Posted by Pastor Steven on September 20, 2002 at 11:48:15:
In Reply to: Re: touchy subject but it has to be talked about regardless... posted by john on September 20, 2002 at 11:36:02:
: I think there are 2 main things I consider. If the person has professed to be a Christian, by this I mean they have willingly given their life to God. If not, then we can't expect them to abide by the standards.
Even if they are Christian--
(1) You may not see everything clearly. (2) You surely can't be the Holy Spirit and change hearts. (3) It is not our job to enforce God's law.
Now someone will surely say that we need to protect the body from this kind of thing. But we need to protect the body from this kind of witch-hunt, expose-the-infidel attitude that doesn't even include the pastor of the church! That damages the body!
: The second thing is that I try to make a distincton in making it known that I disagree with their action and see it as sin, and in what I do about it from there. Certainly there are circumstances where the church leadership needs to deal with the sin of a member, but i'm not talking about that because frankly neither of us are church leaders.
But you SHOULD be talking about it. The very first thing that should come to mind is if Raul is going about this according to the Biblical example. He is not. Tell him so.