Matthew 18 is Not About Personal Offenses, but Severe Abuse

I have come to believe that when most people read Matthew 18:15 — “If your brother sins against you…” — they miss the point entirely. It’s often treated like a polite script for handling minor offenses. “Hey Bill, when I said ‘hi’ to you at the congregation, you didn't even respond.” The foolishness of this is to believe that if Bill does not repent, witnesses will be brought, and he will be eventually thrown out of the congregation—for not saying hi. But look closely: the sin Yeshua addresses is the same severity as Matthew 18:6, where causing a “little one” to stumble carries millstone-and-depth-of-the-sea consequences.

It was One Conversation

We make the grave mistake of separating the Matthew 18:15-20 confrontation process from the earlier verses where the Messiah uses the harshest terms to explain what will be done to those who abuse or cause to sin these “little ones,” which in context, means those of lowly position or the most vulnerable among us. But it is the same conversation. They did not go to the other side of the lake. They did not go up to Jerusalem. They did not eat lunch. He was addressing the same subject of dealing with abusive behavior from one believer to another of lesser power—“these little ones.” In a recent message, my friend, Dr. Bob Gladstone shared:

“I don’t like hearing people who caused others to stumble arrogantly say, ‘You didn’t do Matthew 18 with me.’

“Actually, you want Matthew 18? Because if you get Matthew 18…you get the whole chapter, which means you should already be drowned and judged. You don’t have the privilege to ask for a process when you haven’t even made it through v. 6 and owned up to that.”

The point is that the Matthew 18 process of confrontation and restoration or disfellowship is God’s mercy for someone who deserves to have a millstone tied around their neck and thrown into the sea. Therefore, that person, instead of crying procedural foul, should be on their face asking for mercy. In the same conversation, Jesus tells the story of the unmerciful servant who did not forgive others, despite having been forgiven himself. It’s that type of arrogance that a narcissistic abuser can portray when they don’t like the way their sexual sin was confronted. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Stakes Are Too High to Add “Against You”

In verse 6, Jesus declares:

“If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matt 18:6)

That is not a slap-on-the-wrist scenario. The sin in view is grave and exploitative. Yeshua is speaking of one who would exploit the weak for their benefit. The "weak" doesn't mean the person is broken and falling apart; rather, they are under the authority of the offender: a secretary, a congregant, or a minor in the community. It could be an accountant pressured to overlook personal expenses of a senior pastor and charge them to the ministry. The sin is grave enough to demand severe judgment. Yet when verse 15 morphs into a tool for airing grievances over lunch, it misses the connection.

Enter the greek phrase εῐς σέ (eis se) — “against you.” That little two-word addition narrows the application so drastically that it makes verse 15 useless for confronting the type of sin Jesus set up as the headline in verse 6. That’s a problem, especially when victims of sexual abuse or financial exploitation are told they must confront their offender face-to-face. Imagine a sexual abuse victim being manipulated into confronting an evangelist who abused her? If we keep “against you” in the text, that is what we are looking at. I have heard leaders demand that the offended, no matter how weak they are, bring the Matthew 18 confrontation alone. And if we leave in eis se that is what the passage seems to say. Fortunately, it’s not in the original manuscripts.

Why eis se is Likely a Scribal Sweetener

Textual critics and NT Greek Scholars like Bruce Metzger highlight how eis se appears in later Byzantine manuscripts—not in the earliest and best witnesses:

“It is possible that the words εῐς σέ are an early interpolation (addition) into the original text, perhaps derived by copyists from the use of εῐς ἐμέ in ver. 21.”¹

Metzger notes that later scribes may have added “against you” to make the command easier to live with — a classic case of lectio facilior (where the scribe seeks to make the text easier to read) because the phrase, eis se is not found in the most critical earlier manuscripts.² But the shorter reading fits better with Matthew’s broader context, where the Church is called to protect the vulnerable — not burden them.

If the words are omitted, then Jesus was telling the disciples that if their brother sins, they are to reprove him in private. The sin could be any sin against anybody… If the eis se, “against you,” is included… the disciples' responsibility to act is narrowed. Only the offended could carry out the confrontation. This isn’t just academic hair-splitting. That tiny phrase weakens the gravity of what’s needed—calling out sin that leads souls into spiritual ruin—certainly for the abusers, but possibly for the abused if they don’t get proper healing ministry.

The sin in Matthew 18 echoes the harm done to the weakest among us—severe exploitation, not personal annoyances. If we include the later addition, eis se, "against you," it will shift the focus from protecting those truly vulnerable to minor personal grievances.

Leave the 99

In between Jesus’s words regarding causing a little one to stumble and his procedure for confronting the sin, is the passage regarding the Shepherd leaving the ninety-nine to seach for a lost sheep. This adds to the evidence that the focus of this conversation is on protecting the weak—not confronting Sally because she ate the last piece of pizza while you were still hungry.

One reservation I have concerns the initial process occurring in private. It is evident that individuals engaged in serious misconduct, such as sexual wrongdoing or abuse, must address these issues beyond an initial private confrontation and sometimes, eventually in public (1 Tim 5:20). While the initial discussion may be sought privately, subsequent actions and remedies should be determined based on the severity of the conduct and the parties affected.

Consequences for Real-Life Accountability

So what does all this mean for us?

1. We cannot use Matt 18:15 to order victims of clergy sexual abuse into one-on-one confrontations with their abuser. That distortion is both dangerous and unbiblical, and can lead to revictimization.

2. Removing “against you” releases anyone with knowledge of the sin to confront it, and to see it as a cornerstone of Church discipline — not private vendettas.

3. It aligns the text with verse 6’s theme: protecting the vulnerable from devastating sin, not mediating personal grudges.

In short: The scribal gloss “against you” domesticates a fierce and communal confrontation into polite relational management. That’s a distortion of Yeshua’s intention.

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[1] Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), 45.

[2] C. Michael Patton, “Textual Problem Study: Matthew 18:15,” Credo House Ministries, https://credohouse.org/blog/textual-problem-study-matthew-1815