(see
image reference below)
Today,
reply is on the response made by the early church at Corinth to
condemn and correct the open practice of adultery and fornication. A
Christian community is maintained and preserved by the presence of
features that otherwise generate division and schism (e.g.,
consensus; hierarchy; judging others; shunning; sorrowing for sin).
The exposure of errors and sin committed by one believer within the
church is to mobilize every believer to acknowledge those in whom
godly authority has been invested, to examine themselves for spirit
content from divinity, and to renew their full commitment to the
entire sacred body. The primary goals for the church when responding
to transgressors are to be correction, edification, displaying mercy
in judgment, reconciliation and spiritual growth, rather than final
judgment for the spirit within another member, excommunication,
expulsion, and punishment. Forgiveness and soul-winning are to
continue; even so, sinners are to be denied opportunities to
influence doctrine, fellowship, and the ongoing sanctification of the
body. It is written: 2nd
Corinthians 13: 5-10, King James Version (KJV): 5 Examine
yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know
ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be
reprobates? 6 But I trust that ye shall know that we are not
reprobates. 7 Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we
should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest,
though we be as reprobates. 8 For we can do nothing against the
truth, but for the truth. 9 For we are glad, when we are weak, and
ye are strong: and this also we wish, even
your perfection. 10 Therefore I write these things being absent,
lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power
which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction.
A fighter in the “Yahoo! Answers” public forum on Religion and
Spirituality using the ID “Anonymous” (no profile information
shown) posted the following:
Did
they put that guy out of his church at 1 Corinthians 5:13?
THE
GOLDEN ARROW: Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that
walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of
us. For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved
not ourselves disorderly among you; Neither did we eat any man’s
bread for nought; but wrought with labour and travail night and day,
that we might not be chargeable to any of you: Not because we have
not power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us.
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any
would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are
some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are
busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord
Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.
But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing. And if any man obey
not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with
him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy,
but admonish him as a brother. Now the Lord of peace himself
give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.
(2nd Thessalonians 3: 6-16, King James Version, KJV)
THE
DOUBLE DAGGER: Responses To Clergy Scandals (03/28/2019); The
Revelation of Mercy (01/28/2019); Why Punishment After Death?
(11/23/2018); That GOD Is Judge (11/01/2018); Transgression of Sacred
Law? (10/25/2018); Be Not Unequally Yoked (04/16/2018); Sprinkled,
Immersed, Named? (02/01/2014); Forgiveness Through GOD? (02/02/2014)
“Anonymous”,
consider again the following that uses language from the Bible:
1.
1st Corinthians 5: 1-5, King James Version (KJV): 1 It
is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and
such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that
one should have his father’s
wife. 2 And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he
that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. 3 For I
verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged
already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so
done this deed, 4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are
gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus
Christ, 5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of
the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
2.
1st Corinthians 5: 9-13, KJV: 9 I wrote unto you in an
epistle not to company with fornicators: 10 Yet not altogether with
the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners,
or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. 11
But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that
is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or
a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not
to eat. 12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are
without? do not ye judge them that are within? 13 But them that are
without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that
wicked person.
3.
1st Corinthians 6: 18-20, KJV: 18 Flee fornication.
Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that
committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. 19 What? know
ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is
in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are
bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your
spirit, which are God’s.
4.
Matthew 18: 15-17, KJV: 15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass
against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone:
if he shall hear thee, thou
hast gained thy brother. 16 But if he will not hear thee, then
take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three
witnesses every word may be established. 17 And if he shall neglect
to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to
hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a
publican.
There
is far more that should be said, correctly examined, and spiritually
apprehended. (For example, 5. Galatians 5: 19-21, KJV: 19 Now the
works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery,
fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft,
hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21
Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the
which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past,
that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.)
Even so, I trust this fragment will be useful. Be it unto you
according to your faith.
Image
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THE
BLACK PHOENIX
Washington,
DC
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