How is the command to "Take it to the Church" interpreted in light of Protestant Ecclesiology?
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As a baptist we refer to this as the Authonomy of the local church. We don't believe as the catholic in a hierarchical universal church, but we see the church as an assembly of saved and baptized bible believing based on the pattern of the family. We believe that the purpose of every local church is to evangelize (Acts 2:47), teach (Tit. 2:1-5), pray (Acts 2:42), ministry (Eph. 4:11-16; 5:19-21; Tit. 3:8, 14), worship (Acts 2:47), baptize (Acts 2:41) and disciple members (Matt. 18:15-20; 1 Cor. 5; 2 Cor. 2:5-11).
Every Local church is independent following the teaching in 1Pet 5:1-3 and Acts 14:23 In which it is suggested that the pastor should look out for his flock.
In conclusion we don't believe in a higher up institution that will apply discipline but we believe that every local church apply discipline to its own members. As a family: You would not discipline the sons and daughter of your neighboor would you?
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"Two or three witnesses" is literally two or three people. For example, if a home group leader finds out that an unmarried person in their home group is sleeping with their boyfriend/girlfriend, they might confront them with the home group co-leader, a minister of the church, and an elder or two.
"The church" means the whole local congregation. Now I've never seen any church discipline get to this stage, and it would be incredibly complex from a pastoral care perspective, but the idea is that the whole congregation would be told that person X is unwilling to repent of sin Y (probably explained just in general terms), and until such a time that they do, are prohibited from any leadership roles in the church, and probably also from participating in communion. It is the church minister(s) or elders (depending on the church polity) which have the authority to do this. Some churches make people sign a church covenant in order to become members which explicitly confirms that the members submit to this church discipline process.
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