Matthew 18:15-18
Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
We are still progressing along in our study of dealing with “issues” in our local church bodies. Please, read the passages below, because an in depth look at them is not the plan here. They do, however, illustrate some powerful points in this series as we look at the issue of church discipline. Perhaps we should have covered this earlier, as it has a lot to do with the subject of confronting sin.
I hope we are in full agreement that some transgressions simply have to be confronted, and that fellow believers have every right and obligation to do just that. Here is the thing, though; not every offense we might find personally distasteful to us personally has to be confronted. Some things are clearly black and white in God’s Word. Some are not; some things are gray.
Sadly and unfortunately churches, and the people in them often make lists of “rules” that have to be followed among membership which simply aren’t necessarily based on what God’s Word tells us. So, on one end of the spectrum, we have legalism. Some churches, conversely, turn a blind eye to anything that may happen among the body. The other end of this spectrum, of course, is license. Legalism and license, both wrong and neither in accordance with God’s teachings.
If you like to watch R rated movies, is that really any of my business? On the other hand, if you are regularly seen exiting the local Porn theater, is that?
If you don’t do the dishes at home, is that my business? On the other hand, if you openly and notoriously cheat on our wife, is that?
You drink a glass of wine on occasion, is that really my business? On the other hand, you go out every weekend and get rip roaring drunk, is that?
Let’s say I have been a believer for 40 years, and you were saved just yesterday. Might the expectation of maturity and behavior be different for me after 40 years than it is for you after 24 hours?
I am not offering answers up there, merely asking questions and providing things to think about. How do we know? How can we tell the difference? Beats me. We certainly can’t know by our own understanding but have to apply the guiding and illumination of the Holy Spirit in all that we do. We always have to remember what we are out to do. We aren’t out to cast out the heathen and clean up our church act. We are out to bring the erring brother to repentance and restoration. If you are not aiming for that objective, then you may actually be the problem.
May 17, 2017 at 08:01
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
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May 17, 2017 at 08:48
Thanks brother Vincent
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May 17, 2017 at 09:25
You’re very welcome Brother Wally 😎
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May 17, 2017 at 08:42
Thought provoking
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May 17, 2017 at 08:43
Thanks Lynn. How are you doing?
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May 17, 2017 at 11:07
Good questions, Wally. We could add that where preachers drew the line 50 years ago regarding separation (Hollywood movies, dancing, alcohol, card playing, women in pants, men with hair below the ears) would be laughed at by most Christians today and many of those things with good reason. But have we gone too far leaning on grace? I overheard the pastor and a deacon of our previous church casually sharing their viewing experience of “The Wolf of Wall Street,” not an X-rated film but probably not too far away from that according to my son. No doubt we’re getting a bit too casual about some behaviors and temptations. But as you mentioned before, we get our dander up about certain sins (adultery, fornication, homosexuality, drug addiction) but things like gossip are accommodated.
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May 17, 2017 at 11:43
Good questions yourself, Tom. I personally would have a problem with that Pastor and Deacon. From what I understand about that movie, there is nothing in it to redeem the gross immorality in it. I’ll give you a movie example. Saving Private Ryan is one of my favorites of all times. I have had a problem with it for a few years because of the rampant profanity, much of which is using God as part of it. But, a case could be made that the profanity is not the point, just a reflection of things as they occurred. See what I mean.
Your last list. Allow me to add this one to the list of things we have accommodated, condoned, and seemingly welcomed on our churches…divorce. It’s every bit as serious and has done as much damage to the family as fornication or homosexuality, yet we don’t care. I don’t feel bad, as a divorced person myself, calling that out. Somebody should have called us out on it. Of course, being a heathen I would not have cared. My mother on law was the Circuit clerk here for decades, and they file divorce decrees. County clerks file marriage licenses. When gay marriage became legal they were all talking about how they would have refused to file those. Being the jerk I am, I asked why they didn’t refuse to file divorce decrees for all those years.
LOL. that’s why they don’t take me anywhere nice.
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May 17, 2017 at 11:54
Did you really?? You rock, man! That was awesome 😀
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May 17, 2017 at 12:01
I did LOL. I wasn’t hateful about it, I love my MIL dearly, as she has been a real mom to me. I just asked her and her coworkers to consider deeply what they were saying.
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May 17, 2017 at 12:03
Good for you! It’s actually a very loving thing to point out.
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May 17, 2017 at 12:10
You know I came to faith with absolutely no presuppositions at all. I had nothing that “I was brought up that way.” Because of that I tend to probe, poke and question a lot of what we get taught. So, nobody was shocked by the question at all.
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May 17, 2017 at 12:36
Me either. Long before I was ever taught anything about it – faith and all that – I believed. My earliest statement of faith was something along the lines of, “God loves me and one day I’m going to live in heaven with Him because Jesus died for me.” Doesn’t even make any sense, really. What does a guy named Jesus dying on the Cross for me have to do with God living me and wanting to live forever with me?? There’s no logic to that whatsoever! But I believed it. There was never any question to it, I simply believed.
It wasn’t until I began to learn about my faith and what the Scriptures say about it that I began to have questions, lol! But you know what? My questions, and the answers I found in the Scriptures confirmed for me that my childhood statement of faith still holds true. Nothing that I “formally” learned undermines my first child-like faith – Jesus loves me, THIS I KNOW!
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May 17, 2017 at 12:56
Well…I must agree
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May 17, 2017 at 11:58
Good point about divorce. Yes, there was all that hubbub about Christian bakers and photographers refusing to do same-sex weddings but how far do you take that? A Christian friend who is a contractor said if two men hired him to build a house he would not question them if they were gay or not. Hotels/motels have the same issue, etc.
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May 17, 2017 at 12:02
Well, I am sure that in 10 years of working in people’s homes I have worked in many gay homes. Not my problem. I can see the point of the cake makers, being asked to actually participate, though.
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May 17, 2017 at 14:02
Yeah, it’s not exactly apples and apples.
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