This holds a valuable lesson to everyone when it comes to holding people accountable. Many of us would say this doesnt apply since we arent pastors but the bible says we are all to hold one another accountable. If you want, I would love to talk with you sometime about that. Of course, the bible places guidelines on how we go about this. The main one for believers to remember is two fold: (1) Biblical accountability is a tool & it is required for us to grow, but only applies from one believer to the next. Attempting to apply biblical restraints & guidelines to model how a non - believer should conduct themself is not productive & can actually hurt the body of Christ. Biblical accountability cannot be handled or responded to with humility unless one has first truly received grace & seen their own desperate need to grow to be more like Christ & less like their natural sinful nature. But, we must deny the miscontextualized notion that secular culture holds (& even parts of misinformed Christian culture) that we are called to avoid making judgements. Judgements have to be made daily & theres no getting around the fact that Jesus commands cannot be kept apart from judgement calls. But judgement is to be made righteously & according to the bible, not opinion or logic. & judgement is only to be rendered unto others in the same manner that one wishes to be dually held accountable (by God & other people). Nowhere does God call to judge not.... that is simply a miscontextualized deception that is used by Satan (even when we arent aware of it) to hinder growth & impede all forms of intimacy by which we might invite others (even when its uncomfortable) to speak truth into our lives that might actually compel or encourage us into more of Christ & less of us even when its uncomfortable. (2) Any kind of biblical discipline should always carry with it a restorative component. It might seem negative to us at the time, because no child likes being disciplined. But, it should always have a rehabilatory or growth result in mind & not an end game that is simply shaming or guilting or division. Love isnt love apart from a framework of discipline & restrictions meant for the most conducive environment for maturity. But, whatever discipline or restrictions can be rightfully attributed to love... they must always be grounded in motives that seek to build up and not to tear down. See Matthew 18 & 19 to more thoroughly explore this.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 18:10:00 +0000
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