News about another fallen pastor and his pastoral assistant made me think about how I treat sin and sinners.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t mean people who don’t profess belief in the God of the Bible.\u00c2\u00a0 Most of us are quite happy to put those sinners, inasmuch as we have contact with them, into the “lost” or “seeking” box.\u00c2\u00a0 The contents of these boxes are rumored to be unaware of sin and uninterested in holiness.\u00c2\u00a0 If they ever enter a church, they’re not expected to conform to our rules.<\/p>\n
I mean how we treat a fellow Christian who has sinned.\u00c2\u00a0 I find it much easier to ignore a sin or ignore the sinner.\u00c2\u00a0 When did I last gently rebuke a brother before greater harm was done, or love a repentant brother after that harm was done?\u00c2\u00a0 Adultery serves as a good illustration, clearly identifiable as it is.<\/p>\n
I am currently happily married and thankful for the lack of real temptation, but I ask myself:
\n– If someone else asks me uncomfortable questions because he suspects I am getting dangerously close to another woman, will I listen and act?
\n– Is there even a venue for someone to ask me such questions?\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t the social risk too high a barrier?
\n– Am I courageous enough to ask similar uncomfortable questions when I suspect something in someone else?<\/p>\n
If the answer to all of the above is no, then how can we expect there to be fewer affairs in the church than the national average?<\/p>\n
And once the affair happens, there are other questions:
\n– Do I continue to associate with the adulterer and pour my efforts into restoring him to his wife and the church community through repentance and forgiveness?
\n– Do we have a process in place for public confession and rehabilitation?<\/p>\n
As long as we treat the brother who stumbled as an outcast, as though sin were infectious and not congenital, we can’t be surprised if he who stumbles stumbles even further.\u00c2\u00a0 I think a putative lack of Biblical knowledge or doctrinal instruction is but a minor factor here.
\nA pastor is of course in an even more difficult situation.\u00c2\u00a0 His livelihood depends on his position, and his position on his integrity.\u00c2\u00a0 To whom can the pastor in safety confess he is staggering, so that his confessor can help keep him from stumbling?\u00c2\u00a0 And should he stumble: how can he be reconciled with those whom he has wronged when his sin and economic necessity will most likely force him to leave town?<\/p>\n
I think our evangelical churches aren’t set up very well to handle sin, especially sin in a pastor.\u00c2\u00a0 The only way I’d choose to be a pastor would be if I wasn’t aware of this structural flaw, or blessed with a supernatural trust in God’s grace and provision, or plain cocksure.<\/p>\n
Maybe that’s why preaching scares me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
News about another fallen pastor and his pastoral assistant made me think about how I treat sin and sinners.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t mean people who don’t profess belief in the God of the Bible.\u00c2\u00a0 Most of us are quite happy to put those sinners, inasmuch as we have contact with them, into the “lost” or “seeking” box.\u00c2\u00a0 The contents of these boxes are rumored to be unaware of sin and uninterested in holiness.\u00c2\u00a0 If they ever enter a church, they’re not expected to conform to our rules. I mean how we treat a fellow Christian who has sinned.\u00c2\u00a0 I find it much easier to ignore a sin or ignore the sinner.\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}