You see, we have a super close family friend. They've been great to us. Let's call him Caleb for the sake of this post. We have had Caleb over for dinners and love to sit up late and chat about life. Our kids adore him. We've been there for each other in times of illness and financial crisis. We go to church together and enjoy to talk about God, too. Recently, Caleb came over and it seemed that he wasn't going too off topic much and that he was holding back - something was bothering him. We found out what a few hours later and he had written this letter to share. We listened and he told us that he's gay and he can never see himself with another woman, only with another man. It breaks me inside. We knew this was a type of struggle for him, but I thought that this was always because of what others said about him.
He has an awesome skill set in things that are genuinely considered feminine most of the time like sewing, cooking, dress designing, etc. Of course men can do these things no problem, but a lot of people would categorize him as, "He might be gay..." and at his work place, there have been male customers that have openly asked him for a date, which he previously declined a few months ago because he said he didn't swing that way. He is very gentleman like and extremely poised and I'm not sure if others think this is girly. He's gotten many comments about the gay stuff before in his life. He has come to the conclusion that this has been a life time struggle for him and that he has been in denial for so long and is finally accepting this reality.
He read a pro-gay book that is written by a pastor and left it for us to read. My husband says he's heard of the book and plans to read it to see what kind of stuff got to him and also so that he doesn't have the book at home for a while and can maybe think.
We didn't throw him out of our home or anything like that. We made it clear that we don't agree with that lifestyle nor embrace it and it is their choice, but that we are still friends.
My husband has had many lesbian, gay, and bi friends in his lifetime. He's seen them come out of the closet and then after a while they turn "straight" again and realize they got off the path.
The thing is, he plans to tell his family this weekend while he visits and he's afraid they won't want to talk to him and initiate no contact and he says he's prepared for it, but knows that he will miss them if that happens. Lastly, he wants to come out to our church about it and I think it's a horrid idea because I know how those people are on much "lighter" issues that are still controversial to them. He's gonna get crucified...maybe even thrown out the door..I went there for many years of my life...never once have I seen someone come out as gay to that congregation. I don't know what they'll do...
I plan to treat him as I normally do, but it grieves me inside...he somehow has read this book and I guess has had a lot of time to think about this. He does believe at this time that one can be Christian and be gay and he's confident that he knows what his identity in Christ is and shouldn't worry about what others are going to think.
The way he is...I just don't really think he's gay...at all. I can see where people get the idea, but I can't see it. I do understand that some people struggle with these thoughts and it's a very real struggle for them.
I also concern because he's such a close family friend. I mean, what if he finds a boyfriend? I don't want that example set for my young children. They adore him and that's not something that I don't think we'd tolerate. He has mentioned he has thought about marriage with another man and that they would adopt children of their own. I'm simply flabbergasted, I suppose...
If this was your Christian friend that went to church, what would you do? How would you feel? How would you handle it?
Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2021 8:19 pm
My experience is with those who claim to be believers but are idolatrous. However, the same passage applies: I would draw strength from the following passage, emphasis on verse 11, and encourage myself to do as it is written:
1 Corinthians 5:9-13 New International Version
9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister[a] but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”[b]
Footnotes
a. 1 Corinthians 5:11 The Greek word for brother or sister (adelphos) refers here to a believer, whether man or woman, as part of God’s family; also in 8:11, 13. b. 1 Corinthians 5:13 Deut. 13:5; 17:7; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21,24; 24:7
If they refuse to repent, God’s judgment will fall on them—but not amongst you if you separate from them and not amongst us [the church] if we collectively separate from them.
That’s why the church should ex-communicate / show unified disapproval of those amongst them who demonstrate a willful rebellion against what is written, thus are refusing to repent of what God calls sin/Law-breaking when corrected from Scripture. After being shown the light, if they choose to continue walking in darkness, their mind submitted to the flesh instead of to the Spirit of truth, you must separate from them. The church is suppose to be “safe base” from God’s judgment and thus a holy convocation submitted under His reign, not a convocation of rebels or an unholy convocation (a gathering of unbelief, as if amongst pagans who don’t follow YHWH, or unholy as if it were a secular gathering of civil servants who work for gentile government/running the country in the gentile nations, based on another set of laws and ways, that we live in and thus our interactions are merely to keep society running, nothing close).
Otherwise, you will come under the same plagues that the obstinately stubborn believer (who refuses to believe what is written and thus won’t repent from sin) gets sent by God in judgment. You’ll get caught in the midst (e.g. King Ahaziah from the southern kingdom of Judah in alliance with King Joram of the northern kingdom of Israel, coming under the same judgment YHWH sent: the sword judgment at the hands of Jehu to kill off the house of Ahab; that extended to all his sympathizers / friends too [2 Kings 8:25-9:28], same with the house of Baasha [1 Kings 16:11]). These two are a severe / harsh form of the sword judgment, but it can manifest as light / gentle as verbal correction using the word of God, which is a double-edged sword. Humiliated / humbled to the level of dust or literally return to dust in death by outside calamitous accidents, tragedies, disasters that get sent upon the nation/world. And when the church refuses to repent, they suffer along with the rest of the world for being a convocation of unbelieving rebels just like the world.
If you read through those two examples from Kings, in addition to keeping present in mind the New Testament passages that deal with correcting sin in the church, you will soundly conclude: friendship, even family ties, do not come above allegiance to what is written. Do not even eat with someone who claims to be a brother or sister in the faith/who claims to be part of the set-apart community to God yet willfully despite knowing better—in rebellion against the Father—walks in sexual immorality. They’re being an unbeliever in the Word of God at that point just like the world.
That said, after whatever judgment that God sends his way to correct him (be it light humiliation or something more severe) known or unbeknownst to you (maybe he gets sent light correction in dream, or nightmare, or other life circumstances sent to him by God) and he repents in response (and this you do see / is known to you), then welcome him back, but only then. You can also pray that he turn back / repent.
1 Timothy 1:19-20 New International Version
19 holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith. 20 Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.
Luke 22:31-32 New International Version
31 “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
But it seems the next level of correction is to hand him over to the church for correction:
Matthew 18:15-17 New International Version
15 “If your brother or sister[a] sins,[b] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 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.’[c] 17 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.
Footnotes
a. Matthew 18:15 The Greek word for brother or sister (adelphos) refers here to a fellow disciple, whether man or woman; also in verses 21 and 35. b. Matthew 18:15 Some manuscripts sins against you c. Matthew 18:16 Deut. 19:15
If it gets to the level of church correction, and he still refuses to repent, the church is merely recognizing whose reign/dominion he’s really under: Satan’s. So he goes out. He’s welcome to return if he repents and thus truly wants to submit to YHWH in obedience to His Way instead, not indulging the nature of the sinful flesh with its deceitful desires.
Ephesians 2:1-5 New International Version
2 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Footnotes
a. Ephesians 2:3 In contexts like this, the Greek word for flesh (sarx) refers to the sinful state of human beings, often presented as a power in opposition to the Spirit.
Ephesians 4:18-24 New International Version
18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Hebrews 13:4 New International Version
4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
Revelation 2:19-23 New International Version
19 I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.
20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. 21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22 So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. 23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
Proverbs 11:31 New International Version
31 If the righteous receive their due on earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner!
Ezekiel 14:21 New International Version
21 “For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem my four dreadful judgments—sword and famine and wild beasts and plague—to kill its men and their animals!
Luke 13:1-5 New International Version
13 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
The Word of God still interacts with the people of the earth in this way, including those who are His believers and are called by His Name. May He have mercy on “Caleb”; may “Caleb” not run after Jezebel-like teachers in the church. They will only mislead him and cause him to arouse YHWH’s jealousy; the Word of God will send judgment upon the earth into their life circumstances when He stops waiting for them to repent. May He open their hearts to receive correction and open their eyes to all the ways that He is sending correction (the gentle and painful; the secretive directly into your soul in visions of the night to increasing levels of public humiliation the more people He involves in the correction).
My experience is with those who claim to be believers but are idolatrous. However, the same passage applies: I would draw strength from the following passage, emphasis on verse 11, and encourage myself to do as it is written:
1 Corinthians 5:9-13 New International Version
9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister[a] but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”[b]
Footnotes
a. 1 Corinthians 5:11 The Greek word for brother or sister (adelphos) refers here to a believer, whether man or woman, as part of God’s family; also in 8:11, 13. b. 1 Corinthians 5:13 Deut. 13:5; 17:7; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21,24; 24:7
If they refuse to repent, God’s judgment will fall on them—but not amongst you if you separate from them and not amongst us [the church] if we collectively separate from them.
That’s why the church should ex-communicate / show unified disapproval of those amongst them who demonstrate a willful rebellion against what is written, thus are refusing to repent of what God calls sin/Law-breaking when corrected from Scripture. After being shown the light, if they choose to continue walking in darkness, their mind submitted to the flesh instead of to the Spirit of truth, you must separate from them. The church is suppose to be “safe base” from God’s judgment and thus a holy convocation submitted under His reign, not a convocation of rebels or an unholy convocation (a gathering of unbelief, as if amongst pagans who don’t follow YHWH, or unholy as if it were a secular gathering of civil servants who work for gentile government/running the country in the gentile nations, based on another set of laws and ways, that we live in and thus our interactions are merely to keep society running, nothing close).
Otherwise, you will come under the same plagues that the obstinately stubborn believer (who refuses to believe what is written and thus won’t repent from sin) gets sent by God in judgment. You’ll get caught in the midst (e.g. King Ahaziah from the southern kingdom of Judah in alliance with King Joram of the northern kingdom of Israel, coming under the same judgment YHWH sent: the sword judgment at the hands of Jehu to kill off the house of Ahab; that extended to all his sympathizers / friends too [2 Kings 8:25-9:28], same with the house of Baasha [1 Kings 16:11]). These two are a severe / harsh form of the sword judgment, but it can manifest as light / gentle as verbal correction using the word of God, which is a double-edged sword. Humiliated / humbled to the level of dust or literally return to dust in death by outside calamitous accidents, tragedies, disasters that get sent upon the nation/world. And when the church refuses to repent, they suffer along with the rest of the world for being a convocation of unbelieving rebels just like the world.
If you read through those two examples from Kings, in addition to keeping present in mind the New Testament passages that deal with correcting sin in the church, you will soundly conclude: friendship, even family ties, do not come above allegiance to what is written. Do not even eat with someone who claims to be a brother or sister in the faith/who claims to be part of the set-apart community to God yet willfully despite knowing better—in rebellion against the Father—walks in sexual immorality. They’re being an unbeliever in the Word of God at that point just like the world.
That said, after whatever judgment that God sends his way to correct him (be it light humiliation or something more severe) known or unbeknownst to you (maybe he gets sent light correction in dream, or nightmare, or other life circumstances sent to him by God) and he repents in response (and this you do see / is known to you), then welcome him back, but only then. You can also pray that he turn back / repent.
1 Timothy 1:19-20 New International Version
19 holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith. 20 Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.
Luke 22:31-32 New International Version
31 “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
But it seems the next level of correction is to hand him over to the church for correction:
Matthew 18:15-17 New International Version
15 “If your brother or sister[a] sins,[b] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 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.’[c] 17 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.
Footnotes
a. Matthew 18:15 The Greek word for brother or sister (adelphos) refers here to a fellow disciple, whether man or woman; also in verses 21 and 35. b. Matthew 18:15 Some manuscripts sins against you c. Matthew 18:16 Deut. 19:15
If it gets to the level of church correction, and he still refuses to repent, the church is merely recognizing whose reign/dominion he’s really under: Satan’s. So he goes out. He’s welcome to return if he repents and thus truly wants to submit to YHWH in obedience to His Way instead, not indulging the nature of the sinful flesh with its deceitful desires.
Ephesians 2:1-5 New International Version
2 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Footnotes
a. Ephesians 2:3 In contexts like this, the Greek word for flesh (sarx) refers to the sinful state of human beings, often presented as a power in opposition to the Spirit.
Ephesians 4:18-24 New International Version
18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Hebrews 13:4 New International Version
4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
Revelation 2:19-23 New International Version
19 I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.
20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. 21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22 So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. 23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
Proverbs 11:31 New International Version
31 If the righteous receive their due on earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner!
Ezekiel 14:21 New International Version
21 “For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem my four dreadful judgments—sword and famine and wild beasts and plague—to kill its men and their animals!
Luke 13:1-5 New International Version
13 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
The Word of God still interacts with the people of the earth in this way, including those who are His believers and are called by His Name. May He have mercy on “Caleb”; may “Caleb” not run after Jezebel-like teachers in the church. They will only mislead him and cause him to arouse YHWH’s jealousy; the Word of God will send judgment upon the earth into their life circumstances when He stops waiting for them to repent. May He open their hearts to receive correction and open their eyes to all the ways that He is sending correction (the gentle and painful; the secretive directly into your soul in visions of the night to increasing levels of public humiliation the more people He involves in the correction).
What I believe in regards to 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 is that this is a Bible verse to be used extremely carefully today as it is often taken and used to excommunicate people from church or as an excuse to treat sinners as less than human. I've seen this used on people for a multitude of sins. It's an idealogy that I truly despise and have seen it do more damage than good both in the church and within families. I have not seen any good from excommunication itself.
However, I do believe that Paul understood the situation well at the time and we don't have all the details of that situation. We do know that the church of Corinth had many struggles.
There is a follow up letter to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 2:5-11 (NIV), which says:
If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. 6 The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. 7 Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. 9 Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. 10 Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, 11 in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.
They were called to reach out and comfort him. This is not "forever excommunication" as what we often see today or "excommunicated until they come back to repent" or whatever the situation may be.
Quote:
If they refuse to repent, God’s judgment will fall on them—but not amongst you if you separate from them and not amongst us [the church] if we collectively separate from them.
What you're saying is that if I associate with a sinner that God's wrath and judgement are gonna fall on me? Might as well put me on a cross right now and stake me down...that cashier at the grocery store isn't always a Christian...neither is that hostess at that nice local restaurant. We associate with "sinners" every day.
Not to mention that was are also sinners. As saved as we are, we all fall short of God's glory (Romans 3:23) - doesn't matter who we are, we've all been there and all done it. Even believers give into their tempations once in a while. It makes us human, it makes us imperfect, it makes us need a Savior.
At this point, it was recent. Caleb came out to us about this a few days ago. The church has no knowledge of this at this point. Even if they did, it is not my place to deal with that as I am not an elder/deacon/pastor/etc.
I do agree that his decision on this is sinful. Not the identifying as gay himself or having homosexual thoughts alone, but the fact that he expressed the idea of finding a boyfriend, getting married, and adopting children. There are gears turning for him that are leading to act upon those thoughts. He has already seemingly accepted that he must be gay and in part, probably from what people say about him and what they continue to say over the years.
We witnessed to him a little bit, gave some resources to go over in the privacy of his own home if he so chooses - expressed that we do not agree with his decision and future plans and it's not something that we don't believe is right with God's word. He listened, respectfully. Although, I'm not sure if he is willing to change at this time. It is still pretty early in the game here. I'm not 100% sure if he is still thinking in the terms of ignoring God's word completely. That's what it seems, but he didn't have a whole lot to say about our disagreement towards it. So, at this point, to just separate away when he still may not be 100% sure in his mind wouldn't even be wise, I don't think.
Quote:
The church is suppose to be “safe base” from God’s judgment and thus a holy convocation submitted under His reign, not a convocation of rebels or an unholy convocation (a gathering of unbelief, as if amongst pagans who don’t follow YHWH, or unholy as if it were a secular gathering of civil servants who work for gentile government/running the country in the gentile nations, based on another set of laws and ways, that we live in and thus our interactions are merely to keep society running, nothing close).
Where on earth does it ever say that church is supposed to be a "safe base" from God's judgement? God is able to pass judgement wherever he so chooses, and if it's on a group of people in a church then that's what it's going to be.
Quote:
Otherwise, you will come under the same plagues that the obstinately stubborn believer (who refuses to believe what is written and thus won’t repent from sin) gets sent by God in judgment.
This doesn't seem to biblically apply to today and I'm not sure how it even would. The Old Testament and New Testament differ greatly. In the Old Testament we see a lot of the nitty gritty...the wars, the tearing of nations, God's judgement, God's wrath pouring out, etc. etc., but in the New Testament, God brings us a new story. He brings Jesus into the picture and this paints a new picture for believers of mercy and of grace. God's love for us, how we can be forgiven, and how we can one day be in Heaven with Him because of Jesus' sacrifice. God is forgiving and he does give people the opportunity to correct their path before sending discipline or judgement into the way.
If two kindgom's are in alliance with one another - they would be seen as supporting the same ideals. On many things they may act together on a wrong and do nothing to stop it. With having a friend coming out as gay - I am not acting with him on the wrong, we have said our disagreement, but aren't going to shove him out the door with unwelcome arms.
Quote:
Do not even eat with someone who claims to be a brother or sister in the faith/who claims to be part of the set-apart community to God yet willfully despite knowing better—in rebellion against the Father—walks in sexual immorality. They’re being an unbeliever in the Word of God at that point just like the world.
I have heard this many times, but let's think about this. Jesus ate with "sinners," didn't he? Wouldn't that be a contradiction?
Mark 2:15-22 (NIV)
15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
(Also can be found in Matthew 9:10-13 and Luke 5:29-32)
Was it not Jesus that witnessed to the woman at the well? I'm sure he didn't agree with her sexual sin, but was he not there witnessing to her and reaching out to her? (Found in John 4) Jesus is very much familiar with being around sinners. If He was around sinners in this manner, I don't think it would be condemned today. Even though the Pharisees questioned Him about eating with sinners, He gave His response clearly.
Hymenaeus and Alexander were clearly ones who knew about God, but chose to openly ignore it. We do not know the details of what their actions were exactly. Perhaps they walked away from the church and no longer wished to be there? Perhaps they did something terrible within the church and against other people, becoming toxic, spreading false teaching maybe so they were not welcome to stay? We don't know for certain.
While Matthew 18:15-17 has it's own due process, it has been recent, and whether he has changed his mind is not known at this time. I think telling the church would do more harm than good at this point and would be damaging as it would be acting too rashly and he hasn't had the opportunity to tell his family like he wanted to. They may have something to say that changes his mind, too, so probably better to wait.
Also, treating someone "like a pagan/tax collector" doesn't seem to mean casting them away, but rather treating them as someone who doesn't quite know the Lord.
Trust me, when that church finds out he's not ever going to want to return. When they excommunicate others, they are often incredibly rude about it. Often times they ignore people to the point that they will have no contact with them even if they wanted to repent to that church. Even if people leave their church by choice, they tell everyone that they have, "Stepped away from the faith." and everything, which isn't correct, either. I'm afraid that if anything, they may chase him further away from God.
Quote:
may “Caleb” not run after Jezebel-like teachers in the church
So now there are Jezebel like teachers in our church just because he's made this decision? Extremely unlikely. Not saying some of the people in there aren't corrupt, but they all have a strong dislike for the homosexual community therefore, they wouldn't have influenced Caleb's decision to be gay.
In any event, I will definitely continue to pray for him and continue to reach out at this time in hopes that he will refocus his thoughts and step back on the path before he makes any decisions that he may regret.
Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2021 2:36 pm
I'm sorry you're having to go through this. In today's twisted world, homosexuality is not only "okay"-it's straight up glorified. So I too can see how he's fallen into that trap. I have many gay/bi friends, and it's definitely heartbreaking. You and your family handled it the right way. Honestly the best action you can do right now is to keep praying for Caleb. God has His reasons for placing you and your family in his life. This could be one of them.
Does he know that homosexuality is condemned in the New Testament as well? I found a good verse for this.
"9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor [a]homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor those habitually drunk, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 NASB
OtakuKat
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cristobela Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:26 pm
[edit: correcting missed typo's]
Just to be clear, I read through your response twice. I'm not sure if you also read the entirety of my reply before starting to respond/compose a reply in return (though what you've shared about family life I would understand if you were in a rush); however, you seem to be quoting Scripture as if it contradicts Scripture (even New Testament against New Testament; they don't contradict or implying that I'm suggesting they do?), and then at the other times, what you described, as if I wasn't also saying the same thing?), but I'll go through corroborating what I meant / what is meant in case you were unsure what I'm supporting (Scripture) not whatever self-imposed, church "tradition" / "customary way of doing" contrary to what is written, that is done at a local church you're describing.
Aquatic_blue
What I believe in regards to 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 is that this is a Bible verse to be used extremely carefully today as it is often taken and used to excommunicate people from church or as an excuse to treat sinners as less than human. I've seen this used on people for a multitude of sins. It's an idealogy that I truly despise and have seen it do more damage than good both in the church and within families. I have not seen any good from excommunication itself.
However, I do believe that Paul understood the situation well at the time and we don't have all the details of that situation. We do know that the church of Corinth had many struggles.
There is a follow up letter to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 2:5-11 (NIV), which says:
If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. 6 The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. 7 Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. 9 Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. 10 Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, 11 in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.
They were called to reach out and comfort him. This is not "forever excommunication" as what we often see today or "excommunicated until they come back to repent" or whatever the situation may be.
In regard to what I underlined above in blue in the last sentence: yes, that is what I'm saying and what Scripture is saying. And as it pertains to a personal level for you (since you're seeking Christian advice) I was advising—more so than speaking about a church I do not know, nor talking about church history, nor the history of your local church primarily—but you personally "excommunicate" / stop the close yoke, as if he is being a brother or sister in the faith, if he refuses to submit to (but rejects) what is written in the Word of God after you reason with him (correct him) to the appropriate levels that Scripture prescribes—no more, no less, but the sufficient amount of other believers/the church involved—and he instead rejects and is opting for what outside voices (even his own voice) prefers over what the Holy Spirit has said.
Scripture does not contradict when we pay careful attention to the terminology being used as defined by Scripture. Who did Jesus say is His brother? (Not his neighbor, but spiritual family, close relation sharing the same father?)
Matthew 12:50 New International Version
50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
The attitude of wanting to submit to the Father (a perfect heart, like king David, and like Jesus, our king, whose example we follow after and Whom we worship; the latter [Jesus] is sinless, the former [king David] just had a perfect heart with a stumbling walk at times into sin, but both attitudes of wanting to submit to the Father) is not the same as the attitude that says "I see YHWH/the Holy Spirit/the Word of God, says that, but I disagree. I don't believe that's good".
What the Word of God says is good. What local churches may do in practice—be it what their attitudes are (which may not be good) as they apply Scripture (what is good) or their own self-imposed ways that may not be good are two entirely different things. Scripture vs. what people do. I'm not equating the two to be the same thing.
Romans 7:12 New International Version
12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
1 Timothy 1:8 New International Version
8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.
Ergo,
Psalm 40:8 New International Version
8 I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.”
Jeremiah 31:31-33 New International Version
31 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to[a] them,[b]” declares the Lord. 33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Footnotes
a. Jeremiah 31:32 Hebrew; Septuagint and Syriac / and I turned away from b. Jeremiah 31:32 Or was their master
Romans 8:7-9 New International Version
7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.
Ezekiel 36:25-27 New International Version
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
The New Covenant is one that takes a stony, stubborn heart in rebellion against the Father, and softens it to sincerely walk in His Commands in Spirit and in Truth (ergo, for example, not just adultery by physically sleeping around, but not even pursuing to be disloyal to your spouse by fueling lustful desires for another person in the thoughts of your heart [desires that break His Commands, seeking to indulge those desires in the thoughts of your heart]. Not a vision He sent with something sinful in it for you to discern the true meaning of [you weren't pursuing that vision; and even then, He does not intend for the symbolic vision—or symbolic words He said while you're awake—to be taken into the literal if the symbolic action violates a Command e.g. do not consume blood of humans or animals just because He made a reference to consuming His blood, but referring to wine, like the Law does i.e. Gen 49:11. Symbolic applications that do not deny the Command itself is another matter, however, which I can get into more deeply below, but], I'm referring to the thoughts of one's own imagination / from one's own heart that one accepts, fuels, and pursues in the mind and in action out in the physical world). Thus, sincere keeping of the Commands from the inside out. A desire to be reconciled with the Father, share His mind, just like the Holy Spirit and the Son from Genesis to Revelation consistently share.
Are they even believing the full scope of the Biblical Jesus in the first place or one that suits their own liking better...? or that they were taught by other believers but that denies the full scope of what is written? They can throw Christian terminology around, but when you actually show them what Christ said, all of what He said, what is their reaction to it? If they rebel against Jesus, they're not being His brother. Because He submitted to the Father and so do His siblings. But if this person does not want to submit to the will of the Father, as Jesus defined makes us His siblings, does that person share the same Father? They're not seeking to do His will, His Commands / His Law sincerely applied, in Spirit and in truth, written on their sensitive-to-YHWH's-will heart, but have remained in their rebellious heart that is actually still rejecting, with hostility, the Father and the Son, what (and Who) He is teaching in agreement with.
If they reject the Father, then—despite the history you may share—in truth they're not close to you, as a member of His family if they reject what He said. Ergo, if, despite sufficient correction, they still reject to submit to Him / bow to Him / His Word, above voices outside of Scripture, do not yoke (be close) as if you agreed because they have refused after several corrections to draw back close to Him, His Way, as it is written; thus, rejecting after receiving correction, thoroughly being shown different than their erring, unsound ways back onto the Truth that makes sound sense of it all, nullifying nothing, no contradictions in the way it is interpreted.
You, who are not God, but merely an earthly vessel with limited foresight, do not keep hounding the same person by yourself [or as a household] over the same thing, over and over again—after you've clearly shown them what Scripture is saying. There comes a point when Jesus says, "you personally have addressed them sufficiently". He has other vessels on earth. And beyond earthly vessels, He can hound them all He wants from higher dimensions/the heavens, if they're really His sheep, through other means (like I mentioned, through dreams, life circumstances). But, if after all that process of correction that Jesus instructs, and he still rejects, it's no longer your responsibility to be close to this person and risk sound doctrine being compromised to those under your stewardship (by their erring teaching or by their erring example).
Keeping the analogies YHWH gave us: whom are we yoking to (close, spiritual family ties with) in the house of God? fellowshipping with closely with YHWH as our Father? Answer: a brother or sister in the faith, sharing the faith of Jesus in the Father. If Paul, in agreement (and he is in agreement), is saying, such and such attitude towards sin (not someone ignorant out in the world, but someone who claims to be in Christ and does not have a repentant attitude towards sin/the concept of sin itself or a particular sin, upon correction, thus is not refraining from seeking to indulge in it [and for you to make that assessment that means you are a witness of the rebellious attitude—not a random cashier you're not close to, whether not a believer or believer unbeknownst to you, that's not even the topic at hand, whom you witness nothing about their life anyway, no indication about their thoughts. Such a one is a stranger to you and to your fellowship. I'm not throwing out hypotheticals to consider when to apply Scripture differently, but am focusing/addressing your case specifically], but is a believer in your fellowship and one in whom you have witnessed external evidence of rebellion—due to your close yoke to them—and it has come into your knowledge/attention, that despite you all's correction, upon receiving even more correction from fellow believers, yet even more from the rest of the church, still reject what is written), then do not closely fellowship with this person because that makes them not your brother and sister. You don't have the same Father (they won't repent to Him / His Word). If after exhausting all levels of Biblically-obedient correction, they still reject, separate from them, giving God room to act in their life through divine correction. If after divine correction, light or severe that He sends through other means (even outside the church [whether it has gotten to greater levels of correction in the church or not]), and he came back to the truth humbly submitted, you take him back into a close yoke (what "associate" is talking about; hence the contrast to strangers who wouldn't be involved in your lives regularly, not close).
That is what I'm defending. Not a particular local church's attitude and reluctance to implement the proper procedure even forgiveness upon humbly submitting to the Word / coming back. I'm defending the process in Scripture itself.
Aquatic_blue
cristobela
If they refuse to repent, God’s judgment will fall on them—but not amongst you if you separate from them and not amongst us [the church] if we collectively separate from them.
What you're saying is that if I associate with a sinner that God's wrath and judgement are gonna fall on me? Might as well put me on a cross right now and stake me down...that cashier at the grocery store isn't always a Christian...neither is that hostess at that nice local restaurant. We associate with "sinners" every day.
Here I'm sensing that you may have rushed and not paid close to attention to what Paul said... (and what I, in agreement with Paul, am drawing attention to by quoting him.) He's obviously not talking about closely yoking to gentiles who aren't Christian. Nor avoiding passing by people out in the world: then you'd have to leave the earth to avoid everyone as Paul himself said would be the logical conclusion [and really, illogical, conclusion to teach] if that's what Paul had been saying in his letter. He's being very specific about what is the topic that he is actually addressing: those who call themselves brothers and sisters in the faith (claiming to be Christian/in Christ/set-apart to YHWH but who reject what He says/the Word of God, thus reject what is written, upon correction, even after receiving sufficient amount of correction (as Scripture describes, this isn't about forgiveness extended or forgiveness granted after/when they repent, reaching out to sinners who don't know any better, far and distant from God, but reconciled people in the church, the amount of correction to get those already in the church who know Him to a place to repent from their rebellion, i.e. the amount of times to correct them, the level of exposure to other believers involved in the correction, and their attitude/reaction [nope, disagree] in response to what the Word of God is consistently saying/demonstrating to be sinful). They are rejecting the Father, the Holy Spirit's conviction, the Word of God's correction who seeks to realign us with what is written, and rejecting fellow believers [who actually do God's will] who were correcting them to also submit to God's will. At that point, they're rejecting Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, and even fellow siblings. They are—in Spirit and in Truth—not being a part of God's family at that point. Ergo, they should be made to leave the spiritual house of God/the spiritual family, exposing the spiritual reality of the situation; you're driving that reality into their minds through physical demonstration that their ways of thinking and behaving, both, won't be tolerated and of whose ways (and father) they're truly of: Satan, the spirit in those individuals out in the world whose attitude is that of not trusting the Father, the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, but of deceiving spirits, the spirits of the world, demonic doctrine telling you to distrust the Father and following after the deceitful desires of their own flesh instead.
The topic I'm bringing up—because it's what you wanted to talk about / seek advice on—is not one about walking about the earth amongst unbelievers and strangers you don't even know [whom I'm making a contrast to, as Paul did in his epistle, by quoting him], but fellow believers; thus those we have a close yoke to (associate with) in our lives, whom we're tied at the neck to like two oxen literally on a yoke; how they walk affects your walk, your example, you can't take a step in a different direction and be walking together at that point or else they pull you along in their straying direction—you're that close, and by the example they and thus you end up giving to your children, thus affecting your every day lives in ways that some stranger out in society—who doesn't hang out with you habitually, believer unbeknownst to you or not—is not affecting you; these strangers, in contrast, are not operating like this in your home and in your lives like someone you do fellowship with.
Aquatic_blue
Not to mention that was are also sinners. As saved as we are, we all fall short of God's glory (Romans 3:23) - doesn't matter who we are, we've all been there and all done it. Even believers give into their tempations once in a while. It makes us human, it makes us imperfect, it makes us need a Savior.
Nothing that I shared denies this; I am in agreement with this thought even when I make references to and use Prov 11:31 for example: yes, we (minus YHWH Himself / Jesus [who is YHWH-incarnate] / the Holy Spirit, as the exception) we have all transgressed the Law.
1 John 3:4 New International Version
4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.
Proverbs (which is also inspired by the Holy Spirit) is clearly using the word "sinner" in a particular way where you pick up on the fact that He's addressing the persons' habitual attitude towards sin and towards God (thus He's making the contrast to others and those others' habitual attitude, the path that they're stubbornly on and their attitude towards or against God that they're habitually in, in trust of Him and His Word or in distrust; thus sinners lumped in with mockers often: this is a person who scoffs at the Word of God and disbelieves it. Habitually. Does not want to obey God. Thus why the word characterizes that kind of individual as "sinner". Also why words like "righteous" get applied to other humans besides God, like to king David, even though they—unlike God—may have sinned in their lifetime (in thought or in deed); however, perfect heart: sin is not the kind of thing that characterizes David's life, ultimate desire, and his attitude towards God, and towards what He says is good: to believe, have, or do. David may have loopholed very carefully like a Pharisee to take Bathsheba forcefully from Uriah, but David repents when corrected despite having pursued sin. He wants to agree with YHWH ultimately. That's not true of the mocker and the sinner [as the terms are used in the proverbs] who are those who consistently seek ways to disagree with Him. Belittle and disregard His Wisdom.
Yes, we all need a Savior. That does not contradict the use of "righteous" and "sinner" in Proverbs 11:31.
Proverbs 11:31 New International Version
31 If the righteous receive their due on earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner!
One of them is actually wanting to living in accord with YHWH, pursues this. The others do not. The wanting to live in agreement with the Word of God is the focus. If you don't acknowledge these nuances in the words when they get applied across Scripture, you may end up walking away in certain circumstances thinking the Bible contradicts itself (or that the word "righteous" is only correctly employed when referring to sinless Jesus/YHWH). It does not; many people have the attitude of the righteous (who wants to please God, not disregard Him) not the attitude of the ungodly, sinner, the mocker who distrusts, no faith/trust. We must be honest about this attitude distinction that is being contrasted in Proverbs 11:31 above. That does not deny that we need a Savior but an attitude difference towards God.
People often—especially to Paul's epistles, but not limited to Paul's epistles—twist Scripture into teaching Lawlessness for not defining words as Scripture does (or failing to pick up on the nuance, how it is used in a verse), suggesting no one should seek to live righteously in Christ following His example since He's our atonement sacrifice, and we never could be sinless like Him, ergo that we should not look at His example as one to model ourselves after, even saying, He's actually disagreeing with the Old Testament for doing this or that; no, He's actually in agreement with what it says in its totality (some Commands are more "heavy" than others in priority list if / when there's a conflict, but He is not saying they're irrelevant and He does not / did not transgress nor violate any of the Father's Commands by what He did or taught). He is the way to perfectly obey the Law, in Spirit and in Truth. And what He instructed for correcting sin amongst the reconciled in the church (the righteous, not people who show no faith nor desire to obey God; no, these in the church have been reconciled and won over. If/when they sin: this is how you correct it and the one who who won't be corrected , despite all the levels of correction Jesus instructs being exhausted, is exposed as someone who is actually not trusting God, has no desire to obey God either, as those born-again in Jesus desire to do the Father's will as His siblings. That does not contradict the Proverbs defining the difference in attitude between one who wants to obey vs. one who does not.
2 Peter 3:15-18 New International Version
15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
17 Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.
Romans 6:1-2 New International Version
6 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
John 8:11 New International Version
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
That's telling us to have a change in attitude towards sin. Not a comment on perfect performance in every circumstance that presents itself in life (as Paul himself admitted he would continue doing things he no longer wanted to continue doing), but desiring to stop sinning as God defines it, coming into agreement with Him. Once something is brought to our attention, reaching a more accurate way to view it Scripturally, as Jesus drew attention to, according to Biblical definition, as Jesus actually defines and continues to do so in agreement with the Father (even when those who were in charge of teaching it to us fail to make these distinctions in definition when they teach), it should be our desire to look for ways to obey, not loophole (like finding other books as the friend you mentioned is doing) to loophole out of obeying what was written that is keeping him and everyone else safe, actually.
Paul in agreement with Jesus/the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures is saying "stop your life of sin" is our new attitude. We've received a new heart, not in rebellion and hostile against God and each other anymore (if you're truly in Him); our life should not be one of habitual distrust of what the Father said is wrong and harmful—to ourselves, even the soil, the systems He made running in place on the earth (in the skies, in the seas). No one who is considered righteous in the Bible teaches against the Father. And when visions are sent or examples spoken that are "illogical" / seemingly denying the Commands of God, then if it's not a case of the reader not able to grasp the specific argument, then guaranteed it is symbolic: do not go eating and drinking people's flesh and blood; the unleavened bread is symbolic of His flesh and wine is symbolic of His blood/His life poured out as a sacrifice for us when we eat unleavened bread and the drink the wine during passover.
Similarly, we do not literally consume animals found strangled and dead / road kill, nor the uncleanliness of blood that contaminates our body, just because someone was sent in vision to eat something unclean one day and told to eat of it in the vision and thus now we will unstably conclude that there is absolutely nothing unclean, even unclean animals, yet Jesus continues to call those animals unclean all the way in Rev 18:2, end times, definitely New Covenant. Death is still around and these animals too are around to devour dead/decomposing bodies/rotting/rotten things/waste; in contrast, those who are no longer dead but alive in Christ, people whose natures Jesus has cleansed from their "unclean animal"-listic, unreasoning, undiscerning natures that disregard pearls of wisdom, unrestrained and uninhibited in their sexual desires like dogs, to not continue to walk in their unclean ways upon the earth, and ridded of indulging in unclean thoughts like a pig wallowing in the mud, can be accepted into the Body / His Body / the fold / in the sheet, accepted into the fold as sheep into The Body / His Body, part of the flock.
Not unstably concluding that "literal unclean animals ceased being unclean now"; no, not even Jesus said that Rev 18:2, as I already provided you in a previous conversation. The literal unclean things still have continued going about the earth doing unclean things like eating rotting flesh / putrefying matter [even rotting bodies/flesh] on the earth, to cleanse/filter the earth of uncleanness like a liver does, the waste system of the earth, wanting to eat the waste of the earth (even waste information). Yet that does not make waste, or literal blood safe to bring into the beginning of our digestive system, just because a liver filters it. We're being warned, even in the New Testament, for a reason even if it's not to the same level and pervasiveness as unclean thoughts corrupting us from the inside. Both present a problem, one just greater than the other. What's good for us is what the Father Commanded, not either of what contaminates spirit or body.
Once in His Body / in the fold, the flipside is also true, when it comes to correction: when He allows you to witness evidence, two to three witnesses, that they don't want to repent of indulging in unclean thoughts, that's His hint, by allowing us to see evidence of their unclean thoughts, that it is time to correct more heavily because that individual is ignoring the conviction of My Holy Spirit fearing man's self-imposed opinions/self more than Me, and if it gets to that point of ignoring sound doctrine and sound correction from the rest of the Body: expel them from the Body for a time, allow Me to send rougher life circumstances that will prove My Word trustworthy and true. One way or the other, through humble submission or our rebellion, the consequences of His Word (His Commands included) will be proven trustworthy and true, not worthless like the ways of the nations / the pagans; we will either accept His verbal correction, learn the easy way or the circumstances around us will be proving it true in the sight of others, through something more harsh.
For the sake of anyone new reading along, I will reiterate this topic: one of Jesus' main arguments against the Pharisees is that their own self-imposed definitions e.g. of when something becomes unclean for instance (their own hand-washing ritual that wasn't even commanded by God), does not override God's when His Commands say it is clean or unclean. If believers ignored the Pharisee's self-imposed definitions (and just to be clear, the Pharisees were not even at the level of putting outright unclean animals on the table, but limiting more than God's Commands limited / defined / said, even stricter), but if believers ignored the Pharisees' self-imposed definitions [not God's definitions] of when something is considered unclean, even if a believer is heeding God's written definitions in His Commands, then to the Pharisees, of those who denied what was written, they viewed that the person being defiled for heeding God over their self-imposed customs/traditions, for heeding what is written in the Commands and not how the Pharisees traditionally interpreted and self-imposed traditional customs upon themselves (the hand, jug, pot washing with the ritual repetitions thanking God for the ritual that He never gave). God's Commands are what govern above anything that a person makes up for themselves in a church/synagogue/gathering of believers [for the record, it's not even a simple washing of hands and cups, though it applies there too, you don't have to do that when God's Commands already identify the bread as food for you, but their tradition in particular is a whole ritual with recitations of self-imposed scripts, not Scripture again this ritual is not found in Scripture] a ritual called "netilat yadayim" that He never Commanded be done before you eat at your dinner table. So may no one make the mistake of thinking that what the Pharisees were doing is the equivalent to what the Father actually Commanded as it is written in the Old Testament:
Matthew 15:1-9 New International Version
15 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’[a] and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’[b] 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’[c]”
Footnotes
a. Matthew 15:4 Exodus 20:12; Deut. 5:16 b. Matthew 15:4 Exodus 21:17; Lev. 20:9 c. Matthew 15:9 Isaiah 29:13
For one, voluntary offering that no one Commanded you to make (it's voluntary, self-imposed) vs. a Command that God actually tells you to keep.
Secondly, for the record, stoning to death as the capital punishment is done in a Sanhedrin, thus a nation whose courts submit to YHWH's Law as the law of the land, not in gentile nations with courts operating by other laws who don't submit to His Commands as the Law of the land. Jesus has nothing against stoning when it's done lawfully (properly e.g. not just adulteress, but adulterer along with adulteress if they will be prosecuted; witnesses not fellow participants, but witnesses are the first to cast the stone after a careful investigation by the judges; fellow participants by definition are either an adulterer or adulteress along with them, not a witness. I'm highlighting this fine distinction in case anyone has issues reconciling what Jesus is saying here in Mt 15 with the woman caught in adultery in John 8. Jesus is obeying what is written in the Law in both circumstances when saying to stone Lawfully and when not to stone Lawfully; He submits to the Lawful criteria which guards justice and mercy. He is sinless. He neither denies YHWH's love for justice nor His love for mercy by being Lawful).
That said, no, the Pharisees were not submitting to God's rules (YHWH-imposed) as Jesus submitted the Pharisees to, but merely human rules that the Pharisees self-imposed, making the burden heavier than God commanded it to be: His light and easy yoke—relatively speaking (and relative because now that we're self aware of right and wrong, having to discern for ourselves and it not coming naturally to us as the only thing we know, that will not be burden-free experience, thanks to Adam and Eve and a continually corrupting earth which makes discerning harder as things descend into further corruption.
Matthew 11:29-30 New International Version
29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Jeremiah 6:16 New International Version
16 This is what the Lord says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
His yoke / His way that offers rest for our souls is not new, but ancient. Not in disagreement with the Old Testament.
Unbeknownst to himself, your friend is just making the burden heavier by ignoring what God is saying if, at the end of all this, he stubbornly persists in pursuing a rebellious path denying the fullness of what is written.
The stable acknowledgment of everything Jesus is saying also does not deny that yes, unclean thoughts are where sin begins and is the bigger threat. But physical things still also pose a threat to us to be in us, in places they should not be (e.g. blood in our mouth, entering the digestive system).
Obviously one has a more pervasive, deep-rooted contamination [the thoughts of your heart] like a mold in the interior of a house. But what you consume, like literal blood, does also have a detrimental effect that the Father is still keeping us safe from (like instructing us to get rid of physical mold in a house; that's not safe to have in your house either just because we see a spiritual application to unclean, detrimental information taking root in the deepest, darkest crevices of our being). Jesus, if heeded completely, does keep us safe from contamination both on a spiritual and physical level without any unstable interpreting of the Word just acknowledging everything that He continues to say even in the New Testament, and making clear definitions to terms as Scripture defines them, and Paul did too.
If we paid attention to everything He said (everything, even Rev 18:2), we would see that none of what the Father said, as a Command, is something that we should desire to set aside when it's keeping us, everyone else, even in the environment safe and in balance, all things kept in its appropriate place, boundaries not crossed to unleash plague whether upon your body or on the rest of earth for the other nations to get infected by as well.
The ones sowing division are those holding to doctrines, even tolerating doctrines despite disagreeing with them, that would have you distrust the Father and turn a blind eye to the fine distinctions in what He and the Son spoke, what He actually had against the Pharisees (they limited too much, more than what God said while denying what God said—wanting to please God in some semblance but overrighteous and thus not in truth as it is actually written; the opposite problem: the sinner who does not want to please God at all, but in essence they too are denying what God is saying as it is written like the Scripture-denying Pharisees, one in God's name and one not in God's name, but their own).
Hence:
Ecclesiastes 7:15-17 New International Version
15 In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these:
the righteous perishing in their righteousness, and the wicked living long in their wickedness. 16 Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise— why destroy yourself? 17 Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool— why die before your time?
"Dying before your time" is not like a Daniel in Babylon saying, by his example, throw me to the lions then because I won't bow to idols. Daniel is more like Jesus: won't deny the Commands of the Father, but die at the hands of hostile enemies for His obedience as it is written. The contrast in Ecclesiastes is made between something like an "over"-righteous Pharisee (limiting more than God said) vs. an outright defiant sinner not even seeking to please God in his life. The two extremes, to the right or to the left, both deny what is written. The example of Daniel and Jesus is not this (but living sacrifice risking death or dead sacrifice for wanting to be faithful to God's Commands as they are written, risk dying at the hands of hostile enemies who distrust and reject obedience to what is written, while you trust and obey it).
If we have come to Christ, and have received a new heart, and seek to renew our mind with the Word of God, washed by the water of the Word, then we don't come away concluding: now we can sin (transgress the Father's Law) all we want because the New Covenant did away with the Father's Law (as opposed to our guilt, and the law of sin in our flesh that is hostile to God's Law).
Romans 7:25 New International Version
25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[a] a slave to the law of sin.
Footnotes
a. Romans 7:25 Or in the flesh
And as I provided earlier, the mind submitted to the flesh does not submit to God's Law. But we're not in the realm of the flesh but of the Spirit, who does want to walk in His Law, sincerely, not in rebellion, but in Spirit and in Truth. These fine distinctions need to be acknowledged to arrive at sound conclusions. Sweeping generalizations, summaries that fail to pick up on and make these distinctions and word usage nuances, are misleading, like Jezebel.
Paul who acknowledges justification (and regeneration) is by faith in Jesus is also not denying living in obedience to God, what God says is righteous, holy, and good (when we pay close attention to terminology and the argument actually at hand against the Pharisees, his arguments as well are very specific, and not Father-denying. The spirit of the Law definitely trumps the letter, but the letter is also keeping you safe—and preserving mercy, when not to stone an adulteress, according to the Law itself, maybe even just divorce her, you don't have to stone—when you use it properly as it is written, all of what it says, like Jesus interprets it).
People who try to associate with the Father yet teach that the Father's Commands do not guard us on this corrupt earth and that they don't seek our benefit is demonic teaching / reasoning / misapplying of Scripture—though obviously, obeying the Commands does not regenerate you from inside to trust God and be declared righteous by your faith in Him, belief in Jesus/trust in YHWH-incarnate does (because Jesus obeyed everything, so if you disagree and reject Him, then in what YHWH, Father and Son, are you believing in?). Unlike a Pharisee who denied what is fully and actually written, as it is written, so that we never enter into full safety/protection from the effects of corruption on the earth (and the Great White Throne judgment if you deny your actual atonement sacrifice), we do accept everything and the Messiah who is YHWH Himself. Jesus who atones for our sins and in whom our faith/trust in justifies us noted, and that most of the Pharisees did not accept Him, granted; but also note what Jesus was rebuking them for: when they made a convert, they made them twice the child of hell they are because now the convert thinks he's in reconciled relationship with the Most High God, but he's still distrusting what the Father said just like the Pharisee who denied what the Father said, denying the Father's Commands—a demonic doctrine that is infecting the church. Unfortunately, demonic voices scream louder and move people to riotous emotional upheaval not allowing for the serene voice of reason, YHWH's sound / complete reasoning, sound doctrine. But it still stands:
Matthew 23:15 New International Version
15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
Proverbs 4:2 King James Version
2 For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law.
What the Word of God in its totality defines as good, holy, righteous, true, is the sound doctrine. The Bible is consistent from beginning to end when we allow the Bible to define words / terms for us (not self-imposed church doctrine that denies any of it as the sects of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians were doing in Jesus' day).
Hence why Paul uses the Old Testament Laws (beyond the Ten Commandments) to define proper church behavior, procedures (and Old Testament examples not to emulate, like Jezebel) for when to stop closely yoking to certain believers and how they must, if it gets to that level, collectively show disapproval and separate—again if it gets to that level of stubborn refusal to repent / be corrected.
How individuals respond to what He says also determines whom we continue to fellowship with. When Jesus dined with sinners, it was to go correct them, bring them healing. Reaching the women at the well who is ignorant / unaware is not the same thing as you're already in the flock believing in Me and been shown on multiple occasions the truth, exposing that what the majority of the teachers of the Law are saying nullifies these other areas of Scripture, that contrary to what they teach, needs to be heeded.
Jesus / YHWH-incarnate tells the individual to follow Him; it was up to the individual to submit their wills to His—above the teachers of the Law who ignored it—and continue listening to Him who did submit to everything as it is written. But if they don't want to listen, but reject, we have instructions for when and how to disassociate / stop the close yoke. He does sometimes kick people out, tell them to go away.
There's a certain obstinate, unbelieving attitude He says not to tolerate in the church. And if He wants us to stop closely fellowshipping for a time to allow Him room to send divine rebuke some other way, then we must obey Him and allow Him Himself to correct His sheep, His Way. The issue is no longer in our hands/our responsibility whether for a time (or ever again—if they don't survive the kind of correction He sends outside the church [if it gets to that]).
to be continued...
Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:27 pm
[...continued]
Aquatic_blue
At this point, it was recent. Caleb came out to us about this a few days ago. The church has no knowledge of this at this point. Even if they did, it is not my place to deal with that as I am not an elder/deacon/pastor/etc.
Just to be clear, I'm referring to allowing your friend to go to the other believers; my use of "church" is in the general. It could/would include the leadership present in their lives but not limited to them. I mean receiving correction from even more believers.
I don't know them like you do, their attitudes, but based on what is written, whatever he experiences if it gets to that level (after sharing with his family, etc), obeying what is written, he should receive correction from more of them who are in sound doctrine. Even if YHWH allows it to be harsher because he's not willing to submit to the one, then the two or three who approached him, speaking in line with Him. In other words, since your friend won't accept correction from you two, he needs to be opened up to more of the flock's correction and allow the church (in general) to show disapproval of what God disapproves of for their own sifting/proving as well.
1 Corinthians 11:17-19 New International Version
17 In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. 18 In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. 19 No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.
And yes, with this sufficient witness of what's in everybody's heart, have Lawful grounds for YHWH's judgment, divine judgment outside of man's hands, to unleash on earth against His own. And it always begins with us—the church, the ekklesia, whether the church in Sinai in Moses' generation or the church in Thyatira reconciled to YHWH in Christ.
1 Peter 4:12-19 New International Version
12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. 16 However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And,
“If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”[a]
19 So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.
Footnotes
a. 1 Peter 4:18 Prov. 11:31 (see Septuagint)
Continue to do good. Peter is not some "ignorant", Old Testament saint. He knows the Son of God—YHWH's bodily manifestation since the beginning of the world, now uniquely incarnated through a woman's womb as Jesus to come die for our sins—is our Savior. Yet uses Proverbs 11:31, as I did, to say that we will be judged on earth in our lives by God, suffering even for sins we commit as believers in Christ (though, it is better and fit to our calling that we should not be suffering for sinning; we should be suffering for doing good [keeping the Law, what the Father says is good])—and that judgment from God is unleashed upon the church first, it begins with us. As it has always been: those who know better.
You refuse to accept that Jesus sends this suffering upon the church (suggesting a difference between YHWH in the Old Testament's longsuffering against sin and then not waiting around forever to correct the individual, gently or harshly, for both unrepentant believers and defiant sinners not trusting nor seeking to please Him whatsoever to repent). But beyond Peter, the Book of Revelation (which I quoted from earlier) is New Covenant times: they contain letters written to churches, even from Jesus / the Word of God, who sent the vision to John the beloved disciple, Jesus outright threatening churches (believers in Him! this is New Covenant) that He will unleash judgment on them, on the earth in their lives, if they don't repent.
Revelation 1:1-2 New International Version
1 The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Hence what I quoted in the letter / the message to the church in Thyatira tolerating Jezebel's teachings (Jezebel was a queen in the northern kingdom of Israel, now being utilized as a symbol for a kind of teaching that believers in Christ are tolerating amongst themselves, the set-apart community of believers in YHWH. This practice of accepting all of the Old Testament historical examples, as a sound basis from which to say, "God will do the same to you in Christ as His believer if you act like that" [e.g. whether it be queen Jezebel, or king Ahaziah, or king Joram, or Jehoshaphat tolerating Ahab and his house, yoking to him, seeking to help him [even do economic ventures together with his house], and then Jehoshaphat, who didn't agree with Ahab's idolatry, being in the midst of the judgment that YHWH sent on Ahab's house for going out to help him in the battlefield [only by crying out in the moment did he get spared of the sword], Ahab who is married to Jezebel by the way, etc) is not some unstable, hermeneutical practice / Scripture-interpretation twisting from me nor is it any personal interpretation from me. It's what is consistently shown to be done throughout the Bible by righteous men of God reporting the truth / including the New Testament disciples of Jesus, reporting the news—good and bad). I'm not excluding it. I accept all of Scripture, everything that the Holy Spirit is saying, regardless of how people mistakenly reason to ignore what the Father and Son are saying, in its totality and full context. I accept it all.
Revelation 2:18-23 New International Version
18 “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. 19 I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.
20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. 21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22 So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. 23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
James 4:4 New International Version
4 You adulterous people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
Footnotes
a. James 4:4 An allusion to covenant unfaithfulness; see Hosea 3:1.
The Son of God treats the church of today just like he treats Baasha on earth like this. He is patient, gives people time to repent. But yes, He does treat the church, His church, this way.
The Son of God's disciples (like Peter) warn that believers in Christ, thus the church, will suffer for sinning on earth (though it's better for them, their witness/testimony and more productive for our task of reconciliation, to be suffering for doing good).
..like Paul, also a disciple of Christ (discipled by the Spirit of Christ though He was no longer physically on earth to be discipled by Him like Peter had been during Jesus' earthly ministry) saying the same thing to the Corinthians when they ate of the Last Supper with greedy and gluttonous (sinful) attitudes: He will send judgment on them in the church to correct them, some of you even to the death. Varying severity. Jesus knows how severe He needs to be with each individual sheep.
1 Corinthians 11:28-32 New International Version
28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. 29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 31 But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. 32 Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.
This is not some far distant future either (like the Great White Throne judgment when the dead will be raised): this is in Paul's present-day life with believers in Christ, talking about the Lord's Supper, and explaining what has happened among them. Judged by the Lord. On earth. Judgment (even severe suffering) is sent by Jesus; judgment begins with the church as Peter said.
No one in my replies, that I've quoted or anything I've said, is disagreeing with what Jesus said nor disagreeing with what the New Covenant is about by suggesting this judgment continues to happen on earth even against believers in Christ.
Aquatic_blue
I do agree that his decision on this is sinful. Not the identifying as gay himself or having homosexual thoughts alone, but the fact that he expressed the idea of finding a boyfriend, getting married, and adopting children. There are gears turning for him that are leading to act upon those thoughts. He has already seemingly accepted that he must be gay and in part, probably from what people say about him and what they continue to say over the years.
We witnessed to him a little bit, gave some resources to go over in the privacy of his own home if he so chooses - expressed that we do not agree with his decision and future plans and it's not something that we don't believe is right with God's word. He listened, respectfully. Although, I'm not sure if he is willing to change at this time. It is still pretty early in the game here. I'm not 100% sure if he is still thinking in the terms of ignoring God's word completely. That's what it seems, but he didn't have a whole lot to say about our disagreement towards it. So, at this point, to just separate away when he still may not be 100% sure in his mind wouldn't even be wise, I don't think.
To this, I would just clarify in case anyone is reading along (so they're not confused):
2 Corinthians 10:5 New International Version
5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
The sinful thought needs to be taken captive in order for the person not to be complicit in the sin. A thought that crossed your mind cannot be allowed to just have its way in your imagination. Otherwise yes, you're sinning along with the sinful thought.
That said, to Aquatic_blue, it's up to you and God what you decide to do upon witnessing further evidence that he's choosing to not submit to the Word of God or if he repented and will not continue in obstinate rebellion, but humbly submitted to what the Jesus/the Word of God teaches in agreement with the Father. You're in a better place to gauge where along in the process of correcting sin that is (and any changes in his attitude towards sin).
Aquatic_blue
cristobela
The church is suppose to be “safe base” from God’s judgment and thus a holy convocation submitted under His reign, not a convocation of rebels or an unholy convocation (a gathering of unbelief, as if amongst pagans who don’t follow YHWH, or unholy as if it were a secular gathering of civil servants who work for gentile government/running the country in the gentile nations, based on another set of laws and ways, that we live in and thus our interactions are merely to keep society running, nothing close).
Where on earth does it ever say that church is supposed to be a "safe base" from God's judgement?
Gleaned by Scriptural warnings of what we were called out to be (a blessing and a not curse; not adopt demonic teachings [demons and idols whom the pagans worship, thus erring in their beliefs] or ways so that His jealousy is not aroused to unleash against us with plagues, again even in the New Testament) and that we're to preserve sound teaching [thus safe, not storing up wrath by what we teach]:
2 Corinthians 6:14-18 New International Version
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial[a]? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”[b]
17 Therefore,
“Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”[c]
18 And,
“I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”[d]
Footnotes
a. 2 Corinthians 6:15 Greek Beliar, a variant of Belial b. 2 Corinthians 6:16 Lev. 26:12; Jer. 32:38; Ezek. 37:27 c. 2 Corinthians 6:17 Isaiah 52:11; Ezek. 20:34,41 d. 2 Corinthians 6:18 2 Samuel 7:14; 7:8
1 Corinthians 10:19-22 New International Version
19 Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. 22 Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
Proverbs 6:34 New International Version
34 For jealousy arouses a husband’s fury, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge.
Malachi 2:7 New International Version
7 “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth.
Proverbs 30:6 New International Version
6 Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.
Again, although I'm using key verses to define terminology for us by Scripture's own mouth, do not lose sight of the fact that Paul is warning about our Husband's jealousy being aroused against the church / believers in Christ (letter to the Corinthian church, believers in Christ). We are suppose to be a safe base, a place where people can come learn sound teaching / good / the solid truth about God, as He revealed Himself to be in His entirety, but when we're not reflecting well but distorting His image that He revealed Himself to be, and deviate, He will rebuke us / chasten us so that we learn, repent (if we survive it and don't "fall asleep" as a direct consequence of that severe rebuke). Even if our souls are safe and reconciled at the Great White Throne judgment, ergo not equally condemned with the world, He can still demonstrate His jealousy / wrath against sin on the earth (and in—especially in—the church) by taking our earthly life when we persist in violating Him (traumatizing Him with things He does not want to see, feel, hear—Him hearing the thoughts of our own heart, yet we're claiming to be His while we express disagreement and disapproval of Him, His mind, what He likes, His sound way of doing things and expressing approval of what He dislikes) especially when we know better.
Aquatic_blue
God is able to pass judgement wherever he so chooses, and if it's on a group of people in a church then that's what it's going to be.
I agree with this hence...what I said immediately after and you quoted me saying...I'm merely interjecting to say I agree:
Aquatic_blue
cristobela
Otherwise, you will come under the same plagues that the obstinately stubborn believer (who refuses to believe what is written and thus won’t repent from sin) gets sent by God in judgment.
This doesn't seem to biblically apply to today and I'm not sure how it even would. The Old Testament and New Testament differ greatly. In the Old Testament we see a lot of the nitty gritty...the wars, the tearing of nations, God's judgement, God's wrath pouring out, etc. etc., but in the New Testament, God brings us a new story. He brings Jesus into the picture and this paints a new picture for believers of mercy and of grace. God's love for us, how we can be forgiven, and how we can one day be in Heaven with Him because of Jesus' sacrifice. God is forgiving and he does give people the opportunity to correct their path before sending discipline or judgement into the way.
After what I've shared above, it should be very clear from Scripture how that Biblically applies today since I quoted people under the New Covenant, in Christ, in the church, enduring this same treatment from Him. And there are instructions to separate from certain believers, lessons based on the same principles you can glean from their Old Testament historical examples, but instead of implied in the historical narrative, now explicitly stated in the New Testament as instructions for us to easily see: separate from "believers in the faith" but who are unrepentant idolaters, indulging in sexual immorality, etc (like separate from Jezebel, Ahab's house, in the northern kingdom of Israel, etc—all claiming to be Israel, but they're not believing nor doing as Israel should / as the set-apart community of believers in YHWH should do and teach, as it is written, and don't want to despite correction. Hence heaping up false prophets [prophets of Baal and Asherah, idols formed to man's liking of whom they prefer / want God to be like, wanting someone to tell them what their itching ears want to hear. Not accepting all of what YHWH reveals Himself to be [He's still the same YHWH]).
But if you're not convinced, I'll share more from the New Testament, and since I brought up the sword judgment, I'll continue with it:
Whether the sword is a part of man's earthly governments / courts:
Romans 13:4 New International Version
4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
New Covenant times. And this is a letter written to the church warning them. In this case, the believers in Rome (New Covenant believers in Christ). Beware the sword. That is still a judgment from God that He sends on the unrepentant: defiant believers and unbelievers/worldly out in the world alike, hence writing a letter to the church to warn them of this.
Or be it the sword judgment sent by God outside of man's earthly courts, but manifested through chaos out in the world
Revelation 6:3-4 New International Version
3 When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword.
Jesus is the one doing this; sending spirits to stir people's hearts into war (physical battle and spiritual battle). Outside the church, in the world's courts, outside of the world's courts, just as much as sending sword (and the other judgments) against His own believers to death / "fallen asleep" as a result of this judgment by the Lord. Like He did in the Old Testament (since He is YHWH). Believers who die in Him, as a result of being in Him, are not under the same condemnation as the world will be at the Great White Throne judgment, but that doesn't change the fact that He does treat believers this Way who refuse to repent when corrected) and He's not waiting for that individual to repent anymore.
Whether physical sword or sword of someone's mouth, if not both:
Isaiah 49:2 New International Version
2 He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.
Revelation 2:16 New International Version
16 Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
Likewise, act like worldly Jezebel—with her idolatrous, commandment-denying ways, not respecting what is written—get sent divine judgment upon you like Jezebel, on earth, even if you're in the church.
Aquatic_blue
If two kindgom's are in alliance with one another - they would be seen as supporting the same ideals. On many things they may act together on a wrong and do nothing to stop it. With having a friend coming out as gay - I am not acting with him on the wrong, we have said our disagreement, but aren't going to shove him out the door with unwelcome arms.
Concerning the latter which I underlined: if you're willing to risk that, that's your choice; I'm simply telling you what Scripture is saying if you remain his friend after he, in pride, continues disagreeing with Jesus. Remember, king Jehoshaphat did not share the ideals of king Ahab nor of Ahab's house, and despite not believing the same way, God's favor was not upon that yoke, which he would eventually learn to refuse:
2 Chronicles 17:3 New International Version
3 The Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he followed the ways of his father David before him. He did not consult the Baals
2 Chronicles 20:35-37 New International Version
35 Later, Jehoshaphat king of Judah made an alliance with Ahaziah king of Israel, whose ways were wicked. 36 He agreed with him to construct a fleet of trading ships.[a] After these were built at Ezion Geber, 37 Eliezer son of Dodavahu of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, “Because you have made an alliance with Ahaziah, the Lord will destroy what you have made.” The ships were wrecked and were not able to set sail to trade.[b]
Footnotes
a. 2 Chronicles 20:36 Hebrew of ships that could go to Tarshish b. 2 Chronicles 20:37 Hebrew sail for Tarshish
1 Kings 22:49 New International Version
49 At that time Ahaziah son of Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, “Let my men sail with yours,” but Jehoshaphat refused.
And before this instance, if you recall the whole incident with Ahab disguising himself in the battlefield and only Jehoshaphat going out dressed as king, honestly, unlike Ahab dishonestly disguising himself, Jehoshaphat came very close to suffering the sword judgment that God had intended for Ahab until Jehoshaphat cried out to God on the battlefield and God allowed it to let up from Jehoshaphat. Thus why I advise despite believing differently, I do not recommend for you to be in the midst accepting/welcoming the obstinate believer who rejects/refuses what is written after God gave explicit instruction for when to separate from other "believers in the faith" but who are being idolatrous like Jezebels; it is not less vague in the New Testament, not implied anymore in the historical narrative, but explicitly saying to separate [even more clearly in the New Testament] once their refusal to be corrected goes beyond a certain point/do not be close even if you firmly believe differently unswayed; it's for your own good.
Aquatic_blue
cristobela
Do not even eat with someone who claims to be a brother or sister in the faith/who claims to be part of the set-apart community to God yet willfully despite knowing better—in rebellion against the Father—walks in sexual immorality. They’re being an unbeliever in the Word of God at that point just like the world.
I have heard this many times, but let's think about this. Jesus ate with "sinners," didn't he? Wouldn't that be a contradiction?
Mark 2:15-22 (NIV)
15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
(Also can be found in Matthew 9:10-13 and Luke 5:29-32)
Like I said, not a contradiction. But acknowledge the fine distinction: how they responded when He corrected them. Their attitude towards sin changed. They accepted the message/the correction, His moving them to come into agreement with His/YHWH's way of viewing things, and not necessarily what they found acceptable personally nor what the believers had begun to tolerate amongst themselves as a nice way to do things in, contrary to what is written.
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Was it not Jesus that witnessed to the woman at the well? I'm sure he didn't agree with her sexual sin, but was he not there witnessing to her and reaching out to her? (Found in John 4)
Correct. To reach her. How did she respond to His correction? She accepted it in that conversation.
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Jesus is very much familiar with being around sinners.
I agree. Passing through with correction. That and even more distant of being around in society as a stranger is not the same as a yoke though. Again, let Scripture define these very specific terms for us. We cannot gloss over them. Scripture does not contradict: at the same time that He tells you not to yoked/be tied at the neck so close to that it affects your household and what they believe, He also can pass through amongst strangers you have no ties to and don't affect your household's life if they reject to tell them to reconcile, correct their erring views.
You're saying this is a close family friend, already claiming to be a believer, not merely some stranger—be it the woman at the well or a strange Pharisee—you passed by to invite them to be reconciled and leave their erroneous, indoctrinated, puffed up teachings and perspective that they learned from the teachers of the Law (teachers of the official doctrine who didn't practice what it said even if they read Scripture out correctly), but to be humble and honest and accept what is actually written unlike them. Nor an acquaintance that you see on occasion (if that's what you meant) but you said a close family friend. And I'm just warning of the danger, if he refuses to repent, beyond the further interactions required in obedience to YHWH's Commands concerning correcting sin in the church, to continue to welcome him openly despite obstinate refusal to change course / rejection of the Word of God; you're putting yourself and your household in harm's way unnecessarily, not just from him but our capital H, Husband's jealousy.
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If He was around sinners in this manner, I don't think it would be condemned today.
Again, not disagreeing because it's not a yoke of, "we're tied at the neck/close buddies despite you obstinately refusing what I, Jesus, say; no matter what I say, refusing to accept My words and correction back to what is written, doing the Father's will. Yoked despite you defiantly not wanting to obey Me".
These are sincerely mistaken, straying people who don't even know fine distinctions and if provided them, they'd humbly submit back to God upon seeing differently as Jesus does, as many sinners even some Pharisees turned upon hearing Jesus. But the obstinate Pharisees (again, if gets to that, and he becomes one) there is no yoke.
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Even though the Pharisees questioned Him about eating with sinners, He gave His response clearly.
Correct. And the Pharisees who disagreed with Him were not yoked to Jesus. He doesn't know them; there's no habitual frequenting around until they see the light, continually seeking after the same individuals. He's moving it along to reach new people who don't reject Him, and don't have to be forced despite what their hearts want to do, hate on Him and what He says, but accept everything of what He says upon hearing it out fully. If the Pharisees who stubbornly reject Jesus, in contrast, want to hound Him to death, that's their murderous / malicious / lawless intents (on what basis? He's just agreeing with what is written, everything that's written). But He's not habitually going back to the same person who rejected Him in order to continue close fellowship with them, "know" them.
And quite frankly, Jesus gave us limitations so that we simultaneously: [1] don't waste our time/resources on someone He sees will not change—based on any further, sound correction you give and [2] for you to allow Him room to rebuke them divinely through other vessels [human and otherwise] and circumstances on earth now that you've given them the faithful to the Word truth; the sound seed has been shared. How they take (or allow the information to be taken from them) is up to them. Whom they choose to trust more: the Word of God or a little bird from Satan broadcasting loudly over what was sound and complete, taking the seed of the Word away, instead of humbly acknowledging everything, even allowing the worries of this life to obscure away the soundness of what He spoke.
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Hymenaeus and Alexander were clearly ones who knew about God, but chose to openly ignore it. We do not know the details of what their actions were exactly. Perhaps they walked away from the church and no longer wished to be there? Perhaps they did something terrible within the church and against other people, becoming toxic, spreading false teaching maybe so they were not welcome to stay? We don't know for certain.
But what we do know for certain, because the Holy Spirit through Paul said it, is that they—these two these in the Church thus why they're being handed over / out to the world—needed to be taught a lesson by Satan to not Blaspheme God.
Blaspheming God can be a number of things, but clearly they're in disagreement with God:
Numbers 15:30 New International Version
30 “‘But anyone who sins defiantly, whether native-born or foreigner, blasphemes the Lord and must be cut off from the people of Israel.
Isaiah 37:23 New International Version
23 Who is it you have ridiculed and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!
Nehemiah 9:16 New International Version
16 “But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands.
Nehemiah 9:29 New International Version
29 “You warned them in order to turn them back to your law, but they became arrogant and disobeyed your commands. They sinned against your ordinances, of which you said, ‘The person who obeys them will live by them.’ Stubbornly they turned their backs on you, became stiff-necked and refused to listen.
We don't have to speculate. But define words Biblically as they consistently appear across Scripture to get a better picture of the kind of thing they're doing. Even without Paul revealing more details, if you're being defiant against God, blaspheming, you're disagreeing with Him, His Commands, Old Testament examples where He illustrated certain concepts out in longform historical narrative, the truth of how YHWH interacts with those who distrust Him and what is written. Hymenaeus and Alexander are puffed up, arrogant—but Jesus did no such thing. Peter had to be humbled and repented. Paul had to be humbled of his pride and repented). They submitted to the Father's definitions of good. Hymenaeus and Alexander had to be humbled; I'm not sure if they repented.
But go ahead, Hymenaeus and Alexander, do your own thing as you wish, out in the world. Under the one whose reign you truly want to be under (not God's, not the Father, Son, Holy Spirit—not YHWH, not His family, not His Word, but under the one who really is your father: Satan, the father of lies, the spirit in those individuals whom are habitually disobedient, who don't even want to keep the testimony of the Holy Spirit of truth, but disagree with Him. Let's see how that works out for you, Hymenaeus and Alexander. You'll learn. Maybe like Jehoshaphat eventually learned. But, knowing his character, Paul would have warned and reasoned with them so that they wouldn't need to be handed over to Satan, but avoid that kind of suffering / rebuke / chastisement outside the church—allowed by and even sent by God through His servants in high places (human servants in government and non-human spirits governing above earthly nations in heavenly realms). Hymenaeus and Alexander are not blameless Jobs in what they're doing, suffering for doing good as Scripture defines good, but suffering for doing evil, and Paul handing them over to Satan / out in the world, and yes Jesus will send suffering on His own believers to correct them, even allowing Satan to sift them. Jesus'/YHWH's character doesn't change. He doesn't tolerate now the same kind of things He didn't tolerate in Jezebel back then. Giving a chance to repent yes, but if you're unwilling, He unleashes the same suffering He sends on Jezebel onto His church of those who tolerate her. When He allows you to see another believer's refusal to be corrected, and won't be corrected no matter the sufficient times instructed in Scripture and the amount of people to involve, then separate in obedience for everyone's good).
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While Matthew 18:15-17 has it's own due process, it has been recent, and whether he has changed his mind is not known at this time. I think telling the church would do more harm than good at this point and would be damaging as it would be acting too rashly and he hasn't had the opportunity to tell his family like he wanted to. They may have something to say that changes his mind, too, so probably better to wait.
I would consider his relatives the church too if they're believers. But I agree, allow him to interact with / be corrected by more fellow believers and see how the Holy Spirit convicts him.
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Also, treating someone "like a pagan/tax collector" doesn't seem to mean casting them away, but rather treating them as someone who doesn't quite know the Lord.
I agree, but also noting the comparison/contrast to whom a pagan/tax collector is being drawn against (someone who was once intimately in fellowship with you): it is someone who is a stranger and you only interact to keep society running. No hard feelings, but not close either—unless you repent and you can be trusted. Pagans and tax collectors who repent, draw close to God, know the Lord. But someone who is notorious for not submitting to what God says, is unjust thus cannot be kept in close intimacy and close confidence, that you can trust around you to be sound. If their refusal to submit to the Word of God gets to that upon all the corrections. Jesus and Paul are describing someone who goes from fellowshiping amongst you closely to pagan / outsider / removed from the intimate things, from close friend to stranger.
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Trust me, when that church finds out he's not ever going to want to return. When they excommunicate others, they are often incredibly rude about it. Often times they ignore people to the point that they will have no contact with them even if they wanted to repent to that church. Even if people leave their church by choice, they tell everyone that they have, "Stepped away from the faith." and everything, which isn't correct, either. I'm afraid that if anything, they may chase him further away from God.
Even if that is case, you also should give thought that maybe the Jesus he thought he believed in is not even the one that Scripture describes (Savior and Lord, not just Savior) and in that case you and they are doing him a favor by correcting his erring view on the full scope of Jesus' nature/character, revealing who Jesus truly and fully is, what He's willing to tolerate or accept (and what He's not), even when you're His (especially if you're His sheep and know better).
At the same time, the rest of the church (even if they drive him away, be it his family or the local church) if they drive him away are doing everyone a favor, even him, because now no one will be deceived (or have the excuse to say that they did not receive sufficient warning) into believing that Jesus accepts our pursuit of what He calls crooked ways / deceitful desires in our flesh, suggesting following the sinful ways of our flesh / earthly nature that we're born with over the Father's Way is okay to do when Jesus clearly says, "no".
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cristobela
may “Caleb” not run after Jezebel-like teachers in the church
So now there are Jezebel like teachers in our church just because he's made this decision? Extremely unlikely. Not saying some of the people in there aren't corrupt, but they all have a strong dislike for the homosexual community therefore, they wouldn't have influenced Caleb's decision to be gay.
I use the word "church" in the very loose sense not referring to the local congregation you're speaking of but in general. Jezebel-like teachers and Jezebel's teachings are one in the same to me. Teachings/thoughts that have no sincere faith in YHWH, such thoughts getting into the church, amongst us, who subvert trust in what YHWH—our Heavenly Father, Son of God, Holy Spirit—actually taught as sound (thus teachings that teach unlike Jesus). When those erring thoughts get into the church (into any believer), I consider that Jezebel being inside the church teaching, whether someone with those thoughts is physically at your local congregation or not, Jezebel has gotten into the church.
Just like literal Jezebel is not going to be in the physical city of Thyatira and the church there (Jezebel was long dead, eaten by dogs many generations before John's letter was penned as documented in the Book of Revelation), but the thoughts tolerated in Thyatira, even accepted and followed by some in rebellion against what is written, like Jezebel's idolatry, witchcraft (sensual, Father-denying ways, to please the lust of the eyes, the flesh, worldly power/advancement), those teachings do speak well of idols as she did (deviant to YHWH's image/His actual likeness/His will as He revealed Himself to be, distorted to man's corrupt preferences), not YHWH's revealed Way.
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In any event, I will definitely continue to pray for him and continue to reach out at this time in hopes that he will refocus his thoughts and step back on the path before he makes any decisions that he may regret.
Well, he did lend you the book. I expect there to be continued contact / opportunities / chain of events that clearly YHWH wanted you to have with him. But if the book is unsound, and he owns it, advise him to burn it if it's teaching Father-denying things.
Acts 19:18-20 New International Version
18 Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. 19 A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.[a] 20 In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.
Footnotes
a. Acts 19:19 A drachma was a silver coin worth about a day’s wages.
2 Kings 9:22 New International Version
22 When Joram saw Jehu he asked, “Have you come in peace, Jehu?”
“How can there be peace,” Jehu replied, “as long as all the idolatry and witchcraft of your mother Jezebel abound?”
...misleading into sexual immorality and praise/speaking well of idols (distortions of who YHWH fully reveals Himself to be in His Word, what He approves and disapproves of, sound or unsound to the way He thinks).
I'm sorry you're having to go through this. In today's twisted world, homosexuality is not only "okay"-it's straight up glorified. So I too can see how he's fallen into that trap. I have many gay/bi friends, and it's definitely heartbreaking. You and your family handled it the right way. Honestly the best action you can do right now is to keep praying for Caleb. God has His reasons for placing you and your family in his life. This could be one of them.
Does he know that homosexuality is condemned in the New Testament as well? I found a good verse for this.
"9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor [a]homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor those habitually drunk, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 NASB
That's true, it is glorified and a "new norm" to much of society. I'm sorry to hear that you also are grieved by loved ones making this choice, too.
I've been thinking that, too - that we probably haven't gotten to be close friends for no reason at all. I do hope that we will be able to see him turn back around on his walk. We will continue to reach out and pray.
I would assume that he knows these verses, but it does beg a good question if he knows about those verses. I can't answer for sure because I've never personally asked him, but more have asked me that so I'll probably have to find out.
He recently read a book written by a youth pastor explaining why the gay lifestyle is okay so perhaps it had some justification against this verse. I'll have to see.
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2021 4:03 am
Cristobela, I read through your post more than once to understand it the best I could. I had plenty of time as it was my personal downtime - if I didn't have the time, my response wouldn't have been so long.
I'm not sure what you're meaning by scripture that contradicts scripture. That wasn't the purpose of my post, either. I'm more saying that there was scripture that was written in a way that there was more to the story than what we're reading and we need to read surrounding context as well to get a grasp on what the passage is about, too.
I was writing the follow up letter to the 1 Corinthians verse that you posted that suggests that this member was still shown comfort and love from the church - not excommunicated forever or until they repented.
It is clear what you are supporting, but I don't believe it's right to excommunicate others. I came to think conclusion long ago after witnessing a church that excommunicated more than one person over a period of years and I never saw that it did any good in those people's lives. If anything, by the way they were treated, they walked farther away from God and have no plans to go back to church because they don't feel welcome to do so. I don't even feel that it is right for me to personally push someone out of my life over this at this time.
I don't believe scripture is telling us that excommunication is a cure all for the unrepentant. It doesn't mean we can't talk to them at all from what I'm seeing - it doesn't mean we can't keep trying to outreach to them. I've seen in churches a sexual predator be able to come to church, but a couple that gets divorced (even though one of spouses was unwilling to divorce) they are both turned away. It's not right with how a lot of churches or even people personally act this out. Yes, God's word is a great thing. I am thankful for God's word and all that He does for us.
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Are they even believing the full scope of the Biblical Jesus in the first place or one that suits their own liking better...? or that they were taught by other believers but that denies the full scope of what is written?
Once again, I'm pretty sure I answered these questions already. I do not know personally what all is going on in their mind regarding their sexual orientation and The Holy Bible at the moment. I've known them to be a believer in God and to enjoy God's word and such, but I currently don't have what exactly they are thinking at this moment. They have not elaborated on that as much. What he's struggling with is not an issue that has come within a group of believers/the church itself as I also mentioned. This was a life long struggle as he puts it and it goes way back before he even moved here.
I'm also doing my best to tread carefully while reaching out, too. If I have a good opportunity to outreach, I don't want to come off as rude or insensitive, either. I'm definitely praying about what to do next as well as that God shows him back onto his path.
I never said at this time whether Caleb was seeking to do God's will or not in his heart. At this time, it seems like a "no," because of his idea of his future plans and what those look like. Of course if he acts upon this recent decision to find another man then of course it's rebelling against God's design and such - this I am definitely aware of.
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If they reject the Father, then—despite the history you may share—in truth they're not close to you, as a member of His family if they reject what He said.
While it is true that we would differ spiritually, that doesn't mean we aren't "close" in any way. Aren't we all still human - God's creation? Aren't we all still sinners? Haven't we all fallen short of God's glory? There are many things that would still make us close. It may be a different type of close - not like a "spiritual, brother in Christ" type of close, but a "We're all human, we share a lot of common interests, we're there for each other."
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Ergo, if, despite sufficient correction, they still reject to submit to Him / bow to Him / His Word, above voices outside of Scripture, do not yoke (be close) as if you agreed because they have refused after several corrections to draw back close to Him, His Way, as it is written; thus, rejecting after receiving correction, thoroughly being shown different than their erring, unsound ways back onto the Truth that makes sound sense of it all, nullifying nothing, no contradictions in the way it is interpreted.
He hasn't yet refused any corrections from anyone. We were the first people he has told. So, at this time it's probably best to continue to reach out with God's word.
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You, who are not God, but merely an earthly vessel with limited foresight, do not keep hounding the same person by yourself [or as a household] over the same thing, over and over again—after you've clearly shown them what Scripture is saying.
Right, this is where prayer comes in, too. I know when I pray that God hears the needs.
We also haven't shown him scripture specifically on this yet, nor have we "hounded" him about it. With the way I share scripture, I do not like to be forceful about it, but rather gentle and sensitive with it. Apologetics are useful for this to help someone understand the application of scripture to their life.
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But, if after all that process of correction that Jesus instructs, and he still rejects, it's no longer your responsibility to be close to this person and risk sound doctrine being compromised to those under your stewardship (by their erring teaching or by their erring example).
There is a time where yes, Jesus may want us to dust our feet and move on. This situation is rather new, he only shared with us the letter he wrong. Larger actions have not been taken at this time. It's hard to say what will happen there because I don't know.
I am also one for boundaries, too. If he starts dating a man or decides to marry another man, there are going to be boundaries set. I will not tolerate certain behaviors under my own roof, but those will be discussed and decided as they come, which hopefully those never do. You're talking in terms of wayyyy ahead, further than my post goes, and of things that haven't even happened yet so it would be difficult to apply such things at this time.
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due to your close yoke to them—and it has come into your knowledge/attention, that despite you all's correction, upon receiving even more correction from fellow believers, yet even more from the rest of the church, still reject what is written), then do not closely fellowship with this person because that makes them not your brother and sister.
Now this makes me think you never read my original post or something. You mentioned "you all's correction." The only thing we did was thank him for sharing his thoughts with us and that we're still his friend. That's as far as this goes. The church doesn't even know - they have no clue, but it's not our business to tell and it'd be a rotten thing to do before he gets the chance to share this with his own family. After all, his own parent's may be able to share with him a great deal as he cares for them and he may listen to them and change this around.
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Here I'm sensing that you may have rushed and not paid close to attention to what Paul said... (and what I, in agreement with Paul, am drawing attention to by quoting him.)He's obviously not talking about closely yoking to gentiles who aren't Christian.
Oh, I've read it many many times and I've had the chance to sit and study it, take it apart word by word in the original languages, and trust me - Paul's words are one's I study very intently because I used to go to a church that would take his words because oh how they loved Paul - they loved to take his words and twist them for their own meanings and not actually study what the meaning of the verses were.
No, he's talking about within a church, the church of Corinth. Although, in your first post, you weren't clear on a "close" relationship - it sounded as if you were talking generally about all people.
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Similarly, we do not literally consume animals found strangled and dead / road kill, nor the uncleanliness of blood that contaminates our body, just because someone was sent in vision to eat something unclean one day and told to eat of it in the vision and thus now we will unstably conclude that there is absolutely nothing unclean, even unclean animals, yet Jesus continues to call those animals unclean all the way in Rev 18:2, end times, definitely New Covenant.
I'm not certain how some of these seemingly off topic bits come up. Either way, I believe that animals are not clean/unclean as they once were. I believe some animals are filthier or have higher chances of disease or parasites and would normally fall on the 'unclean' list (and they can pose a risk to eat health wise), but it seems Peter's vision was quite clear when it said in Acts 10:9-16 (specifically verse 15), that it says, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." It seems this is God's way of telling us that if we're giving thanks for it, it's good enough to eat. I'm not saying eat without of reason (I don't think it's wrong of anyone to eat roadkill, but I do think they take a risk when they do so). Although, I know this is controversial, too, and some belief systems still stick to clean/unclean animals and I don't have an issue with that. It all comes down to personal belief on that one, but I don't think it's salvation issue, either.
There are passages in the Holy Bible that apply to a specific time, specific place, and a specific situation and then there are others that are forever, always, continouous, 'til the end of time type deals. We have to read and figure out which it is.
What do you mean by the uncleanliness of blood that contaminates our body? Do you mean of course that it wouldn't be correct to sit there and drink a glass of blood or are you saying our blood in our body is generally an unclean thing? I'm not for certain.
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The sinful thought needs to be taken captive in order for the person not to be complicit in the sin. A thought that crossed your mind cannot be allowed to just have its way in your imagination. Otherwise yes, you're sinning along with the sinful thought.
I never said the sinful thought shouldn't be put on the back burner. What I was saying is that thoughts happen, sometimes things pop in our mind and we don't even know why and they're not good thoughts. Just because a person see's themself in their mind committing a sin, doesn't mean that they're actually going to comply with the thought. Sure, it's good to pray about it when we have an intrusive thought of some sort.
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Concerning the latter which I underlined: if you're willing to risk that, that's your choice; I'm simply telling you what Scripture is saying if you remain his friend after he, in pride, continues disagreeing with Jesus. Remember, king Jehoshaphat did not share the ideals of king Ahab nor of Ahab's house, and despite not believing the same way, God's favor was not upon that yoke, which he would eventually learn to refuse:
You make it sound like I'm going to have a target on my back so that God can smite me because of who my friends are. I do my best to be careful and reasonable with my actions. I don't believe that God is going to smite me because a friend made a life changing decision that so happens not to be for God's word.
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ike I said, not a contradiction. But acknowledge the fine distinction: how they responded when He corrected them. Their attitude towards sin changed. They accepted the message/the correction, His moving them to come into agreement with His/YHWH's way of viewing things, and not necessarily what they found acceptable personally nor what the believers had begun to tolerate amongst themselves as a nice way to do things in, contrary to what is written.
But were we ever told that the sinner's that he was eating with ever accepted His words? I haven't found anything that says everyone at the table or this person and that person accepted His teaching.
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Correct. To reach her. How did she respond to His correction? She accepted it in that conversation.
Yes, she accepted his correction. If this were some evangelist reaching out to someone and they had no idea if the person would accept God in that encounter - it wouldn't be a sin, either. So, I'm unsure how it would be different with trying to reach out to a friend.
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Scripture does not contradict: at the same time that He tells you not to yoked/be tied at the neck so close to that it affects your household and what they believe
No, scripture does not contradict. That's why it's important to be careful with it and make sure we are interpreting things as correctly as possible. This isn't affecting how our household believes at all at this time so this type of situation hasn't even happened.
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At the same time, the rest of the church (even if they drive him away, be it his family or the local church) if they drive him away are doing everyone a favor, even him, because now no one will be deceived (or have the excuse to say that they did not receive sufficient warning) into believing that Jesus accepts our pursuit of what He calls crooked ways / deceitful desires in our flesh, suggesting following the sinful ways of our flesh / earthly nature that we're born with over the Father's Way is okay to do when Jesus clearly says, "no".
This is supremely saddening to leave. Even if the church drives him away and never comes back and doesn't want to be close to God because of the way he was treatened then that's okay and does everyone, even him favors? So if he never believes in God again and doesn't get into Heaven - that does him a favor? I get it if he was going around church telling people they should believe that being gay is okay or trying to persuade them from their beliefs then that would be just toxic and would be grounds for removal at a point. However, he is not this type of person.
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When those erring thoughts get into the church (into any believer), I consider that Jezebel being inside the church teaching, whether someone with those thoughts is physically at your local congregation or not, Jezebel has gotten into the church.
I'm not convinced that this can be accurate. What I believe would be the case is the church is lacking in growth because they play it safe - stick to the traditions - they fear change and prefer normal/comfortable living. This doesn't mean that there is a Jezebel like teacher telling him that this is okay. Lack of growth and then following advice from a book written by the pastor that is not part of our congregation plays a part.
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Well, he did lend you the book. I expect there to be continued contact / opportunities / chain of events that clearly YHWH wanted you to have with him. But if the book is unsound, and he owns it, advise him to burn it if it's teaching Father-denying things.
He asked of course. He didn't say, "Read this." or, "Here, I'll leave this with you." He simply asked if we would like to read it. My husband said he would hold onto it so he ended up putting it out of sight so he may have some opportunity to think with the book out of his reach.
It's not even a question that the book defies God's teachings. You can just tell by looking at the cover.
I get it, we don't agree on a lot of things. That's fine. I'll keep taking this situation day-by-day with prayer and such.
Ok, I need to step in here for a bit because there is about 3 points that I need to bring up. And then I will be giving my advice. I apologize if it's too harsh or comes off the wrong foot. This is in good intentions.
Point 1. You said you can't see it. So let's look it at it this way. We are all created in God's image. Being gay or being a lesbian or any part of the LGBTQ+ isn't a choice because God created them to be that way. Saying that it's a choice, is like telling a person that they aren't right in the head or if they are transgender, saying that they are mentally ill (that is called gender dysphoria and for some, it's not a good feeling to be called that or told that they are mentally ill, but some use that as validation on who they are) and also basically giving God the middle finger because he created Caleb in that way. He is still is God's child. And if a person (in general) tells someone something along those lines, that person is saying that they are homophobic. And it's the exact same thing with transgender people (which is transphobia). God still created those people to be who they are. Remember what Genesis 1 26-28 AND Genesis 9 5-6 says something about being created in God's image. Since some extreme Christians don't understand that, the LGBTQ+ community, especially Christians who belong in that community, doesn't feel safe in a church because of being judged and being condemned, and saying that it's a sin to be gay (which is a lie in itself because there is NOTHING in the bible about hating gays, more in point 2) and more than often leave the church with religious trauma as a result. Sad but true. And no, this isn't about ego either. This is just saying that that a community is created in God's image and still his children. You already seen the effects of that said trauma, and one of the causes of suicide.
Point 2: And this is more for cristobela. We have to remember that the bible has been translated thousands and thousands of times. And that the Old Testament is in Hebrew and the New Testament is in Greek before the translations even began. Because of that, the original context has been lost over the x amount of translations. For example. The most common verse to spread hate is Leviticus 18: 22. The current verse states that you can't go men with men and women with women etc. Two things with that. 1. the original context was about not being a MAP. Down the line in one of the translations the MAP meaning was changed to what it is today. Many people believe that the change happened in the King James version because apparently King James hates the gays. Don't quote me on that because it could've been changed waaay later than that by a homophobic person. It's a common trap to just use it to spread hate. And there is nothing in the 10 Commandments about sticking with one man and one woman either. That i will bring up in point 3 And it's the same with the other verses commonly used against the LGBTQ+ community. 2. We aren't living in the Old Testament anymore. We aren't living in the past anymore either. We need to stop using verses in a way of being an actual weapon. It's a tool for us to learn from and use it to spread the word of God. Using verses to attack people for hate in general is not what God intended for his word to be used for. Yes it's going to be hard, but remember this. God gave us his word in a form of a book. Don't use the Sword of Truth as an actual weapon that hurts people. As a bonus, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, do not judge or you too be judged (Both in Matthew 7:1 NIV and Luke 6:37 NIV, and if you search on Bible Gateway do not judge, there is a lot of verses on that subject that I can't list all of them here). It's never been our place to judge because we never got authorized to, even if it's righteous. If you have the guts to judge by taking a speck out of someone's eye, then you not only have a plank in your own eye (Matthew 7:3-4 NIV and Luke 6:41-42 NIV), be prepared to be judged upon too. God is extremely clear on this. Do. Not. Judge.
Point 3. Jesus said this in Matthew, Mark and Luke. "Love your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind" (Matthew 22:37 NIV) and "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39 NIV. Mark and Luke has a slight difference of wording but the meaning is the same. You can find those verses in Mark 12:28-31 and Luke 10:27. I used the NIV version because it's much easier to read). We all have the Love God aspect down pat, but the hardest thing is Love Others. And no, this isn't the case of love the sinner, hate the sin context. All too often, we pick and choose who we love. Family? Easy. Friends? Easy. Church family? Easy. A murder? rapist? Or someone that you despise? Not so easy isn't it? God made it quite clear in the 10 Commandments on how to treat other people (like i said, i bring it up in this point). The first 5 commandments is about God and the second 5 commandments is about others. There is NOTHING in those commandments about treating someone like crap because of their sexuality, gender, skin colour etc. I suggest you read the Good Samaritan parable (Luke 10:25-37) and replace the priest with a minister (and I am aware that there are ministers who accepts everyone for who they are but for this purpose, it's the closest we have to priests), the Levite with a Christian and the Samaritan with someone from the LGBTQ+ community or a black skinned person or even a Muslim. It's going to be an eye opener when you do so. Jesus accepted people for who they are. He dined with tax collectors. He even accepted a criminal who was dying at the same time as he was when he was crucified. Why can't we do the same thing?
In conclusion, Back in the day, there was a saying going around which still rings true today. What would Jesus do? The way I see it, and like i said in point three, Jesus accepted people. He still accepts Caleb for who he is, not what he is. Not throwing him out was a really good thing to do, because radical Christians (and what I mean by that, I mean extremists) would just chuck someone out onto the streets and disown them because of not being stuck in the old ways, it's also because their child or a friend etc is part of the LGBTQ+ and it happens waaaaay too much. Not throwing him out shows me something that not too often seen. You still care for him. I understand where you are coming from, but Caleb is still Caleb. Only his sexuality has changed. Nothing else changed. He's still your friend, and all he needs is a friend who accepts him for who he is. It's going to be hard, trust me. I have an friend, who recently discovered that "he" is a transgender woman. I do accept her for who she is and support her in her journey. But I struggle on why she feels that she's a girl in a male's body, and it's hard. She's one of those people who feels a certain way and isn't willing to say the actual reason why and I just have to accept that she won't end up telling me and go along for the ride to give her that support, because it's their journey, and I learnt from that is to not interfere on what they know what path God wants them to take. But, she's still a child of God. Still God's creation, his masterpiece. We have to remember that. I can't stress that enough. So my advice is this, and it's simple. Do as what both God and Jesus would do. What Caleb is doing is what God wants him to do. The path Caleb is on, is designed by God so he won't be falling off or misguided. The book he gave you two to read is not to put it out of sight, out of mind. It's to help educate you to have more understanding about his journey. It's God's way to tell you to stop living by the old standards set by the church. Your latest post shows that you see the old ways, sadden by those way, but yet, you are bound by it. God doesn't want you to be bounded by something that is created for man by man to install fear into others to have that religious trauma as the end result, but follow Jesus's example of accepting people for who they are, like he accepted Matthew when his name was Levi and he was a tax collector which was one of the lowest of lows. We are called to spread that love and have that acceptance (as well as finding new recruits to his large army but that's a different area altogether) Caleb came out to you because he trusts you, and more than likely needs you if he gets rejected by his own family and the church because they are most likely be stuck in the old ways. Like I said, you do care for him, and more than likely he still cares for you too. That book, is your ticket to break away from the old teachings, the old standards and the old ways of the church, and understand more about God and how he loves his children. Don't let that opportunity slip you by girl because you won't have another chance like it. Have an open mind and let God help you guide you through this. He needs you to be there for Caleb no matter what happens, and you need to be prepared for it. God wants you to make progress in your own jouney, not to go backwards or stay in the old ways made by man. And I feel that is what God wants you to do 100% Don't let anyone else take that opportunity away from you. Not one of us in the guild, or your husband, or anyone else. This is a wake up call from God with your name on it. I wholeheartedly believe that God wants you to be on this journey with Caleb and it all starts with that book. It's up to you if you want to listen to God or listen to the church. I can't force you to make that choice.
So I leave you with these three questions. I don't expect you to respond to them but it is something to think about. If one of your kids down the track comes out to you, how would you handle it? Are you prepared for if that day comes? And would you love and accept them for who they are and not what the old ways taught you?
EDIT: I changed what the original to MAP because what I wanted to say is ****ed so the change has to happed
Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 5:58 am
Just to note, I've acknowledged your entire reply, but to respond to anything you asked / needed further elaboration from me.
Aquatic_blue
I was writing the follow up letter to the 1 Corinthians verse that you posted that suggests that this member was still shown comfort and love from the church - not excommunicated forever or until they repented.
Right before the verse you emphasized (you're emphasizing verse 7) however, in verse 6 (2 Cor 2:6) right before it, there was a mention of a punishment. This punishment was dealt by the majority of the church against the offender who is (or had been?) unrepentant.
2 Corinthians 2:1-11 New International Version
2 1 So I made up my mind that I would not make another painful visit to you. 2 For if I grieve you, who is left to make me glad but you whom I have grieved? 3 I wrote as I did, so that when I came I would not be distressed by those who should have made me rejoice. I had confidence in all of you, that you would all share my joy. 4 For I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you.
5 If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. 6 The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. 7 Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. 9 Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. 10 Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, 11 in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.
From verse 1, one of those visits to them had been painful (correction to them from Paul). Consequently, he had written to them in a previous letter, before this one, so that they would correct the sin present in them/in their congregation prior to his next visit so that his next visit wouldn't be distressing (to either of them). Correction isn't a pleasant experience; it's not a rejoicing atmosphere. And of what he wrote, it had been concerning an unrepentant person causing them grief, who caused the congregation more grief than he was causing to Paul (Paul who is writing from afar to offer guidance for how to correct it; the congregation is the one living with it).
And this unrepentant person, as a consequence of what Paul suggested, hadbeen shown majority disapproval of already. We don't skip that part (of showing disapproval “en masse” if/when that becomes the appropriate level of correction to deal with their unrepentant, defiant sin [what was causing Paul and the rest of the congregation grief/pain: not just the sin, but then having to correct it, which is unpleasant to do, but it is the obedient thing to do]).
Then, in contrast to the majority's punishment, after that punishment was over, “Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him,” welcome him back in. We don't skip punishment. How do you think the majority punished this believer in Christ, inside the church, collectively? What had Paul told them to do in the previous letter? To judge those inside the church and “expel the wicked person from amongst you”—again, in the letter he had written previously to them.
After the offender was judged to be defiant (not “oops, I didn't know that; let me correct myself”, but judged, carefully assessed to be defiant, it has gotten to the level of the larger congregation) and expelled, then after some time had passed between the letters, forgive, welcome him back and comfort him (like the “periods” of exiles that the nation of Israel would face out in the world; but that for years, when they were defiant, on a national scale, against God, but this correction is on a miniature scale, inside the congregation who is already out in the world. But a time out seems reasonable). Paul said we must be obedient in all things (not just cutting straight to forgiveness and the offender staysin anyway, despite no consequences to their defiant attitude against what's written. The correction, even on a larger congregational level, if the person refuses to be corrected by two to three, must be done. Emphasis on if they refuse / stay defiant despite two or three correcting them).
From the original post, I didn't gather just how much / how deep (or brief) you had gotten into the topic in trying to convince him. But if that doesn't work out, I'm saying that despite what you would prefer (to skip majority disapproval being shown against him), Scripture is saying this is fine to do (if it gets to the point of involving more than the two or three who haven't won him over) and not just fine but expected, the obedient thing.
It may not be possible to involve more believers in certain cases, e.g. areas of persecution where there isn't a very large congregation allowed. People are meeting in secret, in groups no larger than two to three; in which case, the separation / time out, would come sooner since you can't rely on a larger body for correction. I can see where the temptation to not hand him over to correction (if he refuses whatever you two [in addition to his spiritual relatives, thus three+] show him from Scripture), onto the larger congregation of believers if you can't trust the congregation to both punish and forgive obediently.
But here's the thing, even when Jesus knew the Pharisees didn't submit to everything, He submitted to what was instructed / what was written as proper procedure (and taught His disciples to do the same like Him). So whatever results (injustice and merciless behavior from the majority [like Persecution from Pharisees] or perfectly Lawful justice and mercy in accord with what is written [like Paul]), it is the Father's will either way / whatever results that we be faithful and submit to what He instructed. We continue to do good even if the rest don't do good in their response. God knows what's going to happen when we're faithful to what's written.
In 2 Cor 2, the offender was punished by a majority. Thus didn't respond with repentance at the two or three conversing with him, reasoning with him, showing him from Scripture, what's true and right—right to pursue or avoid pursuing.
Taking this in another direction though, since I asked the question, what is this punishment: if the punishment is not referring to “expelling the wicked person from among you” in the 2 Cor 2 situation, I'd venture to say, there's some public flogging going on inside the Christ-abiding church (note: Lawful flogging is fine to do if done in agreement with what is written in the Law [thus used properly]...
Deuteronomy 25:2-3 New International Version
2 If the guilty person deserves to be beaten, the judge shall make them lie down and have them flogged in his presence with the number of lashes the crime deserves, 3 but the judge must not impose more than forty lashes. If the guilty party is flogged more than that, your fellow Israelite will be degraded in your eyes.
...but not fine to do, but unjust, to flog people who agree with everything that is written/flogging the Christ-like. If they precede to flog such an individual, at that point, they'd be like the unbelieving Jews or a Pharisee who didn't allow all the Law to determine right and wrong, and who, out of fleshly, emotional reactions like malice and envy / baseless / lawless / no right to flog because the person who offended them, unlike them, is actually agreeing with everything that is written, like Jesus, and they don't like that, but the flogging would be lawless/unjust then:
Matthew 23:34 New International Version
34 Therefore Iamsending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.
John 9:22 New International Version
22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.
...(we see here, in Mt 23:34 and Jn 9:22, examples of both “unjust flogging” and “unjust putting out” [unjust expelling], but had this been flogging and expelling a defiant offender it would be just). I mention this because when done properly, then both of these are Lawful “punishments” that may be happening inside a God-fearing, Law-abiding, Christ-like congregation.
The idea approved by God, used as symbol for what He does, and a general acceptance of it:
Psalm 89:32 New International Version
32 I will punish their sin with the rod, their iniquity with flogging;
Proverbs 17:26 New International Version
26 If imposing a fine on the innocent is not good, surely to flog honest officials is not right.
Proverbs 19:25 New International Version
25 Flog a mocker, and the simple will learn prudence; rebuke the discerning, and they will gain knowledge.
A mocker, who scoffs, won't listen. Flogging them then, besides being right/just/merited/deserved punishment, is for the benefit of the simple looking on. But the discerning merely gets verbal instruction/rebuke and everyone learns, receives Wisdom, including the one spoken to/who received the rebuke. Not enjoyable to receive, but beneficial to all.
I don't know if we're to spiritualize “flogging” at any point, a flogging as an onslaught of verbal correction or merely accept it as literal flogging inside the church. The discerning just needs a simple verbal correction in contrast. Better to be beaten/flogged (even verbally) by fellow believers than by atheists / the world out there who doesn't care about you at all, just wants you to be ridiculed, mercilessly like the other nations who'd mock Israel when in exile (under punishment by God).
Proverbs 17:10 New International Version
10 A rebuke impresses a discerning person more than a hundred lashes a fool.
Jeremiah 48:26-27 New International Version
26 “Make her drunk, for she has defied the Lord. Let Moab wallow in her vomit; let her be an object of ridicule. 27 Was not Israel the object of your ridicule? Was she caught among thieves, that you shake your head in scorn whenever you speak of her?
But whatever the punishment is in 2 Cor 2, the majority of the congregation punished him. The same could be said when dealing with Lawful expelling of the wicked from amongst you inside the church. That too is a punishment. Either way, flogging or putting out, this is not painless correction for anyone involved, correcter in the church and corrected in the church. But no doubt in my mind that the offender in 2 Cor 2 is suffering a punishment by the majority of the congregation who is / was against him for being against what is written (thus the congregation's punishment reaction is justified, obedient, and supported by Paul, as is their forgiveness afterward an obedience. Both).
And let's say the flogging was not even by the hands of the church, but by the world, that still means there would have been an expelling by the congregration to hand them over to the world. Ergo, the congregation as a whole already showed their disapproval of the offender by expelling them from amongst the congregation (because he would not be corrected, but persisted in defiance).
Having addressed what most reasonably may be going on in 2 Cor 2, whether expelling the wicked person from amongst you/time out or flogging (if not both?), knowing the kind of punishment that happens throughout Scripture amongst believers and outside...
You're saying to consider, “what if the offending person in 2 Cor 2 hadn't repented when Paul said to receive him back?”. My reaction: even after all that punishment? Before we even get to expelling, say there are floggings going on in the church: unless he's a fool, I don't think he's going to persist in his defiance at that point, being stubborn. Beyond a flogging inside the church, if he stills persists after that, then I would expect expelling if he won't stop. Unless floggings only happen outside the church in which case he was already expelled. Then welcomed him back in after the “humiliation”. So as not to be degraded in front of everyone's eyes / overwhelmed by grief as if he's unwanted.
That said, say he didn't sincerely repent and just stayed in, we're all friends now (we're led to believe), don't you think this whole process of correction will persist / start over again if he wasn't truly repentant about what he was being corrected of? The person, whom you're saying maybe has not sincerely repented against sin in 2 Cor 2, is once again inside the congregation and showing indication (God allowing indication to be seen) of not wanting to repent from the sin/think of that as sin, is still defiant (not “oops”, but “no, that's not wrong, I won't stop pursuing it”), and is continuing to cause grief and invite painful correction from Paul and the rest of the congregation. Individuals going to him, correcting him, still doesn't want to repent, just to flog or expel him again because proven defiant; he doesn't want to submit even still (that's what unrepentant would mean). Despite light, gentle correction from amongst their siblings verbally, reasoning, to more harsher correction, publicly in the congregation (it went beyond the two or three), and if it got to that, still not repenting, expelling outside the church to be judged by God (whatever angel, even Satan, that YHWH sends, even a disease, weakness), not listening to anyone—Father, His Word, His Spirit's conviction, fellow siblings, God's servants outside the church in the world, human and angelic, even divine judgment (in or outside the church), none of them and none of that changed his mind, still unrepentant—what else are they going to possibly say if it gets to that point of majority punishment and he's still pro-sin...? (I'm talking about the guy in 2 Cor 2 if he's not repentant after receiving punishment.)
Considering they already showed him Scripture, and majority disapproval... such an unrepentant person (you're saying in case he, in 2 Cor 2, is not actually repentant when they extended forgiveness) should he logically want to continue listening to what is soundly preached in the congregation if he's against it? Look at what goes on here. Is he, if he is still in his disagreement of what God's Word says, going to want to go back knowing how they correct sin, obediently, and he's still not sincerely against sin / not repentant? Knowing what will happen... the correction that the congregation does...? as God's Word says to do? Whatever judgment God sent him outside the church (or within the congregation say he wasn't expelled but flogged within the church?) should have been enough to cause him to repent (presuming they survive any divine judgment God sends against them)— but if he hadn't repented, this whole process is just going to continue until he does sincerely submit (or death gets to him first [even if his soul is saved from the Great White Throne judgment because he sincerely believed in Jesus]). There will be no rest, true, genuine communion inside the congregation happening if they receive him—defiantly unrepentant—back in, with sin not addressed/truly corrected but allowed to fester. Because if he's unrepentant then his attitude towards sin and towards God is not right. The unrepentant offender hasn't actually repented of their sin and of their disagreement with what God said is sound (because the way they go about thinking, doing, and teaching is unsound). One is not going to sincerely stand what the other is saying and doing. Is that peaceful communion for either one?
Similarly, since I am saying that Hymenaeus experienced this kind of expulsion / expelling from the church, handed over to Satan, thus outside the church, for disagreeing with God and God's family / household / seed on every level, and punished, related to the last thing I just said:
2 Timothy 2:17-18 New International Version
17 Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have departed from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some...
Their teaching is a gangrene. Whether this is the same Hymenaeus or not, what I want to draw attention to specifically: someone with an infectious disease that spreads (like a mold spreads / a leprosy on a house or on a body) if not healed, needs to be removed from the rest: if what's erring is showing indication of “not stopped within them”, but persisting, unfaded (unrepentant), even spreading, even after a washing. If you leave it in in that state, you're not protecting anyone. They continue thinking / spreading unsound thoughts to others amongst them, that they're right (despite not being in the truth). And allowed to deceive others in the congregation about what is acceptable, wrecking their faith. So, whoever the offender is in 2 Cor 2, the only reason they would be welcomed back in, is if they're showing indication that they have stopped their disagreement with God (as it is written). Of what God has allowed others in the congregation to see and wants this in them corrected / submitted back to the truth. Otherwise, even the unrepentant sinner themselves would not want to re-enter the church if they don't sincerely agree with God's Word yet they have noted (they meaning the unrepentant “him” in 2 Cor 2) that those inside of the congregation do agree. It's not an environment the unrepentant wants to be in. Only the repentant do.
So I think it's safe to say, if he wanted back in, that he was in agreement now. Repentant.
Divorce isn't a transgression of the Law, but prescribed in the Law in certain cases (like God divorcing Israel expecting her to come back and not go join herself to another / an idolatrous counterfeit instead of Him); ergo, divorce, although hated by God, is not a sin (God didn't sin) if it's done in accord with the Law, for the reasons He gave. That someone experienced a divorce is not a reason to expel them from the church (as if it were unrepentant sin / an attitude of still wanting to transgress the Law). So, yes, it is wrong for the congregation to expel people out for things Scripture does not tell them to expel people out for.
However, say there's an unjust expelling, that could still be a hidden blessing / result in favor: an unjust expelling would mean the congregation itself is clearly a congregation who doesn't submit to what is written (they are neither just nor merciful as the Law would have them obediently be). God could be leading the unjustly expelled person elsewhere, even if they must traverse a period of desertedness for a while, to lead the person into a place where His Word would be obeyed, faithfully, as it is written, as Jesus did; thus, even if suffering an injustice, it is time to depart from them. Don't go back to them:
Like the righteous suffering of the disciples who do submit to what is written like Jesus:
3 John 1:9-11 New International Version
9 I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will not welcome us. 10 So when I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that, he even refuses to welcome other believers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.
11 Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.
John 9:22 New International Version
His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.
It is possible to suffer unjust expulsion, and it still result in good if you're walking in obedience to God / walking in that attitude who wants to submit to what is written (like Jesus and His disciples).
It's also possible to suffer (but rightly-so) a just expulsion for your sin, and it result in good (because that's why God commanded it in the first place by default); you don't want to obey Him.
Both, ironically, sifts people out to where God wants them to be: keeps together those who are, in Spirit and in Truth, genuinely wanting to obey justly and mercifully as the Law commands, while separating them from those who don't want to obey as it is written.
And the inverse, when the congregation itself is corrupt entirely beyond the individual who does listen to what is written, there is good in self-expelling yourself when it is clear that people present in there are not going to tolerate the truth, as it is written, but you move along with people who do want to hear the truth as it is written:
Acts 19:8-10 New International Version
8 Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. 9 But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. 10 This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.
Just like it's possible to enter a righteous congregation, but self-expel yourself because you, being wicked, don't like sound teaching.
In all these Biblical scenarios, just and unjust expellings, by self or by congregation, there comes a time to depart so that those who do want to submit to the totality of what is written can learn in peace, and grow in their familiarity with what is sound, right, good.
Reining in the focus for a moment to an expelling that is just (not “unjust” examples although they can result in good if the person being expelled truly wants to obey God as it is written, so remove the fear and anxiety of unjust expellings from your heart, because God is sovereign even in those; but again, focusing back on a “just” expelling) as the one prescribed by Paul in agreement with the Father's Law:
Ultimately, before being forgiven, the individual has to make a choice in that period of separation, the separation which in and of itself is what is putting the pressure on them to make a final decision: do I love my sin more? or God, His Way, and His family more? That period of separation, that pressure that he's feeling from the separation, is suppose to make him decide. And if it puts them in the hands of the world / worldly authorities (human and angelic), whom are less just and merciful than God's Way, that should make them appreciate the justice and mercy inside God's church all the more. We're willing to welcome you back in and forgive, but change your attitude towards sin because the correction is not going to let up otherwise. It'll just continue.
Your fear is that a person—upon suffering the sufficient correction / punishment, obediently as Paul described or suffering an unjust punishment [leaning more towards the latter, though possibly both]—is going to decide, “I love my sin more” and just leave, not come back (or if you're too “trigger happy”, not reasoning enough one-on-one, and not reasoning enough on the “two-to-three on one” basis either; again, remember that all I'm seeing is Scripture; you're familiar with the situation going on around you, how “much” or how “little” “winning over” correction he has received from you, your husband and any other spiritual relatives of his if it's mentioned). But if after that, a person is not won over, in general, if it's causing you grief/pain, don't feel guilt about the idea of handing them over or allowing them to go to a congregation to receive / “suffer” further correction / punishment from a larger congregation or from God. You can't control their defiant pursuit / their choice if that's the case. But need back up for their own good included (and whomever a Hymenaeus spreading gangrene-like teachings decides to share defiant thoughts with).
If a separation happens, we're not omniscient to know where God is going to lead them, what God is going to make them live through, sending them signs, correction, by other means, in other ways, in the years to come to make them go back like a prodigal son (like other friends of your husband which you mentioned). Or that person may persist in rebellion despite the judgments God sends to him. We can't foresee that journey. But there's no reason to distrust the process (even if an unjust expelling happens or maybe a perfectly just one; a flogging or verbal flogging of correction). I don't think you were ousting him, but it was something he wanted to do himself; for his sake, I do pray that he humbly submits to the correction of two or three since you say the congregation is unforgiving. And to find peace in his own mind coming into agreement with God's Word.
The danger I see and thus what I'm warning about is if / in the case that the person ends up choosing rebellion, in defiance of what's written, despite being shown the truth undeniably clear, and you, becoming aware of this, still decide to openly welcome him as your friend, despite the defiant rebellion, don't expect that to be a judgment-free yoke from God, devoid of arousing His jealousy. The emotional tie and social bond, because it's as strong as it is, makes you doubt this is true, but Scripture's warning about yoking to the defiant, who disagree with God, don't want to obey Him, is given so we don't arouse His jealousy. It's not meaningless warning. Don't feel needless guilt for distancing from a defiant believer until they come back / until they change that attitude / if they come back to a humble submission after punishment, when all you have done is obeyed what God instructed us to do in these situations.
You should have peace. Including if, somehow down the line, the case gets to the level of the wider congregation now judging a person inside the church (his or anyone else's), and the congregation's response with them is one that—understandably if they obey God—refuses to tolerate unrepentant attitudes toward sin amongst them (an attitude of, “that's not sin / that's not wrong even if God says it is. I'm going to continue in my violating ways amongst you all”). They're not suppose to tolerate it. Even if they're disobediently unforgiving and petty, God can still use that unforgiveness and pettiness for good.
And in the future, don't be closed off to the possibility that even if that same congregation has been unjust/erring in their verdict in other cases in the past, judge that case and their reactions to it for what it is: compare everything to the Commands of God, the written instructions, and if they're not wrong for it, but agreeing with what is written, then have peace with how they decide on that case. Like Caiaphas, though putting Jesus to death, God still spoke something right despite his wickedness,
John 11:49-52 New International Version
49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.
Matthew 26:3-4 New International Version
3 Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, 4 and they schemed to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him
Clearly, Caiaphas was lawless in his pursuit to kill Jesus, but sometimes for being in a position of authority, which YHWH allowed him to rise into, appointed him for, they might speak a right thing that people need to hear.
So, knowing that this kind of congregation-level punishment is allowed by the Word throughout Scripture, don't let any corrupt mishandlings of it turn you aversed to in principle, in case you had been, just because unjust expellings / unjust time outs have happened in the past [due to unjust basis and/or prolonged longer than they should have prolonged the "time out" and they're taking it to degrading levels and overwhelming people with sorrow, no comfort extended afterward].
God is sovereign and knows what He's doing when He sends a Christ-like person, submitting to everything that is written, to a congregation and they unjustly get expelled out. (Should that Christ-like person insist, “but no, they need to be saved in that synagogue that I've been shut out from; they can't shut me out. I will persist and come back to save your souls”? No. As you acknowledge, shake the dust from off your feet. Move it along).
Same with an individual who, although may not physically be shutting you out, in spirit is suggesting: if you don't agree with my choice, it's okay I'll leave. (They're shutting you out from them / their lives.) It's the same attitude, just in reverse; self-expelling, but instead of from an unrighteous congregation, is self-expelling from a righteous congregation (if the congregation is submitting to what's written). Further insistence, after the sound Scriptural truth has been shown to them, is not expected from you nor something you should feel guilty about not doing and for distancing instead.
I'm not saying: “and conclude that this is how it will be; this is definitely how he's going to react”, since after what you've further shared, you've barely shared Scriptural truth with him directly (I did not get this impression from your opening reply, which I've read over to see if I missed mention of it; I'm gathering this from how you subsequently replied to OtakuKat and to my reply after your opening post). All I'm saying is “ 'if' the situation develops along such and such path”, what you should have peace with obeying. Also, reminding you of good things by going about providing context to remove any distrust for the Biblical process you may have. It is sound even when people around us are not being sound; an unsound person going to a congregation that is unsound in some respects, but may be more sound than him, may result in good; so whatever happens, we submit to what is written. You may or may not be able to see the good from your perspective of all the past expellings/putting out (including unjust ones), immediately or ever in your lifetime, but as long as we do what is written (whether the congregation or the individual unjustly expelled doing as it is written), it will result in good.
Romans 8:28 New International Version
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose.
Footnotes
a. Romans 8:28 Or that all things work together for good to those who love God, who; or that in all things God works together with those who love him to bring about what is good—with those who
John 14:15 New International Version
15 “If you love me, keep my commands.
[to be continued...]
cristobela Vice Captain
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cristobela Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 5:59 am
[...continued]
Aquatic_blue
cristobela
due to your close yoke to them—and it has come into your knowledge/attention, that despite you all's correction, upon receiving even more correction from fellow believers, yet even more from the rest of the church, still reject what is written), then do not closely fellowship with this person because that makes them not your brother and sister.
Now this makes me think you never read my original post or something. You mentioned "you all's correction." The only thing we did was thank him for sharing his thoughts with us and that we're still his friend. That's as far as this goes. The church doesn't even know - they have no clue, but it's not our business to tell and it'd be a rotten thing to do before he gets the chance to share this with his own family. After all, his own parent's may be able to share with him a great deal as he cares for them and he may listen to them and change this around.
Though I addressed it now, in passing above, in case what I meant gets lost / forgotten in my addressing 2 Cor 2, I just want to reiterate as a stand alone reply: I'm speaking in the proverbial (“if this happens, then that”), not saying the correction by many more has already happened. The depth or the brevity of direct Scriptural correction was not obvious to me before your reply to OtakuKat and to myself.
And I'm in agreement.
Aquatic_blue
cristobela
Similarly, we do not literally consume animals found strangled and dead / road kill, nor the uncleanliness of blood that contaminates our body, just because someone was sent in vision to eat something unclean one day and told to eat of it in the vision and thus now we will unstably conclude that there is absolutely nothing unclean, even unclean animals, yet Jesus continues to call those animals unclean all the way in Rev 18:2, end times, definitely New Covenant.
I'm not certain how some of these seemingly off topic bits come up. Either way, I believe that animals are not clean/unclean as they once were. I believe some animals are filthier or have higher chances of disease or parasites and would normally fall on the 'unclean' list (and they can pose a risk to eat health wise), but it seems Peter's vision was quite clear when it said in Acts 10:9-16 (specifically verse 15), that it says, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." It seems this is God's way of telling us that if we're giving thanks for it, it's good enough to eat. I'm not saying eat without of reason (I don't think it's wrong of anyone to eat roadkill, but I do think they take a risk when they do so). Although, I know this is controversial, too, and some belief systems still stick to clean/unclean animals and I don't have an issue with that. It all comes down to personal belief on that one, but I don't think it's salvation issue, either.
There are passages in the Holy Bible that apply to a specific time, specific place, and a specific situation and then there are others that are forever, always, continouous, 'til the end of time type deals. We have to read and figure out which it is.
What do you mean by the uncleanliness of blood that contaminates our body? Do you mean of course that it wouldn't be correct to sit there and drink a glass of blood or are you saying our blood in our body is generally an unclean thing? I'm not for certain.
I suspect it is this: when I sense that there's a discomfort with submitting to how Jesus taught His disciples to apply something, or that (because I know how people distort Scripture, even Paul, to come up with lawless positions) that my words will be distorted in the same way if I don't elaborate and draw attention to key details. I go about verifying, “I'm not being unstable with this nor denying anything that is written, even in the New Testament. I see a nuance (echoed faithfully throughout Scripture) that others haven't seen”, and logically go about demonstrating / proving: I am seeking to submit to everything that is written in the New Testament [which does not deny, but upholds what is written in the Old Testament]; I am capable of handling the Word of God with care/precision picking up on the nuances of words and the particular argument being drawn against the Pharisees in any given situation in Scripture. I have been able to identify what has kept people from seeing and accepting the sound, cohesive thread spanning throughout Scripture, how everything God Commanded harmonizes, and the Way to properly live on a corrupt earth that I see has remained consistent from Genesis to Revelation, that would limit the effects of corruption/decay in our lives (now that we're living in cursed conditions), and keep it from accelerating, especially if heeded on a national scale, all nations would be blessed if they lived this way, in The Way. I point out the most egregious mishandlings that people make / allege against Jesus, that subverts how Jesus was actually arguing on the whole and in specific in that conversation not subverting the point He made against a Pharisee, that most people handle unstably to come away with lawless interpretations, that Peter warned against, including everything in the epistles that I've noted people don't usually heed or even notice is there.
In short to ensure clarity (quite frankly, the Holy Spirit wants it addressed otherwise we won't reach unity in the faith as we're suppose to).
Ephesians 4:11-16 New International Version
11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Coming into agreement with Christ Jesus, as He interprets and applies Scripture. So that people clearly see where I am coming from, if they haven't participated in previous discussions where I've made it clear and I think they won't be able to see such things either. My conscience cannot rest until I make that demonstrably clear, “relax people” I'm not here to be a heretic but be sound to everything I see in all the books of the Bible, interpreted as Jesus interprets them consistently (and guard against “every wind of teaching” and the prejudicial way people read not allowing everything in the text staring them in the face to stand, even just one verse away, or within the same verse; I've seen this: they reason in such a way that won't account for that detail that exists there in the verse, and it simultaneously being true as another detail, even in the same letter and same chapter, by the way they conclude/interpret).
So, why I was alluding to Peter's vision earlier, this very thing: you say, “but it seems Peter's vision was quite clear when it said in Acts 10:9-16 (specifically verse 15), that it says, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.' ”
The symbolic words I was referring to.
But the symbol was not taken literally by Peter himself, what he finally concluded was the meaning of the vision—those symbolic words spoken by the Lord Jesus—despite seeing and hearing Him say it three times.
Rather:
Acts 10:28 (NIV)
28 He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.
Acts 10:34-35 New International Version
34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.
The Gentiles whom Jesus purifies of their unclean natures / unclean ways upon the earth are welcomed into the fold / the Body / His Body.
Side Note about Acts 10:28—the “our law” that Peter refers to here, about not associating with a Gentile, is purely a self-imposed, Jewish law (if not false interpretation of God's Law unstably handling a Command denying the very Spirit of what it's saying); this conclusion is not anything you find commanded in the Old Testament by our Heavenly Father, and you won't find it because Gentiles lived amongst the Jews in the Old Testament. Thus why you find God commanding that Gentiles inside of the Israelite community live by the same law:
Exodus 12:49 (NIV)
49 The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you.”
Leviticus 24:22 (NIV)
22 You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the Lord your God.’”
Numbers 15:29 (NIV)
29 One and the same law applies to everyone who sins unintentionally, whether a native-born Israelite or a foreigner residing among you.
They even kept the passover together in the Old Testament:
Exodus 12:48 (NIV)
48 “A foreigner residing among you who wants to celebrate the Lord’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat it.
They're fellow-shipping together in the Old Testament. Even permanently living amongst the Israelites. Rahab, the prostitute who was from Jericho (thus a Gentile), lived among them:
Joshua 6:25 (NIV)
25 But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho—and she lives among the Israelites to this day.
If the Pharisees or teachers of the Law amongst the Jews were trying to base themselves on a Command, the closest thing is Joshua 23:7, 23:12, which they're perverting; it says:
Joshua 23:7 (NIV)
7 Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them.
Joshua 23:12-13 (NIV)
12 “But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, 13 then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you.
...but the Pharisees twisted the intention of this Command. The intention is this: "do not yoke yourselves to idolaters". These were defiantly sinful people YHWH wanted to drive out of the land of Canaan; they did not (and did not want to) worship Him. The Command is not a prohibition against associating with any and all Gentiles, but a prohibition against associating with Idolaters. The same concept as found in the New Testament:
2 Corinthians 6:14-16 (NIV)
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial[a]? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”[b]
Footnotes:
a. 2 Corinthians 6:15 Greek Beliar, a variant of Belial b. 2 Corinthians 6:16 Lev. 26:12; Jer. 32:38; Ezek. 37:27
1 Corinthians 5:11 (NIV)
11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister[a] but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
Footnotes:
a. 1 Corinthians 5:11 The Greek word for brother or sister (adelphos) refers here to a believer, whether man or woman, as part of God’s family; also in 8:11, 13.
That made perfectly clear about Acts 10:28 so no on gets it twisted (how Jewish law and/or a traditional Jewish interpretation of the Law is not necessarily reflective of YHWH's Law as it is written, the heart intent behind the Command, what it really is prohibiting), what I wanted to say about the logical issue with how people quote the words spoken in the symbolic vision, yet never acknowledge the meaning Peter arrived at, ignoring what Peter said about the meaning, and that's this:
Gentiles who convert (and by this I mean, genuinely regenerated on the inside by the Holy Spirit, born-again) in Christ, enter Christianity, are not on the menu. “Hey, that Gentile converted to Christianity; fair game: let's stick him into our mouths, chew, and swallow because Jesus purified him”. Is that a sound conclusion to make? We can eat human beings now? Jews and Gentiles. No. Then why try to make that argument to the literal unclean animals? All the more when you see that Jesus is still identifying the literal unclean animals as unclean (thus not changed, like converted Jews and Gentiles are, but unchanged in the literal), after that vision He has sent to Peter to one of His own disciples who also walked with Jesus on earth.
Revelation 18:2 New International Version
2 With a mighty voice he shouted:
“‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!’[a] She has become a dwelling for demons and a haunt for every impure spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal.
Footnotes
a. Revelation 18:2 Isaiah 21:9
Despite all the different winds of teaching, there is only one interpretation that allows for both passages (and visions) to be simultaneously true, which isn't difficult to arrive at if we acknowledge everything in the chapter: as Peter stably, and not lawlessly, concluded the meaning of the vision Jesus sent to him was a statement about about Gentiles being accepted just as much as Jews, people whose natures have actually been cleansed. Unlike literal unclean animals whose natures have not been changed as Jesus continues to call them unclean to the church.
Like “eat my blood”. We don't do that literally. It was used as a symbol (for many things once we dive into it: accept His life, let His life become a part of your being, take part of His sacrifice, accept His life and life example as something that strengthens you like food, His life blood that will be poured out for you to make atonement for you).
1 Kings 19:8 New International Version
8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.
Zechariah 9:17 New International Version
17 How attractive and beautiful they will be! Grain will make the young men thrive, and new wine the young women.
Genesis 49:11 New International Version
11 He will tether his donkey to a vine, his colt to the choicest branch; he will wash his garments in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes.
John 6:56 New International Version
56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
Matthew 26:26-29 New International Version
26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”
27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the[a] covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
Footnotes
a. Matthew 26:28 Some manuscripts the new
Deuteronomy 12:23 New International Version
23 But be sure you do not eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat.
Leviticus 17:11-14 New International Version
11 For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.[a] 12 Therefore I say to the Israelites, “None of you may eat blood, nor may any foreigner residing among you eat blood.”
13 “‘Any Israelite or any foreigner residing among you who hunts any animal or bird that may be eaten must drain out the blood and cover it with earth, 14 because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, “You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.”
So, we see, that even in the Law itself: - literal blood, not food; but “not literally blood” entering your mouth, it's just symbolic (wine), no problem.
Same: - literal unclean animal, not food; but “not literally unclean animal” entering your mouth (no unclean animal passed Peter's lips), it's just symbolic (Gentiles converting), no problem; accept them into the Body (not your literal mouth / your literal human body's digestive system, because, just like literal blood that the rest of the Word of God in the New Testament is still identifying as unclean, do not eat, it's not food in the literal, and humans are not food either; don't literally eat them—Jews and Gentiles alike—because that is literally unclean to do).
There's definitely a hint of difference between a cow and a human in the Word of God:
Ezekiel 4:12-15 New International Version
12 Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” 13 The Lord said, “In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them.”
14 Then I said, “Not so, Sovereign Lord! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No impure meat has ever entered my mouth.”
15 “Very well,” he said, “I will let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human excrement.”
Cow is clean to eat. But there's something about the human that is unclean to eat. And if we're honest, the Law of God is the only legitimate thing that keeps us from consuming fellow human beings as part of our diet (people under famine, in desperation, may feel compelled to resort to that because the hunger is so severe, but it's not right/good; humans are not literal food for us). If majority, worldly consensus said, “it's okay to eat humans now”, God's Word would still disagree.
If ever there was a culture needing preaching to in order to stop their cannibalism, the commands in the Word of God would combat it. The same for a culture eating human organs—and that is actually a fad in the USA: placentophagy.
Quote:
Human placentophagy, or consumption of the placenta, is defined as "the ingestion of a human placenta postpartum, at any time, by any person, either in raw or altered (e.g., cooked, dried, steeped in liquid) form".[1] While there are several anecdotes of different cultures practicing placentophagy in varying contexts, maternal placentophagy started in the US in the 1970s, with little to no evidence of its practice in any traditional or historic culture.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_placentophagy
Quote:
The placenta is an organ that develops in your uterus during pregnancy. This structure provides oxygen and nutrients to your growing baby and removes waste products from your baby's blood. [...]
Not only is it a human organ, but carries human waste; it is definitely an unclean thing for humans to eat. Yet happening today. This will not be strengthening to you; it's biohazardous waste, not actually food for you that will truly strengthen you.
The only acceptable form of “eating blood” in the Law is merely the blood of grapes that we consume. He's not instructing us that now, in Him and if we pray over literal blood, a literal unclean thing to eat, that it is now clean to eat / is now food.
The literal unclean things never were, have never been, are not, never will be food for humankind (blood has never been food and never will be food; even “unclean plants” if we were to call it that; it's not all food. And we don't eat the green grass of our lawns, poison ivy, just any and every green thing; it's not that just anything can be prayed over and it's now human food that will do you good to eat, if we're honest about what the Word of God is actually consecrating as food for mankind).
And there is the key word: “food” and “consecrated by the Word of God”. It's not just prayer, but consecrated by the Word of God / the Truth as actually being food.
1 Timothy 4:1-5 New International Version
4 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believeandwho know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 becauseit is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
John 17:17 New International Version
17 Sanctify them by[a] the truth; your word is truth.
Footnotes
a. John 17:17 Or them to live in accordance with
Psalm 119:142 New International Version
142 Your righteousness is everlasting and your law is true.
Where prayer comes into play is if you bought something in the market that may have been offered to another “god” (to idols), but you're not eating the meat in an idol's temple; you bought it in a public marketplace to eat at home. You can just pray over such things if you suspect it was prepared in the name of an idol, and it's fine to eat the food (not unclean things, like blood, human organs, feces, grass, rocks, etc, which are not food for humans. They are not good for food. You do not pray over such things so that you can eat it and avoid harm because you prayed over it. The Word of God does not identify that as literal food for your literal body); in contrast, we can pray over food, devoid of any idolatrous attachments (thus your home where you only worship God not idols, not inside of an idolatrous temple where it can be misconstrued that you're honoring the idolatrous beliefs, even demons, demonic doctrine).
1 Corinthians 8:10 New International Version
10 For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols?
1 Corinthians 10:14-33 New International Version
14 Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. 15 I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. 16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.
18 Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? 19 Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. 22 Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
23 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. 24 No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.
25 Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, 26 for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”[a]
27 If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. 28 But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience. 29 I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours. For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience? 30 If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?
31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33 even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.
Footnotes
a. 1 Corinthians 10:26 Psalm 24:1
The context is food offered to an idol. Nowhere here is Paul being overrighteous like a Pharisee, adding more restrictions nor being Lawless as Peter said people would twist Paul's epistles into. “Eat anything” (the beginning of v. 25 above) is contextualized to what Paul knows to be food (he takes it for granted that we know), not approving of eating literal human organs, for instance, nor blood, but to what Paul knows to be food.
The issue was not: what if it's a vulture, or a rat, or a pig. But: what if it's been offered to an idol?
And if you're referring to Romans 14, same issue there, key context:
Romans 14:20 New International Version
20 Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.
Romans 14:6 New International Version
6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.
Romans 14:1-2 New International Version
14 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.
Again with the phrase “eat anything” (the middle of v.2 above), in context: do you eat only vegetables? Or vegetables and meat? Anything out of the things the Word of God defined as literal food for literal human bodies on a corrupt earth, cursed conditions, you can choose to eat “only vegetables” or “meat and vegetables”. The same thing Jesus would have to correct the Pharisees on (who limited more than what God Commanded).
Mark 7:19 New International Version
19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)
And knowing the conclusion that Peter arrived at from the vision Jesus sent him, and that Jesus still identifies certain animals as unclean in Rev 18:2, this verse is not saying: “and in saying this, Jesus declared all literal animals as clean”; that's a very different statement, yet people read Mark 7:19 as if that's precisely what He's saying, but that would an unstable, lawless interpretation, just like Peter warned people do to the Scriptures including of Paul's epistles. But none of them are teaching lawlessness.
Not every single thing that God created and exists on the planet is “food” for human beings—be it living creature or even a plant (not living). Only what the Word of God and His Commands consecrated as food for our literal body is food. The things He continues identifying as unclean, consistently until the end in the New Testament, are not food. (Not surprisingly in agreement with the Old Testament because that is what Jesus drew our attention back to, rebuked the Pharisees for ignoring it and in effect prohibiting what God's Commands actually allowed by their self-imposed, traditional rituals / customs and their “official” traditional interpretations that disregarded when God's Commands actually said something was good to do or not good to do).
A disputable matter (the end of Romans 14:1) is something that has no Commands for or against. (Same with observance of self-imposed days—like extra fast days and feasts days that the Jews imposed upon themselves, for example: Purim and Tisha B'Av are not Commanded by God, yet at the same time not honoring the idols of the nations, ergo not Lawless to observe and not Lawless to not observe; you're free to consider those days special or not). Similarly, not Lawless to eat this (i.e. wine, meat), and not Lawless to not eat this (i.e. wine, meat). Amongst options that are not Lawless in the first place, you're free to decide. You're not free to decide to consume blood, feces, human organs, convinced in our own mind about that. Those are actually Lawless/violate a Command. Where I could see people venturing about throwing the word “clean” / “unclean” around in the issue of wine: it's an intoxicant (thus toxic, intoxicating, contaminating). But the Law of God allows it. It's not Lawless. You're free to do it. Animals weren't eaten in the beginning; no one is obligating you, but it's not Lawless to eat what the Law allows. So you can eat and you can abstain from eating. Nothing in the Word condemns either option under corrupt conditions.
This is what I mean by people not defining terms Scripturally (such as “food”), not acknowledging all the details (Peter's actual conclusion of the vision, the context of it, what is actually being corrected by that vision; the self-imposed traditional interpretations that Jesus attacked as He defended the Father's Law [you can associate with Gentiles whose doing upon the earth and relation to Me has changed; it's the idolatrous you can't yoke to / fellowship with that His Law prohibits] and at the same time, continuing to identify literal unclean animals as unclean in the New Testament, still expressing agreement with the Father), and people not grasping the argument present (e.g. what's offered to idols [or made to look like you honor one] in the letter to the Corinthians is the issue; not that you “eat anything” placed in front of you unconditionally or else that would allow for things like eating literal human organs and blood; same for “eat anything” as it appears in Romans 14, contextualized to an issue of vegetables only, or vegetables and meat, wine or no wine, that are all defined as food by God's Commands, nothing lawless that is being debated); ignoring details in the very same passage, in the very same chapter, sometimes in the verse right next to it or in the very same exact verse, that drastically changes the interpretation to mean the opposite: not lawless, they're actually being Lawfully-adherent to the Commands, not denying the Father, by how they interpret, and what they're addressing.
And lastly here, your question, “What do you mean by the uncleanliness of blood that contaminates our body? Do you mean of course that it wouldn't be correct to sit there and drink a glass of blood or are you saying our blood in our body is generally an unclean thing? I'm not for certain.”
To the first part: correct, no one should drink a glass of literal blood.
To the second half: blood in our body belongs in the circulatory system. Once outside of that, there is potential for contamination (besides passing on disease, the blood carries waste material). Ergo why I specify blood does not belong in the mouth.
Similarly, why semen and menstrual blood are unclean; bodily fluids, where they shouldn't be, need to be washed away/cleaned up from the body. They're fine in their appropriate place. But our mouth is not the place for them to be in and none of that is food.
Now that we're here though, just to mention, an example of something that God's Commands would save people from if we defined food as God's Word consistently does:
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In traditional medicine, every last part of the turtle is consumed, including their turtle meat, as well as their skin, heads, eggs, shells and even their blood, urine, and bile. The eggs, blood and bile are all added to wine to provide particular cures, whereas the skin and head are eaten alone. The shell can either be ground into powder or boiled in water, and the urine is used as drops in the ear or consumed as a beverage.
They made the wine unclean with certain ingredients. Certain cultures, you might not even trust what they put in the wine (what they spike it with). But had they not contaminated the wine with uncleanness, the wine would've been fine, but otherwise, everything about this paragraph is violating God's Commands. Thus His Commands speaking against things like this going on in the earth to keep us safe from them. God's Commands are the only thing that defeat these aspects of their pagan culture. What comes out of the end of our digestive system (our's or an animal's) is not food, but waste. Not strengthening, but worthless can even disease you.
And a note about unclean animals: if God is telling human beings as a whole (because prior to there ever being a set-apart nation dedicated to worshiping Him only, there was Noah—before there was ever an Israel or a Moses—who knew the distinctions between clean and unclean animal, thus outside of “Mosaic Covenant” times too just like the Book of Revelation is not “Mosaic Covenant” either):
Genesis 7:2 New International Version
2 Take with you seven pairsof every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pairof every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate,
...so Gentiles knowing the distinction of clean and unclean too, in Noah's day, in Moses' day, in the disciples of Jesus' day and beyond, and we know that God creates with a purpose, then those unclean animals have a purpose on earth; hence why He wanted them saved not wiped out. If we remove them from the environment, like the worldly nations who reject/do not know YHWH's Wisdom, do in their pursuit to consume them as if they were good for food, then those unclean animals are not out there to do their job that keeps the environment in proper working order. This isn't just direct contamination of human bodies for eating what's unclean, but allowing the rest of the earth to be polluted for removing the natural filter that should be there in the ecosystem. We shouldn't support the act of unclean animals being slaughtered to feed human beings. That's an industry contaminating people directly and the rest of the earth indirectly. God sees all the repercussions.
Israel, beyond all the other nations on earth would be blessed with good health, for obeying His Wisdom, because they would be living in the proper Way on the earth that guarded them from all the diseases He sends among the nations (whom did not want to worship Him but went after idols, idols who don't guard them with His Commands, His Way).
Deuteronomy 4:8 New International Version
8 And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?
Deuteronomy 7:12-15 New International Version
12 If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. 13 He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and olive oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. 14 You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor will any of your livestock be without young. 15 The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you.
Micah 4:2 New International Version
2 Many nations will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 16:19 New International Version
19 Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, “Our ancestors possessed nothing but false gods, worthless idols that did them no good.
Knowing this, that the other nations are living in such a way, without YHWH and His Law, that is worthless, not good; that the other nations in order to have true justice and mercy, righteous decrees, in order to thrive and be disease free naturally with God's favor, will need to learn the Law that comes from Jerusalem, that comes from the God of Jacob, from YHWH; why would anyone be so defensive about the ways gentile nations are living? They're clearly living in the wrong ways that diseases them, makes them barren, weakens them and overburdens their lives (more than Adam and Eve's sin already burdens our lives; they add to the burdens and remove what helps us bear it or even avoid the unnecessary burdens). Many nations will one day want to know the Law of YHWH, every piece of Wisdom that keeps them safe and benefits them. What they have / what YHWH allowed them to have in their rebellion is worthless. And the nations did rebel: that's why they went after idols.
If we keep the big picture in mind, where this is all heading, seeing these Commands are still protecting, it is sound / good doctrine to say that everyone righteous in the New Testament is speaking in accord with the Father's Commands, that affect our very body and its health. There's no sound objection to interpret otherwise; that Jesus (and His disciples) are teaching something altogether different when it's based on what the Father has been saying all along just kept sincerely from the inside out. Proper stewardship of body, land, and animals (on a corrupt earth). No one will be eating any animal under perfect conditions, no death. But until then, these Commands are still protecting us all.
The Law itself prohibits one from making literal animal sacrifices, grain offerings, drink offering, outside of the appointed place, things like that. I'm aware. And it's obedient to the Law to not do so outside of Jerusalem. Hence why Paul made every effort to travel to Jerusalem in order to observe certain things (like Pentecost / Feast of Weeks):
Acts 20:16 New International Version
16 Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus to avoid spending time in the province of Asia, for he was in a hurry to reach Jerusalem, if possible, by the day of Pentecost.
It involves making new grain offerings, burnt offerings, drink offerings, in Jerusalem. I'm not saying we disobey the Commands for the when and where the appropriate place to make sacrifices is / not a sin to partake of them (and by this time, Acts 20:16, Jesus had long been offered as atonement sacrifice once-and-for-all for sin, had resurrected from His crucifixion and ascended into the sky in Acts 1, sent / poured out the Holy Spirit on the Jews observing Pentecost in Acts 2 [thus, sacrificing for sins had definitely ended by Acts 1, let alone Acts 20, but not all sacrifices are made to atone for sin; some to express thankfulness, fellowship with God, eat in His presence, commemorate and prophesy things about Him]; so these rituals are just commemorative and prophetic pictures of things He did, does, and will do. I'm not saying they're atoning for anything, but they are still speaking of Him, commemorating and prophesying). Nor is it a sin to not partake of the Festivals (there are three: Passover/Unleavened Bread, Festival of Weeks/Pentecost, and Festival of Tabernacles) since we don't live there either. That's not setting Commands aside; that's obeying what the Commands say themselves (certain time and place to observe certain things). One day, even Gentile nations will have to pilgrimage to Jerusalem to observe the Feast of Tabernacles or else they get no rain; no covenant in effect in the Old Testament required that of Gentile nations [neither Noah's, Abraham's, Moses' Covenant]. I could be wrong but that sounds to be at Jesus' return [Zech 14, the beginning of the chapter, a return—a day without light, cold, frost, no day or night—when He defeats all of Jerusalem's enemies, a plague that makes them rot while they're still standing / alive, on all of the people who warred against her, them and their animals, a plague of no rain to the survivors from the Gentiles nations who don't go up to Jerusalem year after year to worship Him at the Festival of Tabernacles, Gentiles making yearly pilgrimages to Jerusalem to observe the Feast of Tabernacles. That hasn't happened yet]. I think we're definitely in agreement here.
But as for what the epistles (and the gospels) are saying, they're not teaching that sin (transgressing of the Law) is okay to do, nor redefining food (once we define it stably in the way Paul and Jesus would recognize food, not literal human organs, blood, not even all plants).
In line with what I said earlier about hints that a congregation is not going to teach you the full truth as it is written, and that it's okay to be expelled from such a congregation, because they weren't going to keep you guarded / safe in the truth anyway, this also is a hint:
Isaiah 66:17 New International Version
17 “Those who consecrate and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one who is among those who eat the flesh of pigs, rats and other unclean things—they will meet their end together with the one they follow,” declares the Lord.
Following such a person will be misleading. If not blatantly worshiping idols, it's a person that doesn't make the fine distinctions as Jesus, Paul, and Peter does, but distorts whom YHWH reveals Himself to be (that is a true statement from YHWH; "declares the Lord"). So following such a one, would not guard and save from dangerous aspects of our pagan culture / the ways of the nations, that don't actually heal, but sicken, weaken us, and mislead us. If they don't make the fine distinctions Jesus made and define things as He did, they're not allowing you to conclude as He does.
Aquatic_blue
cristobela
When those erring thoughts get into the church (into any believer), I consider that Jezebel being inside the church teaching, whether someone with those thoughts is physically at your local congregation or not, Jezebel has gotten into the church.
I'm not convinced that this can be accurate. What I believe would be the case is the church is lacking in growth because they play it safe - stick to the traditions - they fear change and prefer normal/comfortable living. This doesn't mean that there is a Jezebel like teacher telling him that this is okay. Lack of growth and then following advice from a book written by the pastor that is not part of our congregation plays a part.
The underlined, since you said the book undeniably, even by the cover, is teaching against the Father (“It's not even a question that the book defies God's teachings. You can just tell by looking at the cover”), is what I would consider to be the Jezebel-like teaching inside him (the church), since we're the temple of the Holy Spirit, and it's affecting his thinking/belief.
Aquatic_blue
I get it, we don't agree on a lot of things. That's fine. I'll keep taking this situation day-by-day with prayer and such.
Let's add one more (lol): not fine.
(Though I would hope that you sense the soundness of what I'm sharing, and see how it's more protective to the nations, all the nations, even our own, when we heed how YHWH defines food consistently. The unclean ingredients in the cauldron/pot may be sickening people when they have been deceived to think that it's healing to them.)
And “not fine” because we need to reach unity in the faith, growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ, share His mind as He interprets in all things. Wherever we take the Gospel and the Word of God in its completeness, we should be able to protect people, save them from the cultural practices that plague them, unbeknownst to them, that only God's Commands draw attention to, shine a light on that darkness that has been inverted from what He says is actually good for them, protect them to the fullest extent that the Word of God allows them.
Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 11:10 am
cristobela, i think you fail to realize one thing. and it relates to this:
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And “not fine” because we need to reach unity in the faith, growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ, share His mind as He interprets in all things. Wherever we take the Gospel and the Word of God in its completeness, we should be able to protect people, save them from the cultural practices that plague them, unbeknownst to them, that only God's Commands draw attention to, shine a light on that darkness that has been inverted from what He says is actually good for them, protect them to the fullest extent that the Word of God allows them.
lets break it down, and no, this doesn't require scripture.
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And “not fine” because we need to reach unity in the faith, growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ, share His mind as He interprets in all things.
To an extent, I agree. But only to the knowledge of Christ. He doesn't interpret all things because like God, he knows everything and doesn't need to interpret anything. I mean, this dude told parables that he knew people won't understand and we have to interpret. He shows us thing that we need to see and hear and it's OUR interpretation, not God's because he gave us his word in book form. Don't be fooled by the old ways like that.
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Wherever we take the Gospel and the Word of God in its completeness, we should be able to protect people, save them from the cultural practices that plague them, unbeknownst to them, that only God's Commands draw attention to
I have an issue with this part. God gave us free will for a good reason. At this point, saying save them from cultural practices that plague them is wrong on so many levels. It's just saying let's strip the natives of what they know, of their history and force them to be part of the white culture because it's the only culture that is important. That in itself is discrimination because it's who they are, and the culture they were born in is part of that. And we can't take that away from them. We are here not to judge, but to spread the gospel, make disciples and lead people into Christ. I suggest you do some research on how the US came to be, and it's not all sunshine and roses.I told you before, and I can say it again. Do. Not. Judge. We need to respect their culture if we want them to respect ours.
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shine a light on that darkness that has been inverted from what He says is actually good for them, protect them to the fullest extent that the Word of God allows them.
Yes we are suppose to be the light, but it's God's job to protect his children. All we can do is hold each other accountable for what we do in God's name. Unless he tells you on his own, and when he knows is needed, he will say to protect. Again, don't be fooled by the old ways.
Speaking of holding each other accountable. There was one comment that you made, really made me upset and my heart broke for you because you love God, and loves scripture, but does the opposite of what God is telling you.
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At the same time, the rest of the church (even if they drive him away, be it his family or the local church) if they drive him away are doing everyone a favor, even him, because now no one will be deceived (or have the excuse to say that they did not receive sufficient warning) into believing that Jesus accepts our pursuit of what He calls crooked ways / deceitful desires in our flesh, suggesting following the sinful ways of our flesh / earthly nature that we're born with over the Father's Way is okay to do when Jesus clearly says, "no".
Jesus DID NOT say no. Like I said, he accepts everyone, even the lows of the lows. That was not the right thing to say, nor it's not true in this day and age. There are churches out there who welcome the LGBTQ+ community for who they are because they do understand the concept of Love God, Love Others! Loving others may not be easy but it's not hard to do! That comment shows that some churches are STILL homophobic, transphobic and that's not ok. They are God's children too, and remember when the disciples was gatekeeping Jesus from children? That is what we are doing with that community and it's not Christlike at all. If that church rejects Caleb, it's not his fault but theirs because they aren't willing to change and that can cause some religious trauma as a result. And you don't want to be that person to cause that trauma. Comments like this just forces them to believe that God doesn't love them for how they and and not what they are, which is completely false. This is one of the reasons, like I said, for suicide because through that, the would believe that they have no worth, no purpose and no one loves them because of a lost meaning of scripted being use to harm, not to build someone's self esteem and the belief that God loves them. And it's the same thing for that trauma and you guys wonder why that Christianity is dying in the US. Remember what Ephesians 4:29 tells us, and it applies how we treat everyone. Our words are powerful, but using in a context like this, is dangerous and can cause harm, contributing to that trauma or taking their own life. We are suppose to be Christlike, not gatekeepers who keep certain people out. We, as a whole needs to STOP gatekeeping. We aren't like the Pharisees. God torn that veil for a reason and we shouldn't be gatekeeping it. Jesus told those disciples to let the children come to them, and now he's telling us to let the LGBTQ+ community to come to him. There are a LOT of people in that community who get thrown on the streets because of the old teaching. Their families reject them and disown them because they get taught verses that isn't meant to be used. The homophobic churches kicks them out for the same reason. The homosexual is a sin was made by man, not by God. Jesus did not once said love thy neighbor but not this person or that person. He said love thy neighbor, PERIOD. I pray that one day, God will open your eyes to see what he sees to the fullest because the old ways aren't working anymore and it's time for change, big time. Like i said, the bible gets translated so many times that some the original meanings has been lost to time, and things does get changed or added in (which God did say not to do but people ignore that anyway). And because of that, it's easy to fall into that trap of using verses to spread hate on people that God himself created in his own image. That is the old way of doing things. Don't fall deeper into the old standards of the church. It's going to cause more hard than good.
To finish, Aqua is right. We can disagree on things like this and it's indeed fine. This is not "I'm right and that's that" or "This is what God said because this is how I see it." Everyone is allowed their opinion and is allowed to hold anyone accountable. It's ok to agree to disagree. It's ok not to be on the same page from time to time. What's not ok is to say that it's not fine. Because at the end of the day, Aqua only asked for help and advice, not a lecture. She wanted to hear someone's opinion on something, not a whole lot of scripture. Yes, your points are valid, but it's not what Aqua was actually looking for at this time. She asked on how you would handle a situation that she is in. She didn't ask for scripture because she is more than able to do it herself. This section of the guild is to ask for advice. There is a time and place for everything. At this time, she wanted someone's opinion on a situation. PLEASE keep that in mind for next time if someone asked for advice on handling a situation and if they asked for scriptures, then they will ask for it.
Wouldn't you say our ability to trust the gospel relies heavily on us being able to trust that what has been committed to us through writing is trustworthy musasgal? If we can't trust some of what is transmitted to us - how can we trust the rest? If we can't trust the books Jesus referred to how can we trust Him? If all we can have is personal revelation then how is that more trustworthy than any other personal revelations in other religions? If God did not preserve His words accurately then how can we trust that any message coming from Him?
As for cultures I feel that we have been told to go out in the world to all people, and to expose that which is opposed to the gospel.
2 Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
There is no doubt that many cultures are in the dark when it comes to the truth of the gospel, and faced with it they will not want to hold on to old practices because these are wrong. God being the God of truth is opposed to what is wrong, or damaging to the truth. It is antithetical to His very being. The culture that comes with Christianity is not a white or black culture. It is the true culture, a culture hopefully built on a foundation of Jesus. Though it shapes peoples life in changing them it also necessitates actions and reactions to the countercultures.
There is many aspects of us as humans that we are born with that are not from God, but is a result of the fall. Human reasoning is one of those. Though we are have will to do this or that - our will is limited by our understanding. Which is often colored by misconceptions and by our lack of all the knowledge needed to make an informed decision. Not to mention that naturally we are in a state that is in animosity to God, and our choices are based on and limited by our own fleshly desires.
Romans 8:7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.
We as humans are ruled by the flesh until we are set free. Our identity as Christians is not (insert word) then Christian. We are first and foremost Christians. That is our new identity in Christ. Everything else is much less in worth. Infinitesimally less.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
Paul goes on to say that he considers everything in comparison to Christ to be garbage. So it can be reasoned that anything outside our identity in Christ is to be considered the same. When we put anything before our Savior in value we devaluate Him. Same can be said if we put personal revelations or books of the counterculture above Him to guide us.
Philippians 3:8-10 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
In 2 Timothy we read that all Scripture comes from God.
All Scripture is God-Breathed
2 Timothy 3:14-16 …But as for you, continue in the things you have learned and firmly believed, since you know from whom you have learned them. From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful forinstruction, forconviction, forcorrection, and fortraining in righteousness,
So if I diverge on my road away from what Scripture is revealing to me then I am in terrible danger. Other books and whatever they are in nature doesn't compare when it comes to revealing the truth. So if I claim to love a friend, yet not tell them when they are in mortal danger then I am not really the friend I claim to be. If I read in my Bible that homosexuality is a sin, then I am not going to encourage it in those that I care about or for. I will ask them to repent. To turn from it, and to Christ. Like Jesus did, because it is Him I want to emulate. It may cost me everything doing this, but the Christian life is one of loss and one of carrying my own cross. Christ does indeed welcome the sinner, but he does at the same time want the sinner to sin no more. To be forgiven and that something bad doesn't befall you, it seems you must be willing to abandon the sin you are forgiven.
1 John 3:4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.
John 5:14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”
Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 3:33 pm
Garland-Green
Wouldn't you say our ability to trust the gospel relies heavily on us being able to trust that what has been committed to us through writing is trustworthy musasgal? If we can't trust some of what is transmitted to us - how can we trust the rest? If we can't trust the books Jesus referred to how can we trust Him? If all we can have is personal revelation then how is that more trustworthy than any other personal revelations in other religions? If God did not preserve His words accurately then how can we trust that any message coming from Him?
That is not the point I'm trying to make. The point I am trying to make here is that this. The bible translations over the centuries has lost the it's meaning. It is evident that down the line, people changed a lot of things to suit their own agenda. Like I said, homosexual is a sin is by man because it was added in because of a homophobic person. And contradicts what Jesus said about the loving God with everything you and and love others as you love yourself. I am not saying that we shouldn't use the bible because, like I said, it's a tool to learn from I'm saying that it's a contradiction to Love God, Love Others. It's not pick or choose. It's period. And if you believe in a man made lie over what Jesus has said, then why is the bible used to spread hate not love, and churches that doesn't support the LGBTQ+ community causes the religious trauma? Because I feel that this is a wake up call for everyone to stop spreading hate based on old teachings and old ways and focus on God more to show his true love for everyone, including the lows of the lows, the oppressed, the helpless. We are a part of a bigger picture for God's Kingdom. We have the responsibility to build the Kingdom on Earth, and to spread love in a way that it's not forceful or tearing someone down. We should not, and I do mean not use our faith to destroy and it's proven time and time again. I know it's uncomfortable hearing this, and our journeys are different etc, but that is no excuse to treat someone based of sexual orientation because again we are all created in God's imagine, period. God doesn't care about your appearance, or sexual orientation or the like, he cares about the heart and his relationship with you and the calling/opportunities given to us to build said Kingdom.
So let me ask you this. How are you going to accept everyone like how God accepts them for who they are and not what they are? What can you do to improve on treating others the way Jesus do? What can you do to save someone from either taking their own life or ended up having religious trauma (and yes, it's a real thing) because their sexuality is different from you?
That is not the point I'm trying to make. The point I am trying to make here is that this. The bible translations over the centuries has lost the it's meaning. It is evident that down the line, people changed a lot of things to suit their own agenda. Like I said, homosexual is a sin is by man because it was added in because of a homophobic person.
Do you have proof of this? I find it hard to believe since homosexuality has been taboo for centuries (especially during Biblical times). Also I must point out that being "homophobic" does NOT mean disagreeing with homosexuality. It is entirely possible to denounce homosexuality in a respectable, loving way (in fact we are expected to do so as God's followers).
Anyway this thread seems to be getting off topic. Perhaps we should continue this in a different thread?
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