Have you ever shared a problem which occurred in the church where someone was hurting someone by sinning (gossip, lying, favoritism, deceit, and etc) and the response was "No church is perfect" or "when you find a perfect church don't become members cause it will no longer be perfect" or "a church is just a group of sinners saved by grace"? With such phrases in flamboyant circulation today to seemingly thwart off church discipline and personal accountability for exercised sin within the church:
- 1) Where is the limit of what sin we accept to be practiced in church? Doesn't God see all sin the same without levels or degrees? For a man to transgress a single sin has he not transgressed them all? If so, then if we accept one sin exercised/practiced in the church, say gossip or lying or deceit, are we not agreeing through our submission to God's perception of sin to accept any other sin, say homosexuality, murder, and rape to be practiced within the church?
- 2) Where does church discipline fit in with all of this or is this a ploy of satan himself to undermine and erode the credibility and integrity of the Body of Christ
- To ANSWER: Please go to: christianforums.com/t7845956/#post66447878
1a) I don't believe the Church should "tolerate" any sin.
1b) I would also disagree that God sees no difference between one sin and the next. Murder is clearly a worse sin than coveting my friend's new Xbox; and God isn't oblivious to that.
1c) Rather all sin is condemned, all sin--and thus all sinners--stand under God's righteous condemnation, according to His righteous and holy Law we are judged, rightly, as sinners. And thus our hope is found solely in God's mercy which is ours in Christ alone.
1d) No, that there are people with faults in the Church, and thus sometimes things like gossip happens does not mean that it is just as though the Church were accepting of rape or murder. Not because gossip isn't sinful, but because valuating murder and gossip as the same is ridiculous. Of course gossip is a problem and should be addressed, but it's very obviously a very different problem than if someone in one of our churches were on a killing spree.
2) Church discipline is a tightrope. Overarching authoritarianism must be avoided, as that's how cults operate. On the other hand destructive behavior should be addressed. How a church should handle something--such as gossip or lying--should come down to a case-by-case basis. It should not seek to humiliate, ostracize, or punish the offending member, but draw them through the preaching of the Law to repentance, and with the life-giving words of the Gospel reach out to them in love, that there might be forgiveness and healing.
This is why there must be a preaching of both Law and Gospel, the Law condemns and convicts, and drives us to despair over our sins; the Gospel pronounces us forgiven freely, that our sins have been forgiven by God in Christ, and this is ours by God's grace, and we trust this in faith, believing it is true, and rejoice in its truth.
We must daily drown the old man in repentance, confessing our sins, and hearing the Gospel, joyously receive the forgiveness of our sins pronounced by that Word.
-CryptoLutheraly
