Bill Freeman

[OBW]

Originally Posted by Terry

Mike, the dysfunction results when we don't love enough to rebuke. For example suppose a brother has comitted gross sin. Do we just gloss it over when there may be other individuals aware of the gross sin? Suppose a sister has become pregnant out of wedlock, do we just look the other way and say "we love out sister. we don't want to be judgmental". For a member in the assembly who sees these things transpiring, the question had to be asked "is this manner of living acceptable now?" This response I have just typed is how I see "loving" when "truth doesn't matter". This is a case where "a little leaven has leavened the whole lump".

Terry

I fully agree. But the examples are perplexing. You give the example of a sister who is pregnant out of wedlock. That might be no more than the result of a single indiscretion. (And I don't want to quibble over the apparent "down-sizing" of this sin. Sin is sin.) Do we chose to rebuke everyone who is known to have committed a sin? Did someone pass you on the way to the meeting and you were going the speed limit? (Ah. "Man's laws, not God's" you say. But I thought God said to obey man's laws.) When a rebuking word is required is not so easy.

Or is it? Paul mentioned a rebuke when there were those who were sinning and continuing in it despite its visibility. I do not recall a case where he said to check everyone's bedrooms and cabinets and get the radar guns out.

Yet it is easy to somehow make it clear that how that "bump" came to be was a sin, yet still love such a one. The shame is rebuke. Like Pinocchio's nose, there is no hiding the sin. But we should be sure and add a flogging anyway — I didn't think so.

So what is "gross sin"? Is it "gross" because of its nature or because of its wanton repetition, or does it require both? Is lying never "gross" even if repeated? Is sexual sin "gross" once or even just a few times? Does it take a longer period of calling on the Lord or a few more "Hail Marys" to get rid of a "gross" sin?

I'll give my two cents worth. There are crimes that require action on one occurrence. Murder comes to mind. Lying does not. Not so sure about adultery. I think that we should be slow to be the first to cast that stone.

I do not want to make the place for proper church discipline simply go away. But I think that we too often try to spread its applicability based on our personal notions of the nature of the sin. A private word of "rebuke" may be called for in cases where a public one is not. But the "stones" of church discipline are few and far between.