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YOU; however do NOT have MY 'permission' to chop up GOD's word to make it say what you want!

How much of a biblical passage is permissible to quote under the doctrine of Elsie?

One word? One phrase? One verse? One chapter? One book? One Testament?

+ + +

Regardless, the context of "if he won't listen to the church, treat him as a pagan or tax collector" only makes the point more clear.

Here is the entire section:

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Let's start at the beginning.

"If your brother sins against you..."

Imagine that my Christian brother sins against me by calling me a heretic. My brother won't desist, despite my protests and the protests of the other witnesses.

So we take our dispute to "the local church," as you might say.

(Notice that Christ did not say "a church" or "any church" but "the church.")

Suppose that my Christian brother is criticizing me because I believe that baptism is necessary for salvation, because I don't believe that Jesus is just one mode of God manifesting Himself, and because I don't believe that it's OK to have "married" homosexuals as bishops.

Which Bible-only church should I go to in order to settle this dispute? The Oneness Pentecostal Church? The Episcopalian Church? The Baptist Church? I would get different answers at every Bible-only church.

So the Bible-only church (churches?) that Christ founded, the church (churches?) that Paul called "the pillar and foundation of truth," can't settle disputes regarding heresy and sin?

What then does the Church have jurisdiction over? Bake sale squabbles? Is Christ's Church a joke?

Certainly not, because the punishment for "refusing to listen to the church," as Christ demands, is to be treated as a non-Christian --"a pagan or tax collector."

For "the church" to be able to settle disputes over sin in the church --in principle-- "the church" must be visible and identifiable as Christ's Church, the Church must have the Authority to define sin, the Church must possess a non-contradictory body of Teaching so that verdicts will be the same in every local church, and the Church must possess a "chain of command," to enforce doctrinal and disciplinary verdicts.

This is roughly the Church's threefold ministry, to teach, govern and sanctify.

Let's look at the next passage:

“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

"Binding and loosing" had a well-established meaning in Judaism, meaning "to forbid by an indisputable authority, and to permit by an indisputable authority."

In Protestantism no church with such authority can possibly exist, since in Protestantism the Bible is the sole or ultimate rule of faith, not any local church or particular denomination.

This is how the Jewish Encyclopedia describes "binding and loosing."

Rabbinical term for "forbidding and permitting." The expression "asar" (to bind herself by a bond) is used in the Bible (Num. xxx. 3 et seq.) for a vow which prevents one from using a thing. It implies binding an object by a powerful spell in order to prevent its use (see Targ. to Ps. lviii. 6; Shab. 81b, for "magic spell"). The corresponding Aramean "shera" and Hebrew "hittir" (for loosing the prohibitive spell) have no parallel in the Bible.
The power of binding and loosing was always claimed by the Pharisees. Under Queen Alexandra, the Pharisees, says Josephus ("B J." i, 5, § 2), "became the administrators of all public affairs so as to be empowered to banish and readmit whom they pleased, as well as to loose and to bind." This does not mean that, as the learned men, they merely decided what, according to the Law, was forbidden or allowed, but that they possessed and exercised the power of tying or untying a thing by the spell of their divine authority, just as they could, by the power vested in them, pronounce and revoke an anathema upon a person. The various schools had the power "to bind and to loose"; that is, to forbid and to permit (Ḥag. 3b); and they could bind any day by declaring it a fast-day (Meg. Ta'an. xxii.; Ta'an. 12a; Yer. Ned. i. 36c, d). This power and authority, vested in the rabbinical body of each age or in the Sanhedrin (see Authority), received its ratification and final sanction from the celestial court of justice (Sifra, Emor, ix.; Mak. 23b).
In the New Testament.
In this sense Jesus, when appointing his disciples to be his successors, used the familiar formula (Matt. xvi. 19, xviii. 18). By these words he virtually invested them with the same authority as that which he found belonging to the scribes and Pharisees who "bind heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but will not move them with one of their fingers"; that is, "loose them," as they have the power to do (Matt. xxiii. 2-4). In the same sense, in the second epistle of Clement to James II. ("Clementine Homilies," Introduction), Peter is represented as having appointed Clement as his successor, saying: "I communicate to him the power of binding and loosing so that, with respect to everything which he shall ordain in the earth, it shall be decreed in the heavens; for he shall bind what ought to be bound and loose what ought to be loosed as knowing the rule of the church." Quite different from this Judaic and ancient view of the apostolic power of binding and loosing is the one expressed in John xx. 23, where Jesus is represented as having said to his disciples after they had received the Holy Spirit: "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." It is this view which, adopted by Tertullian and all the church fathers, invested the head of the Christian Church with the power to forgive sins, the "clavis ordinis," "the key-power of the Church."

Christ gave the power of "binding and loosing" to Peter and the Apostles, the first bishops of His Church. The Apostles were succeeded in office by other bishops with the same authority. ("Let his bishopric another take," and also see the Second epistle of Clement to James II in the above paragraph from the Jewish Encyclopedia).

Christ threatened Christians with expulsion from His Church for refusing to abide by the judgement of His Church, because Christ Himself gave the power of binding and loosing to His Church. Even when the Church may impose a fallible verdict, Christians are bound to obedience, just as in any hierarchical organization, but also because Christ commands it.

The final passage states:

“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

This means that where two or three are gathered in Christ's name, Christ is with them. But it does not mean that any group of two or three Christians has the church's authority to "bind and loose."

That is the context.