disfellowshipping in the church

What earns a person excommunication is sin, acts the Scriptures defines as sin.

Is the act of adultery that we do see and the act of adultery we don't see (in our heart) the same?

What we see we judge, the other roams freely flowing down the aisles and no one knowing anything about his spirit. We are no different from the world, we judge by what we see.

If there were no discernment in seeing Annais and Saphirra scheming against the holy Spirit, they would have continued on in the midst, but one saw in the Spirit and stopped them in their tracks. Their sin was "lying". Your church should be emptied out for everyone has lied at one point or another even after their conversion.

It's those who refuse to repent after many pleadings from the Church that are dismissed, not those who sin and have a hard time overcoming sin. To them is the gospel extended for where iniquity aboundeth, Grace much more aboundeth, it reaches far beyond the person who is overwhelmed by his own inadequacies to overcome. That is why we have a body ministry that speaks to the person about overcoming and sharing that through proper teaching and a good diet on the milk of His word and the love of the brethren one will be warmed by the Spirit of unity and that alone will be strength to forsake sin altogether. As long as the soul is repenting there will always be hope, and the Church should never give up hope that one can change.

I remember some years ago that a married man in our Church had an agenda to take one of the single women, which he did. Nothing was done about it. The man and the woman continued to go to that Church unrepentant. I spoke against it, but it was too late. Finally his wife divorced him for repeated cheatings, an act she didn't want to do, but he forced her hand and something that she thought would never happen as she didn't believe in divorce. The Pastor ran off with his brothers wife. The Pastors wife divorced him and the brother divorced his wife. The Pastor is still living with his brothers Ex and are no longer serving God. The man who took the single woman are no longer together. I believe that this all started with the Senior Pastors wife. Some years before this, she took off with the deacon and went across the nation. It was only the coaxing and the pleading that she returned. She cried before the congregation but I am not sure if she repented. I think she was sorry that she was caught and found out. Anyway, she immediately resumed her post as if nothing happened, still the same person, nothing changed.

This was an entirely different set of circumstances. This Church was legalistic and hard. The clergy was hard and unrepentant when they did wrong, and that flowed down into the congregation. Excommunication was needed here for the clergy, but no one touched the clergy. How could they touch the married man, when they themselves have no footing of their own seeing they needed to repent too.

If no one is willing to repent 490 times a day if need be for offense committed, than we should dis fellowship lest the congregation be contaminated, not of sin, but of an unrepentant heart, that is what will kill a Church. The Pharisees had that in them, their neck was stiff and unwilling to bend it. The man in Paul's day that took his Fathers wife flaunted it around, no one nabbed him and shook him saying, "What are you doing, get right with God".

No one did that our Church. Many knew it was wrong, but no one said anything because the clergy was messed up. It's like a man who has an unclean spirit trying to cast an unclean spirit out of another man. Lets first deal with our own problem and then by authority cast out the unclean spirit.

Yes, church discipline is biblical. Paul excercised it at Corinth -you can't miss it if you read 1 and 2 Corinthians. And there, it apparently resulted in the repentance of the sinning fornicator.

My wife was in a service at Grace Community Church (John Macarthur) at a Communion service and there the elders publicly announced that there was an offender, his name and his sin, the biblical basis for what they were doing, and that he is not welcomed in fellowship any more, should not be accepted as a brother, and now is to become the object of evangelism if any other member sees them. The fear of God came upon the place.

Our church here in Mexico has had to excercise discipline as well upon a member that fell into serious sin. This too was during a Communion service. The fear of God came upon the place. And the two offenders repented and there was drastic change.

I have also heard of another church no more than 20 minutes from our house here in Guadalajara that excercised church discipline upon a member that was in adultery. I don't know the result, other than the fact that the man wept and wept.

True pastors will shepherd the flock and protect it from wolves that come in to ravage. They will also reprove wandering sheep and do whatever it takes to get them back into the fold.