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Ashes what surprised me, I did not know it, was Messianic Jews practice this as well.
sorry to bust inI think it's a fascinating topic. I agree that the knee-jerk reaction by most people (including myself honestly) is simply in response to the word "shunning" itself. Like almost all disagreements on CF, it's word-based.
But I was wondering... Messianics practice this? I'm a bit wary of reading through the whole GT thread. Is that where you saw a Messianic respond?
And I think many communities use shunning as a practice, but call it "church discipline" instead.
EDIT: I did go read the whole thread and saw ants' reply.
So if a church can't shun an unrepentant adulterer, what are they supposed to do with him? Offer him communion? Let his sin infect the whole church?
If a church ignores adultery, it might as well tolerate every kind of sin. Why not harbor murderers and child molesters, too?
Cat, I wasn't trying to pick a fight. I don't know why this has to become an agrument.
I was saying that a church shouldn't ignore sin, any kind of sin.
I editted my post so it wouldn't upset you.
I tend to believe that words are only as concise as understood by the listener. Even if every word I use is correct by definition it is a waste of time unless my listener understands what I mean. It is kind of like I used to tell my wife. You need to hear what I mean and not what I say.
Wow,
It is amazing how much misinformation is out there regarding the practice. I think people watch too much TV
The purpose of shunning is to impress the unrepentant sinner to return to the Lord by establishing limits and boundaries on them. Shunning is the opposite of licentiousness, not the opposite of love and acceptance. By setting and enforcing limits on a person, you encourage them to behave appropriately. It's a lot more unloving to just let them do whatever they want without discipline. It's like letting an errant child continue doing something bad--eventually, they are going to hurt themselves or someone else if they don't learn to stop.
You don't bother shunning someone you don't love.
I've been part of a church that had to shun a small group of women for immoral behavior because they had determined in their own hearts that a) God wants us to be happy and anything that makes you happy is good, and b) they didn't want to repent.
Their sin made the whole congregation sick and we lost many longterm members because of them. By going through the process of dealing with their sin culminating in shunning them when they refused to repent, we showed them how much we cared about them--too much to let them continue to harm themselves.
All but one of those women eventually repented and returned to the congregation.
Shunning is a last resort, and it works!
I think placing first emphasis on the hearer to understand messages is very selfish. We need to have the humility and incarnational and missional attitude (Phil 2:5-7) that speaks into the worlds and understandings of others using their own langauge and conceptions.
I think that if people realized it wasn't an act of hatred or exclusion, but a request for the person to change their mind and adhere to the rules of the community, it would make more sense to them.
Shunning isn't a permanent exile, it's a temporary sanction.
The emphasis should be on communicating with our listener and using language they understand. This is the point I was trying make. It doesn't matter how correct our use of a term is unless those we are speaking to understand what we are saying. It can be summed up in the phrase.
Understanding your audience.
Cat, I wasn't trying to pick a fight. I don't know why this has to become an agrument.
I was saying that a church shouldn't ignore sin, any kind of sin.
I editted my post so it wouldn't upset you.
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