I think that the church should take a more Biblical stance on sin. We tend to single out sexual sin as the only one that is bad enough to keep people out of the church: homosexuality, promiscuity, adultery. And adultery has to be really egregious to get real attention. In my very first post I mentioned a friend who had recently found out his youth minister had taken advantage of as many as 8 girls in his time at the church. When the news broke in the church, it was received in such a way that he can still be a part of the congregation, but the one girl who was named had to leave. That’s just ridiculous.
I think we should take the stand that if you are found to be in a cycle or pattern of sin, you should have to repent and commit to change or be put out of the fellowship. Jesus gave us the guidelines in Matthew 18. We should apply it to all sin, not just the ones that we don’t plan on doing ourselves.
If you get divorced for any reason other than adultery and are remarried, you should have to confess and repent. I don’t think you should have to end the latter marriage, but you should confess that you sinned and live up to your vows. If you refuse, you should be put out until you relent.
This should go for everything: rotten business practices, abusing your family, drunkenness, lying…whatever else we can think of. I’m not saying that if you stumble you should be kicked out, but if you continue in sin, unrepentant and without remorse, then you should be put out, according to Jesus’ command.
This, of course, would apply also to the sexual sins mentioned above. It would hopefully curtail two things: the level of hypocrisy in our churches, and the practice of people joining churches and subscribing only to the teachings that they like. For the life of me, I can’t understand how people can say that their behavior isn’t sin, even though the Bible calls it such. This is probably why the Bible says that we shouldn’t trust our own hearts.
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