The Book Corner
Healing the Wounded. By John White and Ken Blue. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985. 238 pp. Paper, $11.95.
“An apalling picture is slowly emerging of a church crippled and compromised by every form of sin. Many remedies have been tried and have failed. The time has come for all Christians to exercise the costly love of corrective church discipline, restoring it to the place Christ gave it” (p. 12).
The subject of this volume is corrective church discipline, the stronger measures needed when a breakdown has occurred. Such discipline is a liberating experience for the church, clearing the consciences of the group and the individual, causing all to delight in the grace of God (p. 82). It is not to be confused with legalism, or role keeping for salvation. The latter begets guilt and bondage.
Various anecdotes are given to illustrate steps used in discipline. Love will be honest; it will confront and not cover sin. Public sin needs public exposure. And the goal of all discipline is restoration. “A reconciling aim is the product of a warm, self-giving heart” (p. 200).
The authors plead for intimate, koinonia love in churches, where sin will be exposed because members love one another too much to ignore it. Churches are needed that know how to forgive from the heart and heal the fallen. Such churches will be known for holiness and love.
—Donald L. Norbie