Who is to say that this woman is not lost?  She certainly did not gain her salvation through church membership.  Disciples of Jesus Christ will be known by their fruit and for their love for each other.  In my opinion this appears to be a case of pride mostly.  One-upmanship if you will.  Why else would a church actually set a date to publicly denounce someone?  I also have witnessed church discipline involving adultery and never has their been a public proclamation to shame and sensationalize.

I agree with this church.  It is about time that we start standing on the Word of God.  If we are going to call ourselves Christians, we need to start acting like Christians.  That means taking the bad with the good, we are called to live according to God’s Word, not according to the world.

The Word of God is very clear about adultery or fornacation.  And the Word of God is very clear about disipline of a member of a church that is sinning and will not stop.  It sounds like this church did everything according to the Word.  I don’t believe that this woman’s mentor handled the situation correctly, if you are going to mentor, you should not go to your friends for help, you go to your pastor.

There are 2 sides to every story, sound like we are only hearing the side of the women.  We have heard that what the church is planning on doing, but we haven’t heard the rest of their story.

ak

John:

“If every church kicked everyone out who had unrepented sex without being married, there wouldn’t be enough people left to financially sustain Christianity.

“If I were a member of this church, I’d suggest we work on things like greed, hate, bigotry, and state-sponsored murder rather than focusing our energies on divorcees who have sex.  “

Please tell me that you’re kidding here.

--
CS

Are there not times in every Sunday service that there sits in the congregation people in different levels of sin? 

I can see this “discipline” if the woman was in a leadership position, but besides that she should have been left along with her mentor to continue to work with her.

IMHO

John: very pertinent point.

I have a question: is it biblical for us to “break fellowship”, kick out, etc., from the church? I am talking about folks who have fallen short? Not just removing from positions of leadership, but actually thrown out.

Love to hear the opinions…

Hey all you who want to drag this lady into the public square and stone her… have you forgotten how Jesus handled such an issue?  Does that not have some weight in how this is dealt with?

I love all these “stone her” types, yet they are the ones who in the “privacy of their minds” commit adultery every other minute!

No, no, no - there are some very silly & judgemental comments here.

Why are people here assuming that “bringing the issue to the church” means bringing it before the entire church attendees and membership in the most humiliating way possible in the Sunday morning service??

Almost every church on the planet bases their discipline procedures on this passage but this church has interpreted it to mean humiliate the person into repentance - needlessly so in my opinion.

As a pastor my church adopts this passage of scripture too but “bringing it to the church” means bringing the issue before the leadership team (or senior leadership team in a mega church).

Finally, the last part of the passage that has been quoted says if they refuse to repent they should be treated like pagans.  And how do we treat pagans and the unsaved?  We love them, we lead them to Christ and we lay our lives down for them to be saved.  We don’t humiliate and ex-communicate them (unless they genuinely can’t come to any service without causing hurt to the people directly involved by their presence). 

The point is that the long-term goal of this situation is eventual repentance, and humiliating someone will most likely prevent them to returning to your or any church again.

Me three, Matt.  Very well stated.

All,

Please read.....

I Corinthians 5:9-11 I have written 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 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.

Thanks, Matt.

How many of you have excommunicated or perhaps simply stopped associating with all the greedy people you know?

How many of you have excommunicated or perhaps simply stopped associating with all the people you know who engage in questionable business practices (read: swindlers)?

Why is it that we put some sins higher on the list than others? Why is it that when we read a passage like that we only see the sexually immoral people as the ones to deal with?

You don’t have to answer…

Everyone is so upset over the church taking this sin public. But this woman made it a whole lot more public than the church ever could. Because of her actions, people around the world know about it, instead of just the people of that congregation.

Let’s be honest, the Scripture doesn’t say in Matthew 18:17 what to do if the person decides to leave the church when you’re in the middle of the Matthew 18 process. So maybe that’s a decision that should be left up to the church. Although I will say that they are doing the right thing in just letting her go.

Also, when Jesus said in Matthew 18:17 to “take it to the church.” he actually meant The Church. The original text for the word church there means the church body, as in the whole group, as in the congregation.

And when I read this story it sounds like they went through step 2, taking it before a smaller group, more than one time. First it was with her mentor and a few other people, and now the elders of the church are trying to settle it between just them. So really, they’re giving this woman more than a couple of opportunities to settle it without having to go before the congregation.

Well put, Matt and Peter.

Do we call out the rich folks for the sin of greed?  How often has that happened? Especially when they are big givers?

are you kidding me?  are we being punked?  seriously...where’s ashton kutcher?

a few thousand years ago this chick would have been chosen to save the Jews from a corrupt politician or harbor a couple of rag-tag disciples to spare them from a pre-mature end...now listen to us?!

seriously ashton, you can come out now!