Anytime the Church or an individual Christian labels a particular behavior as wrong or sinful, wagging fingers are raised.
Monsignor Pope Ping!
Warning a sinner of the eternal consequences of his or her behavioral choices is an act of mercy......eternal hell awaits the wicked
Warning a sinner of the eternal consequences of his or her behavioral choices is an act of mercy......eternal hell awaits the wicked, God will judge according to his word, (it’s all in the Bible)
Problem is that people concerned about “correcting the sinner” never see themselves as a sinner in need of correction. It’s always other people needing correction.
The older I get, the more I perceive any sort of spiritual pretension directed at others to be a fraud and a deception.
All spiritual development is to be found within the self, no exceptions. Anything directed outward is always aimed at controlling others.
I struggle with this. I think there are people who are OBLIGEd to judge our actions (priests, bishops, deacons, etc.). As a Joe Shmoe in the Catholic Church, I’m obligated to try to live my life and guide my family in Catholic Christian tenets, but I fear hat correcting others might be above my pay grade. Something else to pray over, I guess.
1 Cor 5:1
It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.
12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
If some one is part of a Church the Church has every right to chastise them because they are part of the body of Christ.
For those who are with out the Church can only preach the Gospel because we are not of this world, we do not have the control.
It doesn’t look like a caucus thread, so I’ll point out it is hard to call the world to repent and “Save yourselves from the punishment coming on this wicked people!...Repent, then, and turn to God, so that he will forgive your sins.” - to quote Peter - without ever mentioning sin.
And within the church, a fellow named Paul said, “After all, it is none of my business to judge outsiders. God will judge them. But should you not judge the members of your own fellowship? As the scripture says, “Remove the evil person from your group.”
The context is instructive:
““Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you, 2 for God will judge you in the same way you judge others, and he will apply to you the same rules you apply to others. 3 Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye? 4 How dare you say to your brother, ‘Please, let me take that speck out of your eye,’ when you have a log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
We are not to delight in the sins of others, and enjoy rebuking them while ignoring our own sinfulness. We cannot use other peoples sins to excuse our own, nor use our own to excuse other people. We need to acknowledge that God condemns sin - but we need to leave judgment in the hands of God. We warn others of what God has said, while acknowledging we are sinners needing grace as well.
Yet isn't that precisely what Roman Catholicism says about non-Catholics?
"Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?... And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?... Do you not know that we shall judge angels?... How much more, things that pertain to this life?.. If then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge ? (1 Corinthians 6:1-5).
Many commands of God require the exercise of righteous judgment.
"But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us" (2 Thessalonians 3:6).
"And if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother" (2 Thessalonians 3:14,15).
"Teach and exhort these things. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wrangling of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself" (2 Timothy 6:2b-5).
"Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple" (Romans 16:17,18).
All these commands require the careful exercise of righteousness judgment. Do not be deceived by smooth words and flattering speech. Beware of wolves who come to you with a sheep's skin.
We must be careful not to make unqualified judgments. But we must judge appropriately when commanded to do so.
"Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." (John 7:24). with ignorance after all.
Anytime the Church or an individual Christian labels a particular behavior as wrong or sinful, wagging fingers are raised.
Anytime the Church or an individual Christian labels a particular behavior as wrong or sinful, wagging fingers are raised.
"One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved, in which the priest himself is the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity we ourselves receive from His (nature) what He Himself received from ours."
--Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215)
This is a bad knot.
