Treat them as pagans and tax collectors

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on April 28, 2016 at 8:10am

Hello sis,

The answer is found in 1 Cor. 5: 

3 For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.4 When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.[a]

6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyonewho bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church[b] whom you are to judge? 13 God judges[c]those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

Permalink Reply by Seek on April 28, 2016 at 10:06am

Ok, you might have to give me the English version.  ;-)

I get that Corinthians is talking about the one professing to be a believer.  It's where He says to treat them as pagans and tax collectors (also speaking of those professing to be believers refusing to repent) that I'm trying to figure out.  Considering that the way Jesus treated tax collectors was to dine with them.  

Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on May 1, 2016 at 7:07pm

Char fair enough, 

I can write it in Spanish sis, do you "habla español"? 

Matthew 18:17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. 

God calls all of humanity to repentance. He calls for all men to repent, to turn from their sins and to trust in Him. Men from all walks of life regardless of religious back ground, social economic status or ethnicity, God makes no exception of persons so He calls (with the external calling) everyone with the Gospel. He called all those around him, but if a person's heart  was/is as wicked as the heart of some of the pharisees then his instruction were not to associate with them. Specially if they trample upon holy things:

Hebrews 6:

4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. 7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

Permalink Reply by Seek on May 2, 2016 at 4:39am

I speak enough Español to get myself into hot water, since it's been 32 years since I learned or spoke it. LOL Now that my age is showing, I think maybe I'm not wording this right so I'll try to break it down.

Jesus ate with tax collectors, associated with them to get them to repent.

In Matthew 18:17 it says that if a brother or sister sins, but after repeated attempts to get them to repent of their sin, to treat them as tax collectors and in 1 Corinthians, says to not even associate with one who claims to be a brother but is acting immorally.

And that's where I'm trying to figure out the distinction.

If they were to associate with tax collectors who were not claiming to be brothers, in order to teach the Gospel, how were they being instructed to not associate or have anything to do with brothers who were living immorally, yet saying to treat them as tax collectors. It's like there's some distinction on how a tax collector is treated, and that's what I'm trying to figure out. IE: Do we eat with them and teach the Gospel or not associate with them? Seems in one case yes and the other no. So why is the same word/description of "tax collector" used for both?

Clear as mud? LOL Not a major concern, since I know what is meant. But it's just the use of the same description in both cases that has me stumped. Comprende usted?  

Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on May 3, 2016 at 10:39pm

Char, 

Yo comprendo Senorita.

Well I thought my explanation was espectacular, clear as mud as we like to say, but I will give it another try.

If they were to associate with tax collectors who were not claiming to be brothers, in order to teach the Gospel, how were they being instructed to not associate or have anything to do with brothers who were living immorally, yet saying to treat them as tax collectors. 

The answer is found in 1 Cor. 5: 

3 For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.4 When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

We are called to preach  the Gospel to everyone. The notorious tax collector  was a traitor and a thief to his country men, lower than scum. To win people over to Christ we become all things to all people without falling into sin, we dine with them when appropriate in hopes to save some. However we don't become buddy buddy's with thieves etc... 

Judgment starts in the household of our Lord, who teaches us that we have no business Judging the world, but we are to judge/correct our family in Christ:

…11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one. 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? 13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.

The wicked man must be removed from among ourselves, we are to:

5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

What does it mean to be deliver to Satan?

Calvin's explanation paraphrased by me. I came to the same understanding he did, but he explains things better than me. :)

It is referring to excommunication. Delivering over to Satan is an appropriate expression for denoting excommunication; for as Christ reigns in the Church, so Satan reigns out of the Church, as Augustine too has remarked in his sixty-eighth sermon on the words of the Apostle, where he explains this passage. We are received into the communion of the Church and remain in it on this condition, that we are under the protection and guardianship of Christ, I say, that he who is cast out of the Church is in a manner delivered over to the power of Satan, for he becomes an alien and is cast out of Christ's kingdom. 

The clause that follows, for the destruction of the flesh, is made use of for the purpose of softening; for Paul's meaning is not that the person who is chastised is given over to Satan to be utterly ruined or so as to be given up to the devil in perpetual bondage, but that it is a temporary condemnation, and not only so, but of such a nature as will be salutary/beneficial. For as the salvation equally with the condemnation of the spirit is eternal, he takes the condemnation of the flesh as meaning temporal condemnation. "We will condemn him in this world for a time, that the Lord may preserve him in his kingdom." Now the Church in chastising offenders with severity, spares them not in this world, in order that God may spare them.

Permalink Reply by Seek on May 4, 2016 at 6:11am

I think I understand. We don't associate as friends but do the same as Jesus did with the ones who were not saved in that we can dine with them to get them to repent. We can be around them but not regularly associate or hang around with them as we would our brothers and sisters.

I was thinking don't associate meant to not be around them at all.

Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on May 4, 2016 at 7:50am

:)

Permalink Reply by Seek on May 6, 2016 at 6:37am

Permalink Reply by Amanda on May 6, 2016 at 9:57am

Good word, David.

What is corrective church discipline? Church discipline is the process of correcting sin in the life of the congregation and its members. This can mean correcting sin through a private word of admonition. And it can mean correcting sin by formally removing an individual from membership. Church discipline can be done in any number of ways, but the goal is always to correct transgressions of God’s law among God’s people. https://9marks.org/article/church-discipline-primer/

As I understand it, the instructions in Matthew 18:15-20 is about dealing with sin in the local church and social community (including Christian social online networks, such as AAG). Two or three meeting together implies the assembling together of believers/members.

For problems between individuals who aren't part of the same local church or its assembling together, but who are still brothers and sisters in Christ and therefore are part of the Church, instructions are found in Matthew 5:21-26.

Permalink Reply by Amanda on May 6, 2016 at 10:26am

To treat someone in the local church, who is a brother or sister in Christ, as if they were a pagan or a tax collector, in my POV, means to treat the person the same way one would treat an unsaved person who is attending the church services there.

Attendance and Restoration Church members often wonder whether a person who has been excluded from membership and the Lord’s Table can continue attending the church’s weekly gatherings, as well as how they should interact with him or her throughout the week. The New Testament addresses this matter in a number of places (1 Cor. 5:9, 11; 2 Thess. 3:6, 14-15; 2 Tim. 3:5; Titus 3:10; 2 John 10), and different circumstances may well require different responses. But the instruction given by the elders in my own church generally falls under two points:

Except for situations in which the unrepentant party’s presence is a physical threat to the congregation, a church should welcome the person’s attendance in the weekly gathering. There’s no better place for the person to be than sitting under the preaching of God’s Word.
Though the family members of a disciplined individual should certainly continue to fulfill the biblical obligations of family life (e.g. Eph. 6:1-3; 1 Tim. 5:8; 1 Peter 3:1-2), the tenor of church members’ relationships with the disciplined individual should markedly change. Interactions should not be characterized by casualness or friendliness but by deliberate conversations about repentance.
Restoration to the fellowship of the church occurs when there are signs of true repentance. What true repentance looks like depends on the nature of the sin. Sometimes repentance is a black and white matter, as with a man who has abandoned his wife. For him, repenting means returning to her, plain and simple. Yet sometimes repentance doesn’t mean conquering a sin completely so much as demonstrating a new diligence in waging war against the sin, as with a person caught in a cycle of addiction.

Clearly, the question of true repentance is a difficult one that requires much wisdom. Caution must be balanced with compassion. Some time may need to pass for repentance to be demonstrated by its fruits, but not too much time (see 2 Cor. 2:5-8). Once a church decides to restore a repenting individual to its fellowship and the Lord’s Table, there should be no talk of a probation period or second-class citizenship. Rather the church should publicly pronounce its forgiveness (John 20:23), affirm its love for the repenting individual (2 Cor. 2:8), and celebrate (Luke 15:24).

https://9marks.org/article/church-discipline-primer/