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There's never any profit in rebellion; one person's lack of repentance can have a devastating affect on the body of Christ. The apostle Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 5:6
that a little yeast can seep into the entire batch and destroy it.
See, what Paul was saying was that when other members of the body of Christ see a brother or sister deliberately sin, there's a risk of them saying
to themselves, "Well, hey, God didn't do anything to so and so and if they're
getting away with it, so can I." And on and on it could go until everyone in the
congregation is worse off than before they were saved or redeemed from the
world.
In that case, the church might as well be stripped naked, tied down, and left waiting for a sleaze ball to come along and take advantage of it--we
have to do our best to avoid letting that happen.
The body of Christ has to be a cohesive unit in order to be effective. In order to remain strong, to resist blowing in the wind every which way like a feather or some other lightweight object, we have to expel certain people, but only when there's
no other alternative.
Taking a look at 1 Corinthians 5, we can see that a member of Christ's body rebelled against God and His Word, threatened to take the entire congregation off the good path with him, leaving Paul and the rest of the church with no other options than to make the man leave the church for a time, to,
"hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord."
Paul goes on to say that we shouldn't apply these same rules to the people of the world, or non-believers, as they're part of the world, not part of the body of Christ and they are
sinning out of ignorance. With them, we need to do all we can to guide them to the light of Christ
while making sure that
our churches are seeker sensitive.
But how can we be a witness to them if we won't even speak to them, or if we're inadvertently snubbing them by gearing our churches toward those who have an appetite for
the meat of God's Word, or have fat wallets?
He was talking specifically about a believer that is seriously backsliding and refuses to repent.
It's their behavior that could encourage other believers to trip and fall.
Two types of people that Paul was talking about are the wolves in sheep's clothing and the Sunday believers--I'm
sure you can think of even more.
The Sunday believers act like believers while they're in church. Some even carry it through the entire day. Then, during the remainder of the week, they live like the rest of the world. If their belief is genuine,
with encouragement, they'll come back eventually, living as a good example every day of the week.
We need to keep in mind that every day, every minute that we're given belongs to the
Lord; we should live our lives
accordingly.
The wolves in sheep's clothing are the people who come off acting all sweet and innocent and
then go after the body of Christ to rip it to shreds in the most brutal manner imaginable, like the devil himself.
These are the people that we shouldn't allow into our churches or into our
lives.
But how do we know the appropriate action to take?
It's one thing to sin unintentionally or in ignorance; for that, an abundance of absolution
is called for. But what if someone is caught in the grip of sexual sin and won't walk away from it? What if someone is a chronic thief, looking out for no one besides number one, ripping the old and the young off? How about if he or she is doing other things that he or she knows is against God, and against others,
but refuses to knock it off?
The remedy can be found in Luke 17 and in Matthew 18:15-17. If you've had a frank discussion with him or her and he or she repents
don't forget to praise God because He brought a brother or sister back.
But if the behavior continues and several solid members of the church have confronted him or her in a loving way, but
he or she still refuses to stop being naughty (Don't ya just love that word...
naughty.) Paul advises us to cut the cord; let the person follow the ways of Satan for a time, all the while praying for him or her to return to the Lord,
and to the church.
"My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice," Jesus said in Luke 8:21.
Just like Jesus is the most awesome big brother we could ever have because He
never forgets about us, we need to keep in mind that other believers are our brothers and sisters and we
should do all we can to keep it that way..
Copyright 2009 Sandra Purdue, A.K.A. The Bossy Church Lady. You can use whatever I write for whatever purposes as long as you don't take credit for what I've written.
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