Before he was a professor or a seminary president, James Boyce was a pastor.  In 1851 he accepted the invitation of First Baptist Church of Columbia, South Carolina, to become its pastor.  He served the church for four years, during which time he wrote and published a piece titled “Church Discipline - Its Importance.”

Boyce expressed his concern with the “low degree of spirituality” in the churches, stating that the primary reason for this was the lack of corrective discipline, a practice which the First Baptist Church of Columbia had revived under Boyce’s leadership.  He believed that lack of corrective discipline among the membership of a Baptist church would soon result in “the utter ruin of the church.”  He gave three reasons for the importance of corrective discipline.

First, “it is necessary for the purification of the visible church.”  The standards for moral and spiritual purity are clearly given in scripture, he wrote.  An undisciplined church becomes “the laughing stock of the world” because its membership gives no evidence “of the transforming power of the Spirit.”

Second, “the exercise of discipline leads to the advancement of personal piety among the members of the church.”  When bad behavior is corrected, the membership at large is informed of its duty and the holiness of the membership is encouraged.

Third, Boyce believed that only a disciplined church can “perform the glorious work of evangelizing the world.”  A church which is disobedient in “minor matters” and which does not exercise self-denial and conformity to the biblical standard of living will not be obedient to Christ’s command to evangelize the world.

Boyce taught that corrective discipline must be accompanied by “formative discipline” which happens through the preaching and teaching of life-transforming truths.  When church members are ignorant of Bible truths that affect them practically, they cannot grow in the likeness of Christ.  Church members need the teaching of plain biblical truth rather than high-sounding theological arguments.  Pastors must even risk appearing dull and unsophisticated in order to be understood by the entire congregation.

Since Boyce’s day, the use of corrective church discipline has all but disappeared from our Baptist churches.  There are several reasons for this, and this brief article is not the place to discuss these.  Suffice it to say, in conclusion, that there has been a recent call from several quarters for the restoration of the biblical practice of church discipline.  Pastors and scholars are once again addressing the issue in books and articles.  Some churches have restored the practice.  

Churches that have neglected church discipline for decades will not be able to move quickly back toward a more biblical and baptistic form of corrective discipline.  Much wisdom and patience is required for any who would seek to do so.  But the current state of the churches, with 50%+ of members who are inactive and many who do not give evidence of life-transforming grace, demands that pastors and church leaders consider whether one of the reasons for this state of affairs is our neglect of this old, respected, and biblical practice of corrective as well as formative church discipline.  (See James Petigru Boyce:  A Southern Baptist Statesman,  pp. 98-100)

Pastor Alan Day