Have you never read what David did?
// Jesus (Mark 2.25)
Text: 1 Samuel 3.1-19
Saints & Sinners
The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary color, or, indeed, of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in.
// C.S. Lewis, Miracles
The obvious fact is that man is a child of nature, subject to its ways, compelled by it necessity, driven by impulses, and confined within the brevity of the years which nature permits its varied organic forms. The other less obvious fact is that man is a spirit who stands outside of nature, life, himself, his reason and the world. In its purest form the Christian view of man regards man as a unity of God-likeness and creatureliness in which he remains a creature even in the highest spiritual dimensions of his existence.
// Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man
Psalm 8.3-6
what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? 5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:
God’s Speaks: Creation & Scripture
Romans 1.20
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
"God our maker knows all about us before we say anything (Ps. 139.1-4); but we can know nothing about Him unless He tells us. Here, is the reason why God speaks to us: not only to move us to do what He wants, but to enable us to know Him so that we may love Him. Therefore God sends His word to us in the character of both information and invitation. It comes to woo us as well as instruct us; it not merely puts us in the picture of what God has done and is doing, but also calls is into personal communion with the loving Lord himself."
// J.I. Packer
HYMN: “O Word of God Incarnate”
O Word of God O wisdom from on high
O truth unchanged, unchanging, O light of our dark sky;
We praise thee for the radiance that from the hallowed page,
A lantern to our footsteps, shines from age to age
O make thy church, dear Savior, a lamp of purest gold,
To bear before the nations thy true light, as of old.
O teach thy wand’ring pilgrims by this their path to trace,
Till, clouds and darkness ended, they see thee face to face.
// William Walsham How, 1867
Church Discipline & Accountability
Matthew 18.15-17
"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
1 Timothy 1.20
20Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.
1 Corinthians 5.9-13
9I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10not 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. 11But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
12What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you.
James 5.20
20remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
Revelation 2.20
20Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.
Failure to keep reconciliation as the primary goal of church discipline has led to many abuses of the process in the history of the church, but for true reconciliation to happen there needs to be honest change in the person or person being disciplined.
// John White and Ken Blue, Church Disciplines That Heals
