, and open to correction. It must distinguish theological criticism from formal accusation and public argument from private character. It should seek restoration rather than humiliation.
But it need not seek permission from the person whose published claims it examines.
The Christian who speaks publicly accepts public scrutiny. The elder who teaches publicly does not cease to deserve honor, but neither does he become unanswerable. The scholar’s credentials require careful engagement, not silence.
Matthew 18 is a command of Christ. It should never be turned into a refuge from Christ’s truth.