Kathy and others,
The First Corinthians 5:5 passage is not generally accepted today as part of
New Testament church doctrine. In fact, the first time I heard about it was
the missionary to Canada I mentioned and he was a Baptist. I never even
heard any other Baptist preach on that passage before. It appears from just
the reading of the passage in context, that Paul was instructing the
Corinthian Christians what to do about the immorality of one of the church
members. I don't see that he necessarily told the people to tell them what
they were going to do but other passages, of course, tell us to do exactly
that before anything else. It makes little difference because few people
are literally afraid of God today and what sin can do to a person.
Deceitfulness is what hardness the person's heart, not sin, according to
Hebrews 3:13, but read the verse just before it, too.
12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of
unbelief, in departing from the living God.
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you
be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
An evil heart of unbelief in a Christian? That's what it says. What are
they not believing in? It can't be God because it says they are Christians,
or brethren, so it must be something else. Jesus scolded His disciples more
than once for not believing and they were his followers. Jesus jumped on
the disciples both before, and after, the resurrection for their unbelief.
I still find such amazing. When we believe in something, regardless of what
that is, it, the thing we believe, even if it is wrong, becomes the truth to
us. We will act upon what we perceive to be the truth even if what we
believe is a lie. A person can literally die because they believe a lie is
the truth. some, who are not Born again, will even go to hell believing a
lie.
Again, to everyone reading this exchange, I am telling you because, quite
frankly, we are the only church George and his family has right now. Yeah,
I know, we aren't really a church, if we were, I'd be taking up offerings
every week, but we are the Body of Christ. Truthfully, these people have no
one and they are all alone and without fellow Christian to help them.
You want to know the real truth? Children can destroy a family. The Enemy
knows this so he picks on the children, sometimes from day one, knowing that
by such means, he can infiltrate any family. Frankly, I don't care where
George stands on any passage of Scripture but I do care where Jennifer
stands. right now, wherever Jennifer stands isn't where she should be
standing. Whatever it is that is keeping Jennifer silent until death can't
be anything but a lie. I can think of only three possibilities that would
cause someone to take death rather than life in the situation Jennifer is in
right now. We may never get to discover the truth about this one.
A few moments ago, George called me. We talked for five or so minutes. He
told me that his wife is telling everybody her version of what happened and
now their own son has turned against his dad. George has been telling me
for weeks that if Jennifer dies, he will somehow be blamed for it so I guess
he knows more about what is going on than anybody else. How sad for
everyone involved and especially for Jennifer. As George was just talking,
his wife came and got him, she won't talk to him otherwise, plus, Vivian
hates my guts I have learned, I suppose because she thinks I have put George
up to everything but she is wrong, of course, and told George to come right
away because Jennifer nearly fainted. Jennifer can't hardly talk any longer
and she is, as I type, literally fighting to breathe.
Phil.
|
