Private and Public Offenses

#Overview

This subarticle gives readers a clearer place to understand how scandal and offense shape the opening path of discipline.

How discipline distinguishes between matters that begin privately and matters already public before the church.

#Key topics

• Private offense
• Public offense
• Scandal

These topics mark the doctrinal and navigational center of the page ¹.

#Discipline as pastoral care

The Book of Discipline is not just a procedural manual. It exists to help the church deal with offenses in a way that seeks truth, preserves holiness, and aims at restoration ¹.

#Process, censure, and restoration

Readers should trace how a matter enters the church, how it is examined, what censures may follow, and how a restored member returns to fellowship.

#Study note

This branch stays summary-first, so the wiki points to the constitutional structure without reproducing long procedural text.

#Sources

• [1] RPCNA convictions - Official constitutional landing page.

#Rights note

Summary-first treatment only. ²