The Apostle Paul, wrote once:
“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate
with sexually immoral people; not at all meaning the people of this world who
are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would
have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not
associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually
immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not
even eat with such people.”
(1Corinthians 5:9-11)
St Paul decided to take severe measures against the
relaxed morality of the Christian community of Corinth. Influenced by the
highly paganized society of that city, worldliness had crept into Church, and morality
was laxed. Through this drastic measure of separatism, Paul hoped to move
persistent sinners to repentance; however, he makes clear that this type of
treatment should not be applied to those who have not made an official
profession of faith, in those days, those who were not church members. The
non-Christians.
IN OUR EVERYDAY LIFE
In our everyday life we will encounter people who are
particularly unchristian in their behaviour.
Not your average sceptic or non-religious, but people addicted to alcohol,
drugs, gambling, immoral behaviour, promiscuity, adultery, superstition, magic,
or active atheism. Confronted with this kind of behaviour, sometimes pious and
committed Christians tend to look down on such, or to challenged them in a
direct manner.
This impulse is natural, but it may not the best to the
greater interests of that person, the Gospel and ourselves.
When someone is a believer and lives in sin, the Holy
Spirit does not stop fighting with this person’s conscience. Any call to
repentance or exposition to God’s presence or message, immediately their souls
feel the rebuke of the Spirit. But to someone who has never had a real faith,
who never had a real experience of God, all confrontation could only provoke
antagonism and rebellion instead of repentance, because they do not have the
Holy Spirit within them (Psalm 51:3; Mark 14:72; Luke 5:8).
DO NOT PUSH TO OVER THE EDGE
It is true that God works on every human being from the
outside over their spirits when someone is exposed to the truth of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ, but since this is done only externally under a Prevenient
Grace, the free will of the person, subjected to a corrupted and weaken human
nature, still can be resistant to the encouragement of the Holy Spirit
(John
16:8; Revelation 30:20).
If we reproach a sinner about their bad behaviour in a
challenging manner, as this person does not believe, three things can happen.
Either that person will listen, the person will stop doing what he or she were
doing but remain and unbeliever, or will rebel even more and take an aggressive
response not only towards the one reproaching them, but also toward the reason
of the reproach, in this case, the Gospel, which he or she will see as their
enemy.
Taking into consideration the salvation of that person,
the last two possible results are too drastic to risk a direct approach.
If a person converts as a consequence of our reproach,
which will be unlikely; the mere stopping of that bad behaviour or the
provoking of a rebelling attitude that could push them more into sinning just
to demonstrate that they can, will not benefit anyone, but will only make
things worse.
If we see someone trapped in sin, either by being
enslaved to a vice, immoral behaviour or atheistic activity, etc; we should
deal with that person conscious that their view of life is not the same as
ours, and that a change cannot happen overnight. We cannot expect a bad tree to
give good fruits. Unbelieving sinful people, will behave sinfully. It is to be
expected, and they will not change anytime soon.
LOVE WINS OVER EVERYTHING
If we see someone drinking and we ask them to stop right
then, telling them how bad they are; most probably they will get aggressive
with us and drink more just to prove their point, and we end up pushing them
more into decadence instead of helping them.
If that person stops drinking, we may have helped to
eliminate the problem at the moment, but if that person does not convert, the
vice will come back, or even if it does not, that person still will be lost due
to their unconverted state.
When we approach a compulsive sinner, we should act
prudently and with patience. We can start a conversation about the topic, try
to understand why they do what they do, putting ourselves in their position as
unbelievers to see things as they see it. Only then we can explain our point of
view, not in an aggressive way, but only as our own point of view, respecting
that person’s autonomy of decision; in the hope that they may see how virtue
outweighs sin every time; and finally and most important, to explain them the
Gospel of Salvation.
Things done in love and patience go further to good port,
things done in antagonism and reproach, provoke outrage. And if we cannot
contribute to the good of someone in word, then it is better to keep silent and
demonstrate our testimony in practice, for them to see without being
challenged.
It is the long term good of the sinner we need to keep in
mind, not only ours or the moment. But
especially, not being the ones who pushed a sinner over the edge of perdition
by causing them to rebel against Christ.
“Let your conversation be always full of
grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone”
(Colossians 4:6)
Omar Flores.
Comments
Post a Comment