• You May Gain Your Brother
    The Watchtower—1999 | October 15

    • 5, 6. Contextually, to what sort of sins was Matthew 18:15 pointing, and what indicates that?

      5 Strictly speaking, what Jesus advised relates to more serious matters. Jesus said: “If your brother commits a sin.” In a broad sense, “a sin” can be any mistake or failing. (Job 2:10; Proverbs 21:4; James 4:17) However, the context suggests that the sin Jesus meant must have been serious. It was sufficiently grave that it could lead to the wrongdoer’s being viewed “as a man of the nations and as a tax collector.” What does that phrase imply?

      6 Jesus’ disciples hearing those words knew that their countrymen would not socialize with Gentiles. (John 4:9; 18:28; Acts 10:28) And they definitely avoided tax collectors, men who were born Jewish but who turned into misusers of the people. So strictly speaking, the reference at Matthew 18:15-17 was to serious sins, not personal offenses or hurts that you can simply forgive and forget.​—Matthew 18:21, 22.a

  • You May Gain Your Brother
    The Watchtower—1999 | October 15

    • a McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia says: “The publicans [tax collectors] of the New Test[ament] were regarded as traitors and apostates, defiled by their frequent intercourse with the heathen, willing tools of the oppressor. They were classed with sinners . . . Left to themselves, men of decent lives holding aloof from them, their only friends or companions were found among those who, like themselves, were outcasts.”