IMO, just paying your taxes doesn’t make you a good person, giving what’s left does. Ebenezer Scrooge’s big transformation wasn’t adopting progressive policies or anything, but giving abundantly.
Christianity doesn’t say anything about politics, it’s an individual thing.
Exactly, Paul tells Christians to leave those outside of the Church to be dealt with by God as well.
1 Corinthians 5:12-13
For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.
I agree with your point generally (limit judgment to those within the church), I just urge caution about how far to take that.
Context
Paul is talking to a fledgling church (not ready for meat: see chapter 3), so they need to be extra careful about getting led astray. Corinth was known for sexual deviance, yet the Christians were accepting of something even the local non-Christians would see as wrong (sexual relationship with step mother), yet the Christians there seemed to accept it. Tolerance of that behavior is destructive to the church, so they need to actively push against it. Pushing the individual out of the church would encourage them to repent and also protect the church from further compromising their principles.
I know to urge caution, but what do you mean? Like we should punish murder because society sees it as bad as well. But when it comes to a topic such as same sex marriage, I think if it’s what the majority of society want, it should be legal and not hurting anybody, even if it’s not something that the Church should accept within religious life.
church being judge and jury - especially dangerous in majority Christian areas, since excommunication can be very severe - the Church in Corinth was very small vs the rest of the population
being too strict can be counter productive by pushing people away from the very community that can help them - the situation in 1 Corinth was the church tolerating grievous sin, perhaps in a prominent member (otherwise why would Paul have heard about it?)
My caution is about understanding the context to avoid just pulling random verses. Perhaps you won’t do that, I just like to be extra clear in case someone else finds the conservation. I’ve seen people do terrible things in the name of religion, and this feels like a passage that could get misused.
Good point, especially with 2 Corinthians 9:7
Thanks.
IMO, just paying your taxes doesn’t make you a good person, giving what’s left does. Ebenezer Scrooge’s big transformation wasn’t adopting progressive policies or anything, but giving abundantly.
Christianity doesn’t say anything about politics, it’s an individual thing.
Exactly, Paul tells Christians to leave those outside of the Church to be dealt with by God as well.
1 Corinthians 5:12-13
I agree with your point generally (limit judgment to those within the church), I just urge caution about how far to take that.
Context
Paul is talking to a fledgling church (not ready for meat: see chapter 3), so they need to be extra careful about getting led astray. Corinth was known for sexual deviance, yet the Christians were accepting of something even the local non-Christians would see as wrong (sexual relationship with step mother), yet the Christians there seemed to accept it. Tolerance of that behavior is destructive to the church, so they need to actively push against it. Pushing the individual out of the church would encourage them to repent and also protect the church from further compromising their principles.
I know to urge caution, but what do you mean? Like we should punish murder because society sees it as bad as well. But when it comes to a topic such as same sex marriage, I think if it’s what the majority of society want, it should be legal and not hurting anybody, even if it’s not something that the Church should accept within religious life.
I agree with that.
The caution I’m talking about is twofold:
My caution is about understanding the context to avoid just pulling random verses. Perhaps you won’t do that, I just like to be extra clear in case someone else finds the conservation. I’ve seen people do terrible things in the name of religion, and this feels like a passage that could get misused.