"PASTORAL THEOLOGY & PRACTICE" PROF. HAROLD SENKBEIL & DR. RICHARD WARNECK CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY: CAPTION FIRST, INC. P.O. BOX 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 1-800-825-7234 * * * * * This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings * * * * * >> ERIC: I realize I'm about to change our direction. I hope that's okay. We spent some time in this course talking about the issues surrounding specific sins. We've referred to homosexuality, domestic abuse, adultery and other sins. I think the question I'm about to ask overarches these specific sins. Which principles should guide a pastor in the admonishment of a Christian who has sinned and has not repented or is currently living in sin? When do we, as pastors, speak up? And how specific should we be in our preaching about sins? >> DR. WARNECK: The subject you raise, Eric, can be very helpful to our life together as Christians and in Christ's church. And unfortunately the matter of sin, sinfulness and the way in which the Christian community addresses those things has been lost, frankly, in many settings, I think to the weakness of the church. So your question is very well put and very well taken and let's see if we can address ourselves to a number of your concerns. I picked up on the last part of your question really kind of�-- it piqued�my attention. How does the pastor address sins from the pulpit? I want to say that I doubt that it's very appropriate for a pastor to even make subtle allusions in his public preaching to what might be perceived by the parishioners in the pew as a reference to a particular person whom the congregation is somewhat aware has been overtaken by a sin, one kind or another; that is, by a public sin. So my first response is somewhat of a disclaimer, if you don't mind, Eric. It's very ill advised for a pastor to address from the pulpit publicly either admonishment or anything else relative to a situation that may be common knowledge in the congregation. The ministry that you're speaking of is what we call church discipline. We mean by that term the ministry of the church to, on the one hand admonish a public sin when it occurs in the community but always with a view toward absolution, forgiveness and restoration. Church discipline always moves in that direction. The reason I emphasize that at the outset is there are perceptions among some of our lay Christians that church discipline is simply the heavy hand of the law and judgment coming down on people. And some perceptions are even more extreme, the notion that church discipline is simply axing people out of the church. It's unfortunate that church discipline is equated in the minds of some with excommunication. Now in the process of admonishment and discipline, it can come to excommunication, but in no way should this ministry, which is really the Lord's gift through the office of the keys, should ever be perceived as excommunication itself or equated with the same. So having said that and kind of clearing the air just a little bit, let's move with some particulars here. There are two kinds of sin that this ministry of church discipline deals with. And the first is, as I said before, a public sin of a somewhat egregious nature. Most frequently we're talking about sins of the flesh as the apostle names those things in I Corinthians 6 and Galatians 5, fornication, adultery, homosexual behaviors, you mentioned, sodomy, open anger and strife, thievery, covetousness and greed, carousing, drunkenness and so on. Okay. Sins which if let alone to run their course can really threaten the Christian faith of an individual Christian. So the church is concerned about that and addresses that sin. The other sin that church discipline deals with is the public teaching of error, of false doctrine. You know Moses counselled and the same counsel is picked up as late as the Book of Revelation Chapter 22: You shall not add to the word which I command you nor take from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. So the neither adding to nor taking from, most errors in doctrine and in public teaching in the church fall somewhere between those two issues, the taking from the truth or adding to the truth, whatever. Most of the time the church is thinking about public teachers, professors at the church's universities or at the church's seminaries who may get off base and teach falsely. However, Eric, you want to be alert to individuals in a local Christian congregation. Occasionally a person is misled or he or she is an attracted to one of the nonchristian sects, for instance, Jehovah's witnesses, Mormonism and that sort of thing, cults and the like and fascinated with these non-Christian sects, a Christian can become very confused but also very impassioned about what he or she is hearing and come back to the Christian congregation. The first thing you know, the pastor and maybe other members are suspecting that this individual is beginning to advocate some of the teaching of these erring sects or cults. And that situation would call for church discipline and admonishment in that instance. The apostolic church was dealing with public false teaching. The indications are there in Titus 3 and 1 Timothy 6, 1 Timothy 1. So today's church should be alert to that possibility of sin within the camp, as it is sometimes said. And it is God to judges the wicked outside the church but God asks the church to deal with public sin among its own, either immoral behavior or false teaching, whatever the case may be. There are Scripture passages that direct the church to both of these needs for admonishment and discipline. I won't read them. Leviticus 19:17 and Matthew 18:15 and Luke Chapter 17, verse 3. "If your brother sins, rebuke him; if he repents forgive him." Here, the passages are speaking about that office of the keys, to where the authority that the Lord gives to the church to either forgive sins or retain sins, in the instance of nonrepentance. All right. There are passages that refer not only to admonishment but to restoration, James 5:19-20, Galatians 6:1, "If any be overtaken in a trespass, you who are spiritual restore one." Okay. And 2 Thessalonians 3:15. Those passages are available to you in some of the other sources that you'll be studying on this subject. So attending to church discipline, admonishment and loving brotherly restoration, the church is exercising its authority, the office of the keys and a church is well advised to do just that. If a congregation�-- and maybe led by the pastor�-- simply closes its eyes to public sin within its midst or false teaching, whatever the case may be, that congregation stands to be weakened by that laid back approach. It does not make for a strong Christian fellowship to tolerate sin within the camp. * * * * * This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings * * * * *