At the risk of opening a complex can of worms, I would like to ever-so-briefly address a common misconception held by some Christian parents struggling with children in rebellion.

The point I want to make is this. No Christian family has the authority to excommunicate one of its own members. No individual has the authority to excommunicate. In fact, no one has the authority to excommunicate except the local church which (pursuant to Holy Scripture) is required to excommunicate habitually rebellious, unrepentant, covenant-breaking members.

Excommunication is an official ecclesiastical pronouncement of the local church. When conducted pursuant to Scripture and under the authority of a local church, it carries the authority of Jesus Christ Himself (Matthew 18:18). It is an enormously serious determination because the legitimate excommunication of a genuine Church of Jesus Christ binds not only the members of the local church, but all true believers to treat the excommunicant individual as a “heathen and a publican.” This is not a statement that the local church or the individual know the eternal destiny of the excommunicant person, only that pursuant to Matthew 18 (et al.), the individual is acting like a heathen and is to be treated as such until they demonstrate genuine repentance and are restored by the same body which excommunicated them. In the meantime, no Christian is to eat with, or treat as a “brother,” an unrepentant excommunicant.

Families with rebellious children who profess faith in Christ may petition their local church for formal church discipline of those children. This is possible only when the children are members of the local church where discipline is to be enforced. Whether or not a parent requests and the local church brings ecclesiastical discipline on a habitually rebellious family member, a family may discipline its own members. But note: The discipline of the family is different from the discipline of the church.

Parents may (and should) withhold blessings from unrepentant, covenant-breaking children. This may include withholding birthrights, inheritances, and a host of privileges which rightly belong only to covenant-keeping children. Furthermore, there may be serious implications for the “who, what, when, and why” of how godly parents direct their interactions with unrepentant, covenant-breaking children. In fact, there must be serious and significant implications. But none of this is the same thing as an excommunication.

Rebellious Christians may cease to be members of a local body. But rebellious children never cease to be the children of their parents. The parental bond is essentially non-severable.

The State bears the sword. The family bears the rod. The Church holds the keys to excommunication. Each jurisdiction must be honored and respected. No family has the authority or the ability to “excommunicate” a child.