The Grace Community Church in Jacksonville, Florida, has been threatened with a lawsuit for its plan to discipline a member for engaging in an immoral sexual relationship with her boyfriend.
The church members followed all the guidelines laid out in scripture. The member in question, Rebecca Hancock, a 49-year-old divorcee, was counseled by her "mentor" to discontinue the immoral relationship. When she persisted in immorality, several other female members of the church met with her, pointed out the appropriate scripture passages, and encouraged her to end her sexual sin and restore her relationship with God.
Still, she refused, and so the elders of the church sent her a thoughtfully-worded letter in which they cited scriptural admonitions against sexual sin and pointed out that we are called to live godly lives. The letter reviews the disciplinary steps that had been taken and warns:
"Your refusal to repent and be restored in your relationship to God and His church leave us with no other alternative than to carry out the third step of the discipline process. In accordance with Matthew 18:17, we intend to 'tell it to the church'. Unless you repent of this sin and agree to meet with the elders regarding this issue, this third step will be carried out publicly on Sunday, January 4th, 2008 [sic].'"
The letter concludes:
"Our prayer is that you would repent of your sin, return to God soon, and permit Him to help you in this area."
It is no surprise that community members and the media are appalled that a congregation should confront a member about a relationship that the world considers "normal". What is surprising is the outcry from so-called Christians.
Condemnation of the church's stance is based largely on the opinion that since the woman is a consenting adult, it's no one's business that she sleeps with her boyfriend — or anyone else, for that matter.
Ms. Hancock said she knew the relationship was "against church rules" but she apparently doesn't know or care that her immorality is a sin against God. When confronted by some of the women of the church, she complained that she was being "persecuted" because the woman told her that what she was doing was wrong.
While we might expect that attitude from the world, I'm amazed that professed Christians are so ignorant of the Bible and of the instructions it contains regarding discipline in the church.
Rather than submit to the church's discipline, she insisted that her sexual activity is none of the church's business and that it's her right as an adult to engage in sexual activity whenever she wants. Perhaps. But is it her right as a Christian?
Let's take a look at what the Scripture has to say. What guidelines were the first Christians expected to follow?
In the letter to the church at Rome, in Romans 13.13-14, we read, "Let us behave decently… not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealously. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature."
In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul not only addresses sexual immorality but discusses discipline of one who indulges in sexual sin. "It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you…. I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people — not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral…. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral…. With such a man do not even eat." In other words, the church should not associate with a Christian believer who engages in sexual immorality.
Paul goes on to tell the Corinthians, "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you…? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God in your body." (1 Corinthians 6.18-20)
In his letter to the Ephesians (chapter 5, verse 3), Paul writes, "But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or of any kind of impurity…because these are improper for God's holy people."
Finally, in his letter (1 Timothy 5.20), Paul discusses church discipline with Timothy. "Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning."
Outraged church attendees quote Jesus when He was presented with the woman caught in adultery: "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." They conveniently forget Jesus' instruction to the adulterous woman after He had forgiven her: "Go now, and leave your life of sin."
That is precisely what Grace Community Church is telling Ms. Hancock.
© 2008 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.
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