Oh that pesky context. What subject is Jesus teaching about here? Is it about prayer? Is it about the power of agreement? Not at all! He is teaching about church discipline. About what to do if your brother has sinned against you. The first and preferred method is you work it out between the two of you. If that does not work, take one or two others - which would make two or three in agreement - and try and convince him. Why does Jesus teach this? Because it is what was taught in the Old Testament. There always needed to be one or two witnesses. Here is the Commentary from Matthew Henry:
If a professed Christian is wronged by another, he ought not to complain of it to others, as is often done merely upon report, but to go to the offender privately, state the matter kindly, and show him his conduct. This would generally have all the desired effect with a true Christian, and the parties would be reconciled. The principles of these rules may be practised every where, and under all circumstances, though they are too much neglected by all. But how few try the method which Christ has expressly enjoined to all his disciples! In all our proceedings we should seek direction in prayer; we cannot too highly prize the promises of God. Wherever and whenever we meet in the name of Christ, we should consider him as present in the midst of us.
Remember, Jesus is teaching His disciples. The very same who would start His church. The agreement was in relation to keeping sin out of the yet formed church. How to engage a brother who was or has sinned against you. Not some mystical incantation or secret code to always get God to agree with you. Well preacher, can't it mean both? No it cannot. God wrote these verses through Matthew for a purpose. Using the context it is clear to see that purpose is in relation to a sinning brother, not a universal principle about agreement and prayer. If it was a universal principle then it would appear in other places in Scripture. Always remember that Scripture interprets Scripture. Here is another example that might upset some:
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. - Jeremiah 29: 11 (ESV)
This one little Scripture is one of the top ten misused Bible verses. It comes from a letter to the Jewish exiles in Babylon from the Prophet Jeremiah. Do we get that? It is part of an actual letter Jeremiah wrote to the exiles so unless you were one of those exiles it was not written to you. It was not written for you. It was not written about you. However, one can read the entire canon of Scripture and correctly say that God does have a plan for our good. As long as we are talking about His plan for salvation through Jesus Christ. That is our blessed hope. He is our future in eternity. The problem is Jeremiah 29:11 is often used to support the notion of earthly prosperity or that God is somehow bound to deliver us from whatever our lives have become and that is simply not true. Let God be true and every man a liar. One more example:
Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. - 3John 1: 2 (NKJV)
Many a prosperity sermon has used this verse as its foundation. It seems pretty clear doesn't it? I pray that you may prosper in all things! The problem is twofold. First of all the word prosper only appears in the NKJV and secondly it is taken out of context:
The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul. For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth.I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. - 3John 1: 1-4 (ESV)
This is the opening of a letter to an elder named Gaius. His opening greeting was not meant to become doctrine for all believers. That said however, the word prosper does not even mean what the hucksters want you to think it means. John is just saying that he prays all goes well with him. This case also highlights why it is important to not use things like the Message Bible, which is not a translation of the Scripture. Why we should not used things like the Amplified Bible, which mixes in every possible definition a word has instead of hermeneutically determining what the author and God intended.
Beloved, I hope that we all take this as seriously as God wants us to. He did not write the entire Bible for us to stumble around in the dark about what it means. Go back and read the opening to this devotional and realize how easy it is to take a verse or two out of context and abuse it to serve your own purposes. Jesus did not teach Matthew 18: 19-20 so that believers today could write on their Facebook walls that they are standing in agreement for something their apostate church is undertaking. It does not work that way. God had an important message He was delivering in the key verses. Honestly, it is a subject that we have largely abandoned today, church discipline. That does not give someone the right to mangle the verses to fit their pre conceived heresy of word faith and positive confession. What we tell people God says does matter. In many cases the very lives of our listeners is at stake:
Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. - 1Timothy 4: 16 (ESV)
What we teach saves those that we teach. When you truly seek what God is trying to say you can never go wrong but if you approach His Word with an agenda, then it does not matter how many "stand in agreement"; you will answer for it.
Reverend Anthony Wade - November 29, 2014
