Published: April 13, 2025 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Worship 2 - Part 14 | Scripture: 1 Corinthians 5:3-13
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Amen. Well, this morning as we discuss the breaking of bread, I'm going to answer a question that was asked um after service. It relates to a
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passage in in 1 Corinthians 5 that I alluded to. And um it also ties together um quite quite quite quite neatly the two topics of Coinia and the
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breaking of bread. And as as I've maintained, I think the breaking of bread is perhaps the um the most intimate form of coinia, the the manifestation of coinia. Uh we are going
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to look at its impact on the gospel. When we look at Galatians chapter 2 in the incident in Antioch where Peter actually breaks actually breaks fellowship over the matter of table
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fellowship, he breaks Coinia and Paul takes him to task. Um so in 1 Corinthians 5 we we have the
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uh the narrative of the um of the open and and wanting sin and immorality taking place in the church at
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Corenth and the apparent unwillingness of the Corinthian congregation to deal with it. So Paul says that he's going to deal with it on his own
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um and hand over the man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh that his spirit might be saved in the day of judgment. But further
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on, um, he talks about the feast of Passover, and he's using this feast
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to uh to apply the the the true meaning of Passover to the life of the congregation. So beginning in verse 7, he says, "Clean out the old leavenan
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that you may be a new lump just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been
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sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast not with old leavenan nor with the leavenven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
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So there there you see the idea of coinia let us but with that you also see the idea of table fellowship in this case the feast of passover that's what
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he's alluding to now that does not mean that that he is encouraging the church at Corinth to celebrate the Jewish feast of Passover this is uh applying the the
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foreshadowing symbol of Passover to the life of the church I also don't think it means what much of Christianity in especially the
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Roman Catholic Church but also Presbyterian uh theology I do not think that this means that Passover equals communion. Okay. So that's that is and
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I'm not going to get into the details here but um it it's something that you've probably heard you've probably read that circumcision of course is now baptism and Passover is now the Lord's
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supper. So, um, I don't think either one of those is correct, but I'm going to put them up here just as kind of
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the if you think this might be correct or you're not really sure, that's that's fine. this that's not the point of I just want to make sure we're clear that that's not we're going where we're going in 1 Corinthians 5 that he's not
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advocating the Lord's supper he's actually advocating the assembly of the body together in sincerity and truth and the context of course is that you the
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levan that needs to be removed is is immorality is sin he he's not he's not uh becoming esoteric here in terms of of
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what he's talking about still within the context of dealing with this man who is sinning. So he says start in verse um nine, I wrote you in my letter not to
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associate with immoral people. I did not say all I did not at all mean with the immoral people of the world or with the
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covetous and swindlers although I don't know why you'd associate with them or with idoltors for then you would have to go out of the world but actually I wrote to you not to associate with any
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so-called brother if he should be an immoral person or covetous or an idoltor or a reviler or a drunkard or a swindler not even to eat with such a
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one. So you you see how um how critical in Paul's uh ecclesiology we might say how critical table fellowship was in
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that culture not even to eat with such a one. Okay. So this is what the church has referred to as
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excommunication. We might call it ex coining coining. it that that that communion that the body is supposed to have in Christ where each joint and
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ligament provides what the body needs. That's broken. That's the X. Okay. Um it was something that it it pertains or it it relates to the cutting off of the
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rebellious man from the camp of Israel. Later there was a word developed in the Greek that is literally ex synagoguing and that's what happened to the man in
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the gospels who who kind of uh stood up to the to the Sanhedrin and said you know you don't know who this man is but you know who ever heard of a man born blind or was that was he blind I think he was blind
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you know being healed and they put him out of the synagogue they ex syninagued him and that's the actual word in the Greek so that so what we're talking about here is excommunication
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Now, that is a a very uh complex topic in and of itself, and I also do not think it's something that should happen often in a church. In the Anabaptist tradition, excommunication was actually
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referred to as shunning. And and so by that it meant the the person who was excommunicated was not was not welcome by anybody in the
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congregation including his wife and children including his family. Now that's of course a very controversial uh view but that's what shunning was.
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All right. So, um I I don't really actually want to get into the the weeds concerning excommunication, but I do want to look at several
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quickly historical views. And there are many ways that this has been um interpreted over the years. We can we can look at Paul's in 1 Corinthians 5.
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This is one of the most enigmatic and scary statements that Paul makes in his letters that for my part he says in the spirit I I am present and I am handing over such a one to Satan for the
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destruction of his flesh. That's now I think the implication when he goes on from there to say get rid of the old
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leaven and not even to eat with such a one is that he expects the Corinthian church to follow his example and put the
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man out. I'm not sure I've heard a good a good explanation of what this phrase handing over to Satan means and I think we would be going down um a rabbit trail
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if we tried to to execute right this right now. But I think do you all agree the point was that the man was to be put out of the congregation. Um the idea then of
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excommunication later on. So this this is Paul's view. Then you have the early
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church. The person under discipline was forbidden from the table. Now, the the implication of being forbidden from the table varied across the church and across the
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years. And so, what I'm giving you is more of a amalgamation of of views, but it ran the mildest form was simply that the
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person was denied the elements. Okay? So the mildest
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form that they were denied at the time, however they practiced the supper, that these people were denied because they were under discipline until they had repented. This would move toward
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um later
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church increased, things like marriage and then although it wouldn't much matter after this, but final uncction and burial, these sacraments would be denied
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the excommunicate. the excommunicate. So to be excommunicated meant that you you could not marry before the Lord and you could not receive final uncction, final
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anointing and you could not be buried in a church a church graveyard. In the Middle Ages, popes would do this against entire countries
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like England under King John. Um Innocent III, I think it was excommunicated. uh that means that they they could not the priests of England could not perform
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marriages or baptisms. Um there could not be any ordinations and then there was no final uncction and no burials kind of like COVID. So
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um so this meant you were you were cut off from the church. Now, now keep in mind that by this time the the operating phrase, we've talked about this before, but this but this um this operating Latin
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phrase outside the church there is no salvation. That's one of those dangerous phrases that's both true and not true. Outside of the church as the body of Christ, there is no salvation because that means outside of Christ. But this
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meant outside the operating sacramental system of the church, you you were cut off. And again, the pattern was Old Testament Israel and
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the and the camp in the wilderness. Um, and then there was also and again I'm I'm combining different views here.
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Um, now all of these responses to church discipline have largely disappeared in the 21st century church. I I don't know
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how these things are practiced in in um non-western parts of the world, parts of the church, but I I know that for example in the United States
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um I'm I'm not sure that people even talk about or teach on the idea of excommunication and the mobility of our society and the multiplicity of our
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churches has rendered excommunication somewhat impotent. Um, by way of experience in our church, we we have only officially
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excommunicated one person. Um, that was many many years ago and I hope it will be even longer until it happens again. Um, because it was a very painful
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process. But um that person simply went to another church in town and as far as I could tell that there was no uh ramifications of the the discipline.
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So uh this is you know this is us this is the church trying to deal with what Paul says in 1 Corinthians and what we also read in Matthew 18 for example with
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regard to uh a brother who has sinned and the attempt that the church makes to reconcile and bring that man to repentance or that woman to repentance. Um but then if that fails what to do
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with this? Okay. And again that does come from the pentatuk especially numbers uh where we read that the man who is unwilling to repent and unwilling to be purified uh is to be cut off.
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needs to be removed. Not at
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all. But Paul speaks of hand over to Satan as something that he can do without even being there. Find that
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Let's look at the anatomy of excommunication because I think that's a very good point. Paul is able to pass judgment on this situation uh and also sentence on this situation from a
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distance. and and so um he's not going to just drop what he's doing and go to Corenth and deal with it in person. He deals with it and he deals with it in a
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very um firm and and what seems to be decisive manner. This is done. I have handed this man over to Satan. Okay. So
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it it is first and foremost a spiritual
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judgment. Now that seems to me to mean that it that it stands regardless of anything that happens in the physical realm. For example, if the church had refused
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to to put the man out, and we have reason to hope from 2 Corinthians chapter 2 that not only did the church abide by Paul's admonition,
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but the man did repent. Now, we don't know that the man in chapter 2 of the second letter is the same man as in chapter five of the first letter, but there's no one else that
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fits that bill. So generally it's it's considered that the man was put out. He did repent and now Paul was admonishing the church to receive him back in uh
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lest he be overwhelmed with grief. So, if we are correct in that assumption, we're looking at um a successful
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restoration, which we talked about when we looked at the um uh the man with the long-term skin affliction in Leviticus 14, that he is successfully restored to
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the communion of the community of God's people. So, that's that's all good news. Um but using the example of of our own
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history, um the the the fact that other churches did not recognize the excommunication of this
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individual does not remove that excommunication from excommunication from him. He is unless he has I mean I I won't go there. I don't know how you I
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mean I I have an idea how that would work out but it has never worked out to a point a point where where the elders of this church have been satisfied of the man's repentance. Okay. Um so this the the the
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judgment stands and this ties back to what Jesus said to his disciples. He said what you bind in on earth will be bound in heaven and what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Now, now
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unless you think those words apply only to the pope, in which case we as Protestants can ignore them, they they stand as the word of God. Right now, I don't think they were
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ever intended to apply solely to the the to the successor of Peter or or even to the clergy, you know, the the successors of of the
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apostles. Um I think that Matthew 18 that the passage of binding and loosing has to be read in the context also of the discipline of the church in Matthew
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18 uh frankly I think excommunication is a churchwide function not an elder function uh I don't the the elders do not excommunicate anyone the congregation
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does and at which point I think they are bound in heaven as they are bound on earth now Again, many may not consider that to be of any significance because
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there's no immediate uh temporal ramification of the event and I guess it only remains from what Paul says concerning the judgment that we will all
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give before the Lord as to what the ultimate ramifications will be. But there are some it is still does everybody agree it is it is still a
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biblical concept. biblical concept. I mean, our behavior as a church, and I mean church in the universal sense, doesn't rewrite
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doesn't rewrite scripture. Frankly, most churches don't even do this anymore. Excommunication. Um, you got to be pretty bad. And that I think that's how it should be. Okay. So, it's a spiritual judgment that
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stands regardless of the church's temporal response.
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And yet the lessons that we're learning hopefully from Leviticus show us that if the church doesn't respond then the uncleanness and I'm I'm
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using Levitical language here so I hope it's not confusing. The uncleanness that cannot be purified because of the man's
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rebellion is it contaminates the contaminates the congregation. It's the leavenan that leavenvens the whole lump. To go back to Paul's metaphor here in chapter 5, if you don't get the leaven out, the
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leaven's not going to just sit there and be dormant, right? I think the reason that he's using the metaphor of leaven is because of its power of permeating the dough that it is placed in and
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that's used by Jesus also. So that actually ties in very well with the idea of contagion in Leviticus that though the others may not
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have committed the the uncleanness, the unwillingness of the unclean person to go through the process or the unwillingness of the assembly to
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deal with the unclean person causes that contagion to contaminate the whole camp. And most importantly, as we're moving in
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Leviticus to chapter 16, the day of atonement, it contaminates the tabernacle and the Holy of Holies. If this is allowed to proceed,
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which it was in Israel, then God then God himself will no longer abide in that congregation. he
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will leave which is what we see in Ezekiel in Ezekiel's vision. Okay. It's also I think what is alluded to in the letters to the churches in Revelation. It's called removing the
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lampstand in that in those letters. And some of that has to do with the immorality of Jezebel for example. I can't remember which church that was but um some of it was in fact you're you're
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not dealing with this and I have this against you. Repent therefore or I will come and remove your lampstand which is which means I will come and remove the Holy Spirit from
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your congregation. So there's a lot tied up with this. Okay. So again, put it down. Uh down. Uh if the church
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refuses if the church refuses to deal with the
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It doesn't mean that the rest of the congregation ends up doing the same thing that the person who is to be under discipline has done. No, it's not that's not the point. It's not that by his example, everybody else does the same
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thing. That may happen because they think they can get away with it, but that's not the point. The point is that there is uncleanness in the congregation that the congregation refuses to remove
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and therefore it will it will spread as levan and it will leaven the whole lung and it will get to a point where God will take his lampstand away from that that congregation. So
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mostly we've had folks do things that were for example divisive toward the entire body and are
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unreented sin and they mostly have bugged out
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before. So this seems to me to allow or to even um to help us to see that that judgment is still incumbent upon us whether they're physically among us or
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not. I'm not sure. That's where I was going with this. Yeah. Um and I want to get there. I better get there right
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Um because that's that was the question that was asked and that is um people who leave fellowship and leave our our congregation. What uh this is not how the question was phrased, but I'm
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rephrasing it. What what is what is the official policy toward continued contact with with those people? And um I'm I'm starting with this because I I want to establish the
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the gravity of of this right here. Okay. I want to I want to first establish that and then I want to go on to say that the people over the years who have left
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Fellowship Bible Church are not under excommunication. Um they have not been excommunicated. So I guess I I wanted to to set this the
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kind of the the standard of what the church does when it acts in judgment of discipline upon one of its members. And I also want to make sure that we understand that the
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goal is repentance and
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restoration. And again I'm going to call in 2 Corinthians 2. Um, and if anybody disagrees with that assessment, um, that's that's fine. It's not definitive, but I I I don't
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think you would disagree that the goal of this discipline is res is
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I believe so. I think that is what is meant. Um I mean the statement that he makes early verse five um for I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh that and and the word there is in order that
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okay that's that is the the Greek in order that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Now that that's a but I think Paul's purpose is
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is clear that something needs to happen so that this man stops doing what he's doing that his spirit might be saved in the day of Jesus. Okay. Now, so
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I I would say yes, that is exactly what he's he's saying there in verse five. Um, but that also means and and I am leading up to the what we're dealing
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here that means that for in whatever way possible within our cultural environment, our attitude toward the person must have
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teeth. the that we don't know what it means to deliver anyone to Satan, but it doesn't sound doesn't sound good. So, as far as we can tell in terms of our interaction with such a person,
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it doesn't seem like we ought to be having association with them. Does them. Does it Ariel?
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He says to okay uh God's judge judgment says to Satan you may yeah that that's quite possible that that's what Paul is alluding to as well. That's the only
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possible echo that we can think of is when God essentially released uh Job into Satan's hands. But you you may not the only difference is you may not harm his flesh. You may not take his life.
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Aaron, I thought of them. Yes. Yep. There's another one. Although that one sounds even more
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permanent to me. Yeah, that one's a rough one. Yep. That's right. Don't intervene. They're
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now in God's hands and God has placed them in Satan's hand. I think I think we're all kind of on the same page there that that that but what our behavior should reflect that understanding.
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Yes. And and I think what this means is regardless of the of the state of the church in our day, excommunication must
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teeth. The church is the body of Christ. It it is uh the manifestation of Christ's presence on the earth and within its own members. And Paul's making it very clear
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when he says, I'm not talking about people outside the church. And that's so much of what the church is all about is condemning and shunning and, you know, not associating. I'm not going to buy anything there because they, you know,
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they sell this or they sell that or I'm not going to talk to you because you're divorced or it's like, well, you're not a believer. what should I expect? And Paul's very clear, you you can't do that or you'd have to go outside the world.
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But then what's really ironic and sad is that the church is busy doing that with the outsiders and not doing it in its own, you know, and judgment begins at the house of God. And it's that
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unleavening, the getting out rid of the leaven that's a major part of our witness in the world. Certainly not standing there and judging the world. They're already under the wrath of God. Why waste our time?
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They're already abiding. It doesn't matter what their sin is. I don't care what letter what letter LGBTQXY, what letter they go under, they're under the judgment of God. Leave
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them there. If anything, try to entice them into into salvation so that they might abide in the grace of God rather than under his wrath. But inside the
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church, there needs to be this discipline. Justin
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There's a lot of culture. What's our culture responsibility?
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Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. Right. Culture is the worst accept behavior that you will accept. Behavior is accepted within the body is what the body accepts. No matter what you say, no matter what you point to, that
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corruption will spread. Right. And uh that I appreciate that that that's a very good point. I do want to put up on the board though just something I said earlier uh so that we're
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not I want to make sure we're clear on this and and especially um those who might be who might look at this later watch it later or hearing um by the live stream excommunication is not a it's not
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an act of the elders it is an act of of the body and it must remain so. It must remain so. Now I'm going to submit to you in that my own my own view I I don't
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present this as dogma and I struggle with it especially because of the nature of our type of church
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non-denominational non-denominational churches are a magnet for people who have very strong views about this or that people who really don't have strong convictions in terms of
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their religion are usually quite satisfied with following the institutional form of Christianity with which they are most familiar or grew up
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in. Is that a fair statement? All right. I'm not I'm not trying to be condemnatory to them, but I'm just saying, you know, if you don't care, you just go with what you're used
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to. Um, but those who do care, they they come to a church like ours and you know, we have opinions and those opinions
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don't always mesh. In fact, they they rarely mesh completely. All right. The the only time I can think of that it
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meshed completely is when we decided to remove the 1970s rustcoled carpet upstairs and restain the floors. that had complete approval of the congregate. It was this
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loudest amen in in FBC's history. Put the popcorn down. Oh, okay. That that was another one. Get getting the popcorn down was another one. No arguments
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there. All right. That was the most ugly carpet. Okay. Other than that, we don't agree. And that's fine. and let and you know and we've talked about the fact that we do need to
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understand which issues are actually tests of tests of fellowship and too many churches like ours everybody's individual convictions
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is a test of fellowship okay does that make sense you know if you don't agree I can't stay here if you don't oh I can't stay here actually you can't stay
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anywhere you can't even stay home cuz you're going to end up disagreeing with yourself. I so we we try to make it clear that that you know
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we want to make the the fundamentals as as minimum as possible so that when we are disagreeing on points of interpretation that others have disagreed with for thousands of years.
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We're not breaking fellowship over it. It's like it's okay. We see as a mirror dimly. None of us see perfectly clearly. You think you're right. I think I'm right. Fine. We'll find out in the day
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that both of us were wrong. Tim, just as a point of growing
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up, anything was [Laughter] actually carpet.
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actually carpet. Yeah, I guess if you don't care about doctrine, then carpet becomes an issue. And so I'm so glad that carpet wasn't an issue here. All right, so let's look at let's look at what I'm going to call in
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people. These are the people you referred to. To me, they're in between. I do not think excommunication can really be done
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exposfacto because the whole mechanism of excommunication has been shortcircuited and is no longer available. That is Matthew 18. Um, I think that at that
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point the congregation is faced with a myriad of individual choices with respect to the people who have have left and I'm going to I'm going to talk about just um there there are different
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categories of people who leave. Okay. And again I want to avoid any idea that this is the hotel California. People will come. People
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will go. There will come a point when the teaching of Fellowship Bible Church for some reason will cross a line that by your convictions you have
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drawn in the sand and now you have to break fellowship. The fact that the rest of the people look at that and think uh
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really does not remove the conviction of that individual that individual believer that we have as as elders we have crossed a line that should not have
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been crossed. And so from my perspective I can be uh confused. I can even be angry because as Angela has told me that is my go-to emotion.
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go-to emotion. Okay. that you know everybody has their uh their baggage and so I can be angry but I I can't
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uh I can't discount the fact that that person has a conviction on this matter. So we have we have uh why
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just you have mobility issues, right? You're moving or you're moving because you're taking another job or, you know, you're just that that's a lot. A lot of people just kind of move through life in the West. And this is this is true of of
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neighborhoods. Uh this is true of churches. This is true of jobs. So that that is the culture in which we live. And we've already talked about that. At what point do you say I'm not doing that
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anymore? And in some cases, like if you're in the military, we talked about the fact that you don't have the choice until your term of enlistment is up. You know, then you decide whether to
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reinlist or say, I'm I'm done with this. But even in corporate America, you can say, I'm out. You know, here's two weeks and you're you're off that treadmill. So
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that's that's just a cultural issue. Another one Another one is doctrinal
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disagreement. Um, honestly, this should come up fairly quickly. Uh, both on both sides. The person who is visiting a church should seek to find out what that church teaches. And one of the benefits of the
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internet now is that we have a website that has all of our sermons and Sunday school classes and plumline classes. So you could you could binge watch FBC if you wanted and by by the time you
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were done you would have a good idea of what our doctrine is. Most churches have doctrinal statements. We have one on the website. Okay. Um so this is one that
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should happen. You wonder why people even come with so much information now for every church, right? It's like you you can pretty much shop for your church
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online like for Christmas and know the doctrine before you go. But nonetheless, if you get there and you realize um that you know this church holds to a doctrine
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that that I can't hold to. I I remember one woman I've shared this before, one woman coming up after a sermon uh in John that talked about uh Jesus saying, "I I lay my life down for for my sheep."
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Um she came up and said, "So you you believe in limited atonement." Uh now this person had been in the church at that point, you know, for quite a long time and I had been
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preaching for quite a long time. And my thought was you you're just now realizing that yes, I believe that Christ died for I I believe what Jesus himself said that
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Christ laid his life down for his sheep. No, no, that was a different person. Yeah. Yeah. that that person just turned her hearing aid off. So there's a um there's an excuse there.
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But honestly, if there's a doctoral disagreement that that is a fundamental one, and once again, fundamental is in the eyes of the right. So I mean, we've just experienced the the reality that uh
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women praying in church is a fundamental issue to some people. Okay. Um, I think we're bound to respect that even if we disagree with it. And
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even if it is wrong, we've done what we could to address it through the teaching and the fellowship of the body and now the
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person is taking themsel out of the body. There's not much we can do with that. Right, wrongness or that how we address that?
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weaker and stronger brother. Yeah, I think so. Right. Romans 14. Yeah. Absolutely. We're not judging. Yeah. And yet we don't necessarily agree either. Right. Paul was willing to eat whatever
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meat was put in front of him or not at all if there was someone who'd be offended. Absolutely. Absolutely. Romans 14 or even Philippians where Paul says uh as many as mature will have this view
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but to the rest of you God will show it to you as well. Okay. But I'm not I'm not saying we take the position of Paul there, but we do take a gracious position of we don't consider this to be
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a test of fellowship. Therefore, we are very much agree to disagree. We'll continue to teach as the as the teaching ministry of the church. You agree to
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keep studying and and you know, maybe we'll we'll come together at some point. Sorry. It's all right. In that case, if we were to change what we taught,
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to teach you something. He believes it. His conscience has led his understanding. He's challenged and to keep fellowship with that person who has drawn a line in the sand. You change what you're teaching. You're actually
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sinning against your own conscience. Right. Exactly. And Paul says that that is the major problem is for anyone to do anything against their own conscience because anything done apart from faith is sin. So a church that will
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accommodate in order to keep people that's not acceptable. that that is actually a very bad situation because now the corruption is in the head not the tail not the body it you know the
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leadership of the church is corrupt and that's if you notice that then that that's a pretty good reason I think to depart from the church if you notice that every time someone objects the the
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uh the elders immediately change their position to to to alleviate any uh social inconveniences that we will have. So that's right. Um but but I do think
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it's incumbent upon all of us to try and I remember preaching a sermon on this that we need to try to minimize biblically however but we need to minimize those tests of fellowship that
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we hold individually. We really really do because for Paul the unity and harmony of the body was always the most important thing. Okay. So um when when
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we hold fast to our convictions as if they are cast in concrete and we are infallible then we are actually a divisive member of the body. We are what
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is a divisive member? It's called a cancer. We are a cancer in the body when we are that stubborn in our views. Okay. Um now it may be I'm not saying and this
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is what Ariel is pointing out that doesn't mean that everybody has to think the same way. is that we allow one another to think the way their convictions and their faith lead them by
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the guidance of the word and the Holy Spirit, recognizing that we're not infallible. But we do have certain standards that we cannot go below and still call ourselves Christian. And we
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can, you know, we can talk in in theology class about what those standards are. Um, but so many of the reasons that people leave Fellowship Bible Church and frankly um any
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church and also for the most part we have a very transient Christianity in our day and age and you think of somebody who's been in our church you
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know you also have to realize that they've probably been in several churches before our church and they will be in several churches hence that that's that's kind of a u sadly a church
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culture thing but the reasons that people leave church are are rarely on the face of it legitim They're rarely doctrinal.
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My earlier question, right? I mean, there's a sense of we disagree. It's
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okay. Patience is a fruit of the spirit from both sides. We hope at least
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from there's there's the throw the bomb over the shoulder.
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uh and again I don't want this to sound like this is even the majority. It's majority. It's not. Okay. Most people who have been in Fellowship Bible Church for and some for many years um and do leave, including
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the woman I was mentioning about limited atonement were actually sad to come to the conclusion that they had to leave because of that view and and did
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no harm no harm afterward. Okay. But every now and and they're the ones that we uh we miss, but
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we also tend to not remember them after a few years. They're they're now probably at another church. And sadly, that's that's the nature of of Western
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modern Christianity. They're they're at a different church. The ones that we think about when we talk about this topic, however, are the ones who leave with heat and the grenade thrown over
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the shoulder. And uh worse than the grenade, often a hook thrown back into the congregation, a a vigorous attempt to disrupt the body and to entice others
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to also leave for the same reason they are leaving. Um there there are accusations against the elders. Um accusations that are entirely singular
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and not two or three witnesses as scripture requires and accusations that are always made through the back door through the back channels. Um there not
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a whole lot we can do about that. I don't think I I don't think we can we can excommunicate those people again exposfacto because we cannot really
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exercise the Matthew 18 process which should have been executed if we had known of the disagreement and the anger
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the anger beforehand. But I will tell you in most of these cases it is sudden, unexpected and shocking. and shocking. um the response that comes is not what
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we were expecting and the departure is rapid and rapid and oftentimes you in the congregation know about it before Mark and I know about it. So um what do we do about these type
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of people um when they do this? We cannot put them in my opinion we cannot put them under this category.
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because they have not been excommunicated. I do not think that we can especially in nature of our church. This is going to happen. We would be naive to think that what just recently
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happened isn't going to happen again. It has happened. It will
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happen. Number three. Yeah. They are adults and they thought about
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what they believe and they want what they believe to be by the
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sin or is it just a moment which the Lord will they will stand because they are still yeah there is that do not judge the servant of another u for me this phrase
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that David uses a lot we read it in the old Testament um on the controversy between two the may the Lord judge between me and thee. It's like um you
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know I don't think you're right but there's not much I can do. Lauren and then Jenny.
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Yes. Yeah, that's a good point. And and um oftentimes we find out by way of email now because this is the 21st century. Um century. Um that the the person who's leaving was
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up disagreement and it overflows in their their exit interview as it were. um that they disagreed with this and they disagreed with that and they didn't think this was right. But when those
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decisions were made, when those things were done, when that teaching was made, nothing was said. And so it does become the root of bitterness that springs up and defiles many. Jenny,
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right. that. Yeah, that's where we're headed and we need to do it in in a minute. Um, if No, no, that's quite all right because you basically said what I'm going to say. Um, if the person is
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excommunicated, you really have no business biblically of even eating with such a one. If you do that, you are interfering with the discipline of God and with the
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function of the church. You are sinning. If the person has left because of doctrinal disagreements, the Romans 14 situation that they just decided they
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need to be somewhere else, I don't see any biblical injunction against continued friendship and and table fellowship with such a one. Now, if they are not in a church, that's a different
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matter. But this church doesn't know about that, but you may know about that. This type of thing is an in between stage. And whereas the elders I don't think can
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say no do not have association with these people because they are excommunicate. I do think we need to individually consider what is indeed in
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their best their best interest. There is a sense in which we cheapen Queenia by giving it to those who spurn it. Does that make sense? Or
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the the phrase with regard to living together. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? You know, why go to church when you can have friendship
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anyhow? And those who continue to associate with people who are not in church, who have left in a bitter situation, who have cast aspersions against both the church and its
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leadership. And I say that in a generic sense because I imagine they've already done it to other churches, too. I don't think we're the only one. If those in those circumstances if you continue
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fellowship with those people then you're giving them the benefit of coinia without any without any cost and I think for me I I think it's a
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personal judgment that everyone has to make but I think you should you should wear you know consider well what is going on here and whether you're continued you might think that you're
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kind of wooing them with love well in fact that's what what do they call that soft parenting you you know, um, it doesn't work and and in fact, it's not
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going to work. Um, coinia, I think we sing a hymn, none but none but your people. What's the the phrase? None but your people. No. Something about Zion.
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Yeah. Solid joys and lasting treasures. None. Yeah. Zion's children. No. Okay. That that that phrase solid joys and lasting treasures. None but Zion's
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children. know well let us not give to the dogs what is meant for the children. Let's close in prayer. Father, we do ask that you would give us wisdom in these uh gray areas
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uh that we would honor you uh and not even our own uh friendships, but rather you and your word and your church and the purity of Coinia and the the beauty
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of true fellowship and that you would again give us wisdom to know how we are to act and how we are to speak that we might stand for the truth and not for our own pleasure or gratif. ed
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ification. We ask this for the edification of the body and for the restoration of those who have departed in negative circumstances, especially if they are simply tantrums that they might
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see reason and wisdom and even return to the fellowship that we might receive them back again as brothers and sisters. We pray, Father, that you would indeed
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bring this about for your glory and for our good. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.