There was received at one time

INSPIRATION, ILLUMINATION, SEPARATION AND SERVICE

The Epic of Obedience

From Century to Century

In what follows, assistance has been provided
to help any to save time and meet various needs.

To help the reader in this crucial field of modern misalliance, purple summaries of major aspects will be given and material which one short of time might wish to leave till later will be italicised, in paragraphs.

Where there is only a very short set of italics this will remain in the normal usage.

The clear necessity to separate on biblical grounds is presented first,
other topics as they were raised, to meet conscientiously each point.

Purple minor headings help the reader to find a given topic in the reply quickly and to select what is desired at any given time.

There was received for consideration, at one time during the more than 40 years of my ministry in four countries, some material of significant interest, which gave one indications of a certain mutation relative to the word of God, the Bible, on the topic of separation. While this undoubtedly is by no means assumed to have been the intention of the writer of that material, it does appear to fit the method of procedure on occasion. This letter was not written to me, but concerned the Church.

Thousands of people seem to be confused, misled or mistaught on this crucial topic, and therefore the pith of the material is made available.

The answer in terms of these queries and presentations, follows this present section, below. It has of course been slightly changed, not in what it presents on the topics, but in anything relevant at the personal level which is not germane to general readers. An end-note has been added.

First however, consider the case in question, and indeed the genre, which concerns separating from what is not founded on the Rock, but on rock-'n-roll music, or new christs, or experience with Lord-and-more-for-me as some sort of false guide to life or standards of purity not to be found in the Bible. Do you stay with a doctor who is a doctor death ? do you imagine that the name 'doctor' is guarantee ? Do you stay with a body once a Church, when its ways, biblically defined, are those of death ?

It is not only time to consider, but HIGH TIME! Moreover, in truth there is comfort, in mercy there is cleanness, in pardon the way to purity lies open and in the God of all comfort, the way out of calamity into counsel is but one step into Jesus Christ, as living Lord and complete Saviour. Then the highway of holiness stretches over its valleys and summits. It is not ANY 'Lord' or 'Jesus' or 'Christ' but the 'Lord's Christ' who acts (Luke 2:26). Paul has warned of others using the same name as that of Jesus, but for another Christ, from the opposite course, that of death (II Corinthians 11).

Thus an open door being present, and open need being astoundingly obvious and pressing, this answer, then, is not just to issues raised by one person, but to the whole gamut of such issues arising from what is presented.

Many are embroiled in such issues as more and more former churches change their allegiance to the Christ of history in alienation or indifference, and substitute idols of their own. In so doing, they often prefer to continue using His name, changing the word of God just as the soldiers sought to change Jesus, with their fists, mockery and sneer-laden crown. It is important not to be alert to history, but dead to the present, alive to tradition, but inert to truth.

If these issues are not faced NOW, then the lag as in the case of any other sphere of divine command, can bring those asleep into an awakening they might rather not have.

Interesting indeed is your approach to the question of context. As you make this a sort of preliminary, in all courtesy, I shall do the same. One of us, to whom you have written, thinks you seem to have misunderstood him. We are here of course committed to the Bible, all of the Bible and the Bible as its own interpreter, with of indeed the grace of the Spirit of God as promised. Culture and all that sort of this-world's contribution to the understanding of the word of God, which tells us that friendship with the world, enmity with God (James 4:4), is naturally to some extent relevant; but never as a criterion, merely as circumstantial.

Now when it comes to the more important point of scripture's own context, there are two extremes, both of which have only a little to commend them. One says this: Text without context is pretext. The other says this: Context allegedly at war with text is a suspect analysis.

If we were to move from aphorisms to actualities it would therefore help. It is possible that by irony or some subtlety, a text or isolable statement in a given document, may be at some degree of variance, not to say contradiction, with the context. "Your words are clearly absurd. What a genius you are!"

In either statement, each made the context for the other, there is formally apparent contradiction. This is not an abstruse matter, but clearly understood. Good communication is not a kaleidoscopic bundle of erratic words. If the recipient the speaker to convey something, there are ways. If the recipient is blind, nothing much helps of course, and that is precisely what Christ sometimes stated concerning various people, in this, that the context in their hearts, if you will, their presuppositional background, barriers and assumptions, was making light impassable (cf. Matthew 13:15ff.). That is one part of it. For now, it is enough.

In the special case of God speaking, we are told that His words are clear to him who understands, that there is nothing writhed or contorted in them (Proverbs 8). We are not, note, here speaking of depth and challenge, but of unclear expression per se. Repeatedly as in Isaiah 42,49, the Lord asserts that it is so far from a lack of clarity in His speech, but rather a lack of ears or eyes that function to the point, which is the problem.

Here is the very criterion of (relevant) blindness, the one who thinks he is so very religious, and yet is based on presuppositions, cultural inhibitions or commissions, traditions and the like so that words are traduced in meaning, context is manipulated blindly, as by a child, and results are worse then desultory. Blind leaders of the blind are thus able to function in their thoughtless and useless, indeed worse than useless manner (cf. Jeremiah 23, Ezekiel 14),

We now come to the separation of depth of meaning, showing need of grace and light, in order to understand matters of 'meat', from something quite different. The pathological procedure often met applies quite well to superficial or deep matters alike. It involves the elevation of context by devious and distorting devices, to the place of potential disaster area for clear and rational analysis. Context is good, but just as some lawyers for example, are noted for being able to use the mass of law to incite confusion, so do many act with the Bible.

Again, you see in Matthew 22:23-31 , Christ exposing the sightless efforts to bring reason without inspiration into frank conflict with the Bible, while trying to remove the clear force of biblical statements. They have blinkers to their understanding, to aid their blindness; and it makes it, if possible, worse. Understanding was denied their vapid chapter in this instance: as Christ put it, they understood neither the power of God nor the scripture.

Thus cultural desire or habits become unnoticed glasses through which the word of God is viewed, in the most calamitous fashion, so that Christ Himself exposed such abuse of His word. In Matthew 15 there appears the use of a dedicated gift to the temple being used to distance a clear mandate, indeed command to honour father and mother, so avoiding the help clearly intended for the parents. So did the Lord rebuke the manhandling of Moses' words by cultural desire, in order to escape clear duty (Matthew 15:3,7-9). Thus religiosity cancels commandment, with the appearance of an escape clause! Cultural desire or custom annuls the impact of the word of God, and intrudes in mind, into the context when it is read (cf. Mark 7:7ff.).

This involves contextual manipulation or blindness to part of it, and such needs examination to avoid the same sort of illicit result which Christ lampooned and derided (Matthew 23:17ff.).

Further, II Peter 3 makes it clear that some topics are MOST demanding, and that some people are so facile and superficial that they will tread unwarily in some of these, to their own damnation. Thus it is not that all understanding is EASY, but that it is not the fault or failure to the least degree of the Speaker, of His words, that is in view. It is failure in heart that is the basic distortion, obfuscation (Matthew 15:8-9, Proverbs 8:8-9).

Now it seems that you are actually thinking of a domain not precisely context, in terms of such an example as you cite, about selling all that you have (which, if general, could lead to an amazing reciprocity of changing your fortune to his and his back again and so on, if one does not take the depth and cosmos of thought in view aptly, on the one hand, and the individual nature of the case, on the other). One must be careful to avoid viewing the incident rather woodenly, to be sure, seeing in it not a contextual issue of possible contradictions but one of understanding what the speech is about. It is necessary to find from the immediate and general context and contexts, and the words, and the incident, and the principles the Lord exhibits and states both here and elsewhere, both in one statement and another, what is actually 'light' on the topic, as distinct from opacity.

Of course you could CALL it contextual, and anything could be made to seem similar to something else by means of words that define themselves this way and that; but the issue here is to grasp the sort of speech that Christ is using. It is a matter of spiritual discernment. Analysis however provides verbal barriers to misconstruction or from His use of words, receives stimulus to control.

What has just been shown is able to make the situation in principle very clear to anyone facing the impactive imperiousness of Christ's exhortation, in line with such words as let not your right hand know what the left is doing and so forth. Proverbs often give statements of KIND, that is as is the nature of proverbs, things that give a sense of type, direction and due outcome.

These are preliminary cautions concerning context in its correct use. This case of the rich young ruler, however, does not have that dimension. It is a case of a particular, distinctively characterised person.

The Luke 18 case involves a particular pathology in a colourful young man,
his intense desire, wealth and negative response, all dramatic,
in no way universalisable to all humanity, either logically or psychologically.
It cannot be therefore be used to illustrate grounds for disobedience to a clear command.
Context is the point! not its omission.

In the Luke 18:18 case, it is a word to individual in a particular pathological condition of spirit. Neither in form nor setting is it universal AS A COMMAND. This therefore cannot be used as an illustration of the painful necessity of getting a clear command and not doing it. What that man had to do, no one else is instructed to do, any more than someone without diabetes has to do what the sufferer has to do. The cutting off of the right hand is dependent on its becoming a stumbling block: en masse cuttings are neither necessary nor sound in any way; nor is there any difficulty about th meaning of 'cut off' and 'hand' in this case, as it is apparent it is an illustration, the eye and so on being metonymy, things associated with something being used to pin-point the idea.

The personal pathology of the young man in question in Mark 10 is demonstrated in that, whatever Christ did or did not mean in telling him to sell all that he had, he could not do it, and went mourning at his inability to get the eternal life he came running to grasp (taking more detail from the parallel in Mark 10:17). It is allied in Gospel context with the fact that he had great possessions. Is it really so hard to understand that at times one must cut off the right hand rather than have the whole being go to hell!

Is it so hard to realise that this is not an invitation to butchery, but to be understood by discernment as meaning something other than maiming, never authorised in scripture which wants more abundant life, but in terms of the quite ordinary figure of speech, metonymy. After all, contortions and constraints in a diseased soul may be great to avoid a need, and a personal command may be used to a particular case; though the concept of lust for soulless liberty is a generality to be avoided when one considers any particular case and its cost.

The right hand is associated with power and personal efficiency, and if one's talent/power, premises get in the way, then it may be necessary to abandon the engulfing psychic or other inflammation which is endangering the whole life. Such figures are common, such contexts are simple, they strain nothing. It is interpretation of the meaning the thrust of the speaker which is in view, the spiritual import. Context ? well, IN the context there are all sorts of things, but THROUGH the whole passage, there is a meaning, thrust, depth and dimension. You have to be adroitly contentious or blind to miss it, or something not too dissimilar.

However, this is mere illustration. We get back in particular to the case you cite, Luke 18:22 and thereabouts.

You raise the question regarding selling all that you have and giving to the poor, whether this is required of all who want eternal life ? Where does it SAY so in this cited textual episode ? What possible interpretation of text or context, or thrust or genre could possibly imply that the rich young ruler, with great possessions, constitutes a generic for widows with cents, or others whose temptations are different ? Is John with arthritis, given notice of what he must quit, to be used as a model for Bill, muscle-bound, with what he must do ? There is no way in which directions to a specific, specialised, analysed, differentially focussed person becomes by some sort of rigid presumption, directions for all.

NO interpretation can do that to this text. ALL are not so directed; ONE is. That is all. You can bring in your presuppositions and canons of thought as you will, and make results; but not from this text or its context or its thrust.

Now you ask questions which one expects, are posed with all goodwill, and certainly not in intention amiss, but which seem to act as red herrings if the point is what a command actually directs one to do.

Is the text about the rich young man challenging to rich Westerners ? you ask. You think so. I think so too. But that is not the point at issue when the matter before us is understanding what the Bible is commanding. It is not commanding all to do this. To be sure, the command to a pathological person can awaken

The point is one: what does it mean as command ? What is commanded ? Certainly, no command to all people is in ANY way visible there. Assumptions about what might be useful or beneficial are useful; but not for the meaning. These assumptions depend on many personal, cultural and indeed pathological or health aspects; and the Spirit of God might convict some, and indeed some might resist this: all this is so. But the words do not so command to all. There is no difficulty whatsoever in this case about the meaning. There is simply room for individuals to ruminate: good, but rumination is not command.

You indicate that you have a penchant or desire or sense of obligation to find, first, the message for the original. That is certainly part of any conscientious approach to the word of God, to find what it was meant to convey to the recipient, if any specific one is in view. Secondly, you feel one ought to find the message for us. This is absolutely standard to what many have taught long and hard. It is normal Bible booklet technology, as in Daily Light and so on. We are not bound to personalise everything, but the Spirit of God may apply it how He will; we must not fail to be willing to have ANY application, and some are amazing. However the personal application that God sees fit to give, and the structural application which may in some cases be apparent for certain audiences, these are one thing, and useful for exhortation: but the MEANING of a command is another.

"Love your mother" one may say; and you think you must wash up the dishes for her; but this is not the command. That is a possible application of ethical dimensions, which may or may not be good or wise or sound; and it may be shockingly obvious. This is not the meaning. It is a possible personal application.

Context, you say, must always be given its due weight. It is difficult to see how it could be other. We do not seem to be making much progress away from norms. We just need to realise the difference between pastoral and personal application and what is commanded, WHEN the ISSUE is what a command is! If it is, then it must be obeyed; if it qualifies itself, then it is qualified; if it has a personal impact on us, real or potential, then this is part of its use: but the COMMAND is not its application. It is what it is. We can become so personalised that we fail to be objective.

We are really dealing in the area of biblical hermeneutics, and must not confuse this with biblical application. If you say to a dog, SIT! that is not unclear. If the dog thinks, Ah! that is an interesting command - it really makes one wonder if one is working too hard! and so on, this is not the command, but the canine reflections, quite a separate matter, with its own criteria and uses.

AVOIDING A COMMAND BY CONTEXT IS NOT TO BE CONFUSED
WITH AVOIDING CONTEXT. The point deserves clarification.

There is no difficulty when all the Bible is given its status as the word of God and faithfully followed with all its prompts and precision. The issue raised on the point of context then, does not affect the matter in hand, obedience to commands of God. Punctilious care is needed before the normal thrust of words is seen as irony or any such thing; but a good writer leaves no one in doubt who seeks, and God is a good writer. So far we are left with the commands themselves in full biblical context, and without avoiding it or them in any way.

Now we are dealing with issues, not with what this or that person (other than God) has said. But it seems that what one has said previously is this: that an unqualified command is not to be given qualification, through the use of any contextual manipulation to avoid it. Your own paraphrase uses the term "to avoid its application to ourselves."

Since his issue seems to be DOING what you are TOLD by God, and not thinking your own thoughts about the topic in general, or its relevance to your life in this way or that, then he appears to have in mind a single, simple element. If God says DO THIS, then do not squirm and turn about, seeking some AVOIDANCE technique from the context.

This is quite common and has long been so. Christ used the case in terms of honouring yhour father and mother, the command.

Indeed, Jesus Christ refers with great derogation to such errors, as in the following from Matthew 15.

This is the domain to be noted, realised, repudiated.

In modern terms, the sort of way the same thing might now be done, we could imagine a case something like this. HONOUR your father and mother ? "But well, if they are not honourable, let them have it with the tongue and show them up to others, for it will do them good in the long run, and it is the thought that counts!"

Our point as individuals and as a church is, and always has been for decades, that what is written is first of all, not subject to human manipulation. What is says, being of God, is not to be understood in terms of one's personal philosophy (if any), or metaphysics (if any), known or unknown, conscious or other; and God who is master of His people, is to be sought in such a way that one forsakes all that one has (this IS generic incidentally), including personal pre-conceptions about culture this way or that, or anything else, which dares to intrude its philosophic attitudes - and in many these are often anti-God - into interpretation. It is then not avoidance of the context, not recommended by anyone of ours, but of the issue which is the point. So let us return to the issue and avoid what is not the point.

Conscious or unconscious, when such things happen, the result is in form the same.

One classic case of 'knowing better' than what is actually said, and employing cultural or personal 'interpretation' which is in fact repudiation, of course is found in Mark 8:32-33.

Peter's error was in what he savoured, thinking in human terms outside the parameters and godliness of God. Peter's pre-conceptions misled him, and he actually argued with Christ about what He OUGHT to mean. This process is not always open in someone's heart, and the desire becomes father of the 'interpretation'. That is why text and context, near and far in the word of God, MUST be weighed with great care.

The context when not used to AVOID, is of course as much part of the word of God as anything else in the Bible, ALL of which is from such a basis as ours, and in particular in the Westminster Confession on this topic, to be revered.

Thus all you have to say, as far as one has so far seen on the topic of context, does not relate to anything so far known, about the issue. It is pastorally normal on the whole, interesting, and fine for exhortation; but when the issue is this: IF IT COMMANDS, DO IT, then do not take this or that measure to AVOID that, qualify it and so on, then the point is back where it started.

This raises the interesting point however, in terms this time of the actual need, hermeneutics, of what people are to do about the GENERIC, when it is in view, such as this: forsake ALL that you have, or be INCAPABLE of being His disciple (Luke 14).

In the context, the cross being taken up (and words relate, this way and that, and as in the body, are to be seen BOTH in isolation and in reticulation), it is clear that the meaning is spiritual in essence. We are not engrossed in carpentry here. It is not about riches, but about a degree of devoted integrity which lets nothing get in the way of service for, and devotion wholeheartedly and single-mindedly to Christ.

Forsaking all that you have, in terms of taking up a cross, is relinquishing all that could get in the way either of what the cross implies, or of the Christ for whom you take it up, if so be. If there is anything which makes a person's absolute departure from cultural norms (where these challenge or negate Christ or His teaching in any way), or psychological forms (where habit makes eyes slow or blind, reinforced by social mores and so forth), necessary in order to secure absolute obedience to whatever Christ commands you: then that person must forsake, depart from the matter in question.

If anyone has things which are already in total submission to Him, then forsaking them would mean being less devoted! The generic must be understood in context, in thrust, in meat, in point, in its mode of diction, and so on. It is not too hard for a willing mind in the generalities of practical things (cf. John 7:17,24).

What then of this in Luke 14 ? The issue is forsaking competition with Christ, and the outcome is taking up the cross, paying for what is required though it seems to harrow the soul and imprint life with disciplines extraordinary. It is all very simple. One is not to be minimising the requirements of the call of Christ.

IF there is one dollar, or pride, or pretension, or self-love, or anything else material or moral or spiritual, intellectual or social which is NOT given up to Christ, as Abraham willingly yielded his great hope, Isaac, then you MUST give it up. That is the point.

What if someone does not know of such a fault, flaw or failure in his or her life ? Then in faithfulness, you ask God to search you and try you and see if there is any wicked way in you (Psalm139); and you study the word of God and see if it has negative or reinforcing impact on what you find, and respond accordingly. It does not mean perfection (I John 1), nor does it mean being dilatory (I John 3:9). It means being vigorous and faithful in pursuit of truth in life.

Difficulty in understanding the command at this phase in focus ? Impossible to find.

Difficulty in doing it ? Worse, it is impossible to do this, if a person's heart is still in sin's control; it is challenging if it is no longer stone. But what you are to do, would take some ingenuity, even to make some issue. It is all simple: DO IT.

Christ is not different in His stated expectations, making no allowance for putative difficulties, but dealing with the things as clear in command and the issue as obedience. Thus He asks a question which is in the spiritual context, immensely relevant, for this undoubtedly IS generic. It is this:

The issue is KEEPING His sayings, and the contrast is the house on the rock, and that on the sand as foundation.

Attaching to the answer to these questions there would not seem, even to the priests of Baal, any difficulty. They might want to rip apart the speaker, or the words, but the meaning is transparently apparent, to the point of reductio ad absurdum.

It is a tour de force on the part of Paul, inspired by the Spirit of God (as in I Corinthians 2:9-13). We might then ask what is the topic on which this is the climacteric division ? WHAT is it which is so clear ? Obvious even in these verses themselves is this: that Paul's words involve a prohibition about believers and unbelievers having any sort of spiritual relationship in a concerted fashion.

They are not to be mixed up in any way with such opposing forces. The canons of co-operation in any personal way are strong and multi-faceted. Agree ? what agreement, is there anything to agree about when I John 2:23 asks, "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ ?" Indeed, it is THIS SAME Jesus and not another (II Corinthians 11), who has Christ has commission as biblically defined (Luke 2:26), the Lord's Christ, and a Gospel as immutable (Galatians 1). It fits together as Romans 16:17 shows it does and must^*A.

Hard indeed would it be to find that in some esoteric sense, all this meant something, to paraphrase, like this:

No, that would not be a paraphrase. It would have all the relevance of the words of Peter to the words of Christ, so that just as Peter began to rebuke Christ, so Christ at once rebuked Peter.

Perhaps we could try again, then, in some kind of paraphrase to illustrate meaning:

The word of God has already spoken here. It is the same in Romans 16,
except even more direct, requiring AVOIDANCE when apostolic doctrine is not followed. False doctrine is only giving another mouth to Christ, to the apostle whom He sent.
The Lord, however, and His apostle through whom He speaks, are what and who they are, and are not available for voidance duplication! Yet we pursue the points you make, for completeness, not necessity.

It goes on to indicate that if you actually obey (increasingly an uncommon response - cf. II Peter 2, II Timothy 3), then God will have you as sons and daughters. Your old 'home' will not leave you alone, but your home, as with Abraham, for whom GOD HIMSELF was His shield and exceedingly great reward, is with the Lord. That is the other house. It is He.

Is there an area to be excluded in this command ? No, it is quite clear. WHO are unbelievers ? They may worship another Christ (II Corinthians 11 - Paul speaks here of Satan masquerading as an angel of light - good actor) or themselves, using religion as a flying buttress; but they do not worship Christ.

Trusting in Him is for them not the way: they trust in their devious, or additive, or personally contrived little ideas; but the word of God is harassed by their imagination, if indeed it is regarded at all.

Special cases and symptoms arise regarding this separation, above in general terms, below in particular instances.

In I Corinthians 6:9 we are expressly told that amongst others, idolaters and sodomites, homosexuals and adulterers are not among those who inherit the kingdom of heaven. Hence at once, they CANNOT be MEMBERS of a Church, which is for believers, or prelates or anything of that kind, since to have chosen as supervisors in terms of Titus and Timothy, precisely the opposite to the requirement of the Bible, is rebellion already.

Sound in faith is one of the QUALIFICATIONS for Church supervisors, by apostolic command. Where such supervisors are permitted, or such members, then the Church of which Paul is a master-builder is not the one in view. It is a cultural substitute. You do not build a car by using ping-pong balls.

If a Church refuses to obey, then you become an accomplice if you stay. You change it so that you live where you are instructed to live, or leave it. You do not spend your life in disobedience, but come out to be separate as specifically and so very clearly instructed to do by Paul, and hence by God (I Corinthians 14:37). Alternatively, you can construct another apostle, Bible or christ; but that is an option with which we are not concerned. Our issue: OBEYING the biblical command. HENCE such steps as here evaluated are not relevant. We commend they be not taken in the Lord's name. Romans 16:17 puts it on the line. You obey the apostle in this or you rebel; and what refuses him is to be avoided.

That is the immediate and necessary first step. If you 'cannot' do this in the Church, in one way, then you get faith and do it through the power of God; but if the Lord does not enable you so to gain faith to do it this way, within whatever mores you may choose to make mandatory, system of preferences or whatever, then you do it in another way. One way or another, if you follow Paul, and his commands, you separate.

You may get rid of such prelates or leave them. In either way you are separate. It is not a matter of trying, but doing. Commands - these are not to be interpreted in the "Lord, Lord" manner of Luke 6:46, Christ declares, but in DOING THEM.

What then happens when obedience occurs ? Then those in forbidden and designated categories of this kind cannot be members, they cannot even vote. If they reject words of Christ, then we look at John 7:17. People who want to do His will will know from whom the words come. A pastor may teach and prepare such parties, but believing in Christ is not divorceable from His words. His mouth is not to be cut off. He insists that what He says is to be received, that rejection is not merely error, it is a consequence of spiritual mist, failure to desire Him. We always distinguish between rebellion and weakness of course; but we are discussing BIBLICAL COMMANDS, what they mean.

If you want to play cricket, you cannot be a member in the football club, which whatever it thinks of cricket, is not here doing that thing. Let us clarify a little further.

Does this mean (as an aside) that those sins, as say in I Corinthians 5 and 6, exclude all who have ever practised them ? Of course not, as in Ezekiel 18. It does not say that. Someone with a former fault is not thereby designable as having this contemporary characterisability. Excursion from the fault and pardon may intervene. One remembers what once David did in the matter of Bathsheba. Moreover, when one is born again, there is a new creation! There is a thing called forgiveness (Psalm 103, I John 1). This has first to be applied from explicit biblical principles.

No, if someone errs and repents, this is not the issue. This is a saint who sinned, and not a rebel who defies the word of God: rather he uses it to return to the Lord in peace.

This in no way changes the point that if someone IS in this sphere, practising in this field, in any of the exclusion categories mentioned, then the exclusion applies. Thus it does mean that where the title is just, so is the result sure. An adulterer is one who practises this, it is a style of being which has a style of appelation. Exclusion then applies, and where it is not done, then one's own removal is the other option.

Jointness is forbidden. It is really very simple. It does not take a lot of time. The Bible insistently and constantly says AVOID, GO, SEPARATE.

Thus those who are in any of these domains, such as making their own minds the determinants of what doctrine, either as a sort of private Biblical supplement or otherwise, which they accept, idolaters generally, or perverts: these are not in the kingdom (cf. News 99 on relevant Anglican church developments, as also Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 7). Indeed, Paul spends no little time casting down such intellectual devices, such imaginations (II Corinthians 10:5), which are as intolerable as the circumcision issue was to him (both in immediacy and in action - Galatians 2).

Let us elaborate a little on the topic of supervisors and church members in what may be called the Church of Jesus Christ, in this, that it follows Him.

The grounds for selection of overseers, to revert to this aspect, as in Titus, are of a total contrary and actually contradictory type to those in such categories as are stated by Paul for exclusion, from which one must come out (II Cor. 6, I Cor. 5, 6).

To violate here is something that cannot be done, except in rebellion. As to church membership, they cannot be accepted. It was usual before morals fell so far in so many modern churches, for contracting adulterers, after due warning, for them to be excluded pro tem at least, from church membership. What is definitively not in the kingdom of heaven is not ready for church membership of those who by faith are.

Quite simply, anything called church which refuses such premises, is refusing the Bible. Hence no such church is justly called a biblical Christian church.

Avoid does have a meaning. It is not obscure or recherché. It does not require magnificent Greek to ferret it out.

Avoid^*1 does not mean: join with them in their church, or in some church of some organisational totality, where their ways are deemed acceptable, for example.

The opinion of God of such persons, who depart from the commandments of the apostles and their teaching is shown in what follows Romans 16:17. The fear of God, a clean fear and not a craven cowardice, is just and good and commended in both Testaments (Psalm 19:9, I Peter 2:17). His view of alternate mouths using His name is low, as you see in Romans 16:18ff.! The required DISSOCIATION with such is very understandable! 'Belly' there is metonymy for 'flesh', with derogatory emphasis.

It is after all a reverse form of plagiarism: you make up what He says and then pin it on His word.

The same 'avoid' applies, when an Anglican Australian Primate declared that Jesus is not the only way to God ( Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 7). Either the Church removes him and his doctrine (except he repent) or it allows him to stay. If the latter, he is not avoided, and his influence in the body of Christ is contrary to the intense statements of scripture, in being allowed. Such a body as is willing to continue with him over time is contrary to the apostolic teaching to the maximal degree, and avoiding such a church is not talking about some part of the whole which has this primate, but about the church of which he is primate, which is in fact hierarchical in structure, and in any case, one total organisation.

To avoid the avoid, one simply ignores the commandment. This is the message one of us doubtless had in mind when he presented his point to you, and it is the same one that the Church has in mind, since it is repeatedly presented in the most unequivocal possible language in the Bible.

But let us come to the arenas of some of your other thoughts, to those topics and see, in all due 'humility' (that is, watchful that we do not assert anything beyond or less than the scriptural input on any topic as defined, giving due respect to authority, illimitably when it is the Lord's, veracity , and He is it, and the mind of divinity - cf. Isaiah 66:2), to what we are required to do, there also; although of course any ONE commandment defining itself to a point, is sufficient.

You mention I Corinthians 5. The concentration on this is now our, because your, topic. We look at it simply because you do: it is your field and one follows you to it.

You seem to feel that the Greek word in question has a sense of intimacy, continuity, contiguity. Let us however first look at the context, before this interesting exercise. In the context, where this verb is used the first time, we are told that Paul had written to them concerning a certain option, that they were not to DO THIS, take such a course. Certain associations were excluded by the apostle. He then wrote again to the effect that he had not intended them to understand that prohibition was for all in those categories, or that it was universally applicable to those in question.

He had implicitly in mind, he indicated, the Christian context. He was intending to deal with the double designation: professing Christian and those in the forbidden categories, simultaneously. A professing Christian adulterer, pervert and so on: this was the thing he had in mind in making his exclusion commandment. ONLY BELIEVERS were in mind when he made these exclusions about being mixed up with others.

Now the important thing at first is what the apostle meant, and this is our first port of call. IF he HAD meant (using this verb) that they should not so associate, and was pointing out that had he meant this in unrestricted style, then they ought to go out of this world, a natural question arises ... Why ? why would it be an obligation to leave this world if you did not get yourself mixed up with such people as those to whom the finger pointed ? How would that work ?

It would not do. It would be unworkable, that is why. It would be an unpractical thing, and you could not do business, buy real estate and so on. People of all sorts are of all sorts of opinions and religions, but if that whole series of categories of people in view could not have the sort of relationship with one, to which the Greek term points, then getting out of this world is the necessary thing to do.

What then must it mean ? Is it necessary to avoid intimate relationships, as distinct from some kind of superficial sort of relationship, with people, or to go out of the world ? Not at all. These are no horns of a dilemma. That is not the meaning.

Then that cannot be what the apostle meant, or he would have been talking to the air, and stirring himself up to no point. If they HAD followed the command (which he was rather afraid they might apply outside Christian connections as well as inside them), then by no means would they have had to go out of this world. Hence we are not justified, if we believe Paul to be writing under the power of the Holy Spirit in the accuracy signified by him (I Cor. 2:9-13), in so assuming. Let us now look at the Greek. Is this in fact what the word and the context jointly say ?

It is simply a combination of a root meaning mix, or mingle, with syn (or sun) together and ana, up or among or together in this setting. It means - mix up together, mingle, associate.

There is a series of possible applications and the Greek dictionaries spell out the options of such a base term.

Paul, who spoke Greek, is not ignorant of the possibilities. Hence he tells them that he did not mean that they should IN ALL THINGS, apply this term, exclude the sorts of people he mentioned. In other words, it could be applicable in this sphere, dominion, sense or setting, or in that, but ONLY for professing Christians who so defiled themselves. If it had been applied in its broadest possible sense of not mixing up together at all, then of course they WOULD have to go out of this world. All this is coherent, consecutive and logically mutually self-reinforcing.

NOW however, he wishes to limit the applicability of the Greek verb. He wants to make it clear that the thing he had in mind, and has, is not impractical, that you would not have to go out of the world to obey this command. Rather, he wants the command to be used in a more restricted fashion, both obeyed and obeyed IN THIS WORLD, so that you do not have to leave it to do it!

It is because this applies ONLY when a person involved is called a brother, that is, makes Christian profession or is received on that basis, and so given appelation as brother, that the impasse is removed.

There is not the slightest difficulty in this. Language and logic are direct, mutual, exact. They neither admit alteration nor logically would require it. What they demand is one thing, carefully stated, clearly expressed, indefeasible in content. Nor is this all.

In this sense and setting, then, the apostle having LIMITED but not rebutted his former word, by way of clarification, he goes on to say that this Christian setting is the applicable case for the former instruction, and that indeed with such a person as that, one should not even eat. The term for 'eat' is clear. There is an exclusion on any such way of life, attitude. So far from having any sort of SPIRITUAL relationship with such heretics, one must extend this to the very social domain and not even share a meal with them. That is simple, clear and consecutive.

Paul does not qualify this, and so, in keeping with keeping humbly to one's own place, and reading and not breeding scripture, we regard it. Paul's insistence on clarifying what MIGHT have been misinterpreted is a good and scholarly example of the care of choosing words of which he speaks in terms of the Spirit's control in I Cor. 2.

Now, having found the Greek and the setting and the cohesive sense, we do not 'have to' try to be making something of I Corinthians 5:10, as you seemed to suggest. God does not need any help from floating imagination, intrusion of unuttered thoughts, when His terms and logic are decisive, incisive and direct. He never of course needs help, but to offer here such additives would be an exceptional case of intrusion, or eisegeis.

The command is quite clear. Since you wish to look at this, assuming the Greek term to be what you say, and not to have the broad scope which its structure and usage indicates, for restrictive reasons of your own, not verifiable, we will share with you so far (for a moment, but not for one hour, just for a logical exercise).

However, it is necessary to note that even if the meaning were of this intimate character to which you wish for whatever reason to limit it, it would have small impact on the situation. We are COMMANDED not to eat with such persons, and that is the end of the line: we are NOT EVEN to eat with them. The categories are clear; the action is defined: it is not to occur.

The full force of the initial command is extended to the last point, within the restricted area of so-called Christians. There, there is a point, a position far from there being a relatively minor limit in voluntary fellowship.

In other words, write a new Greek dictionary and you still cannot eat with them. Even if your cultural background on the topic, and not the dictionary^*1A, is to be the criterion (the former something needing forsaking in the contest context), there still is no room for manoeuvre.

Let us go further into the interstices of the mix together verb in view, in the Greek, summoning its various senses or usages. Taking the dictionary illustrated and defined use of the term for being mixed up, associating with these people, we get the following.

You are going one way, assisting each other; but they are not to be envisaged as on the same side, not to be AIDED in this generic sense.

These are the exclusions in terms of the scope of the verb^*1A. Such are indeed dictionary illustrations in type of its usage.

That is an interesting sort of church situation, if such were allowed to continue in it. People then in the Church would be fighting on different sides, not allowed even to eat together, or to help one another as a mode of life, at all.

What sort of an integumental body, each joint and sinew working with the other, is this! (Ephesians 4:15-16). If the prohibition in the Greek term is not followed, then what DOES follow is comic within the tragic area, grave humour indeed.

What of such a body as ignores the command ? It becomes a counter-Church, a calamity, a fraud, an alien from the definition of Church. It is not under the Head, Jesus Christ, but its power has gone to its own head or heads, and it rules as it will. WHY do you call Me, Lord, Lord and NOT DO the things that I say becomes painfully applicable.

To remain in it is to avoid the church concept, and substitute a new one. If a Church meeting is superficial in its highest discussions or decisions, this is a new phenomenon, quite alien to Acts and to Paul (cf. Acts 4:23-31, Ephesians 4).

Discipline is needed, sure and careful, not allowing a breach in the building through intrusion and wrong materials, designs or schema: this is in view. Then the situation of confused disobedience does not arise. Control the traffic and avoid the collisions. It is so simple.

TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE, THE ISSUES BEING CLEAR AND EXTREME:
THE APOSTLE PAUL SHOWED IN HIS OWN EXAMPLE THE FORCE OF IT!

Thus Paul did not leave the circumcisionist heresy in situ, opposing it with such force, that he indicates it was not left simply to continue "for one hour"; and he hied off to Jerusalem. It was intolerable, destructive, awry in its base and to be excluded (Galatians 2:5). He did not make muted noises. He acted to expose, to challenge, to take regional action, to have the evil condemned as unfit for the Church. It came, he went to the council: It was fast. It was consciously and conscientiously fast, and the correlation is here noted with rigour by the apostle.

As apostle (I Corinthians 11:1), he gave an example in principle, in thought, in feeling, in attitude, in timing, in detestation, in concern .

Indeed, he is activated just as he was seen to be in II Corinthians 11:1ff., when he declaimed:

It is the same spirit and testimony as he showed to the elders in Acts 20:19-31, and as in shown in Jude. Don't dally with wolves, don't dally with other 'husbands', come out from such things! The message thunders as on a summery afternoon with dark clouds constantly issuing sound.

But, as to the word you focus on - sunanamignumi: in the end, on all sides, the root meaning is sure: associate, keep company, be mixed up in. It is made up of those parts or particles. What then of those subject to such a division, such an exclusion, in vocabulary terms: Christians and those in the exclusion categories are poles apart and must not act together with it in intent, in portent, in company, in joint objective, in anything mixing you together, and in the case in view with Paul, not even in eating. You seek the lost: you do not add them to the Church. It is when they are won that they come. It is a Church for believers, not deceived and deceivers. It is far from perfect, but rebellion is an extinguishable category, like witchcraft, as Samuel declares.

You can feel what you like about this Greek term, then of course; but this is the root and these are examples of its range of meanings in terms of the dictionary usage. Applying what the word means to professing Christians has all of this exclusion. To prohibit its application in thought or deed, is to prohibit the apostle's declaration. It is common to be sure; but unfit for copying.

Let us go further down the line in the exclusion field. It does not say in what setting this eating is not to occur, but since Paul is emphatic about the change when there is a Christian profession, and the topic is limitation of the original command which he had made about separation, not as incorrect statement, but one interpretable too broadly in SCOPE of persons involved: then not being allowed EVEN to eat with them excludes all things that are more.

This is the periphery of the exclusion zone, not its content. Its content has not been changed. It is not to be understood in terms of something else. NOT EVEN EATING with them is the order, and the terms are not variable. The form of association in view extends in exclusion, so far as eating. That is his fresh input in I Cor. 5:11.

The kind of eating is not in question; it is the very act of eating. This is taken as the extremity of the application, one to the uttermost of rational thought, and practical application.

It is not with respect to some private concept of intimacy which Paul refers, in eating, but to what eating is. Moreover, the EVEN signifies that this is a TYPE of the sort of thing included in his prohibition, and it is "almost any form of association" for those in these categories - except that this may be almost too little. It is however a good summary.

Now in the Greek, to which you and therefore I refer, you mention for verse 10, a translation of a term by the word 'not complete'. Since this is an effort to translate, as it seems, one must note that it is not clear in its relationship to the original. It could be used, perhaps, but not as an exhibit for discussion; for something more elemental and categorical is available from the Greek. The term you seem to be targeting here, is pantws, which simply is the adverb for all things. Altogether is a reasonable translation. Not complete is here rather an imported concept, useful but not basic enough for use as a basis for thought. Not in all ways, is found in the actual literal Greek. Tyhe Authorised version does well to translate "yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world..."
It is not in all respects so, in all ways so, altogether the case.

It is neither necessary nor permissible to use terms in English which then need interpretation in English, in the place of the clearest term in Greek. This applies at all times, when issues arise.

The use of the negation of the totality term - let us keep to the word of God, not this and that implication or imagined implication, and adhere to the Greek as definable in dictionary format - is necessary.

Here it is simple: Paul had not meant his command earlier to be IN ALL THINGS applicable to the categories of persons, that follow. There were SOME THINGS excluded from the exclusion. The command did not have universal applicability.

Rather than paraphrase on the basis of needlessly additive or obscure English and so mixing the text, let us follow what the words say. I wrote to you not to be mixed up together with fornicators; and not in all ways with fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or rapacious or idolaters, since you then ought to go out of the world.

That is what is said. We must not mix up some exotic or statistical series of English renderings and give them marks, but see what is written, if the word of God is to be given straight and clear force. What does it say, not what could we make of it in our minds, this is the point. When that point is taken, it is eminently clear.

It says this. Is there some oddity then ? Test. We must then see if it is ambiguous (God is a clear writer and I have never found anything that comes out as ambiguous in His word) or directive. If it were to seem ambiguous, the strong possibility would be, and the scriptural certainty, that we are overextending what is written, and in that sense, are left without ground.

Here however, it is not possible if the text be followed even to do that. The word is clear, forceful, in context smooth.

NOT IN ALL THINGS is his initial command to be applied to the following aggregates and categories. The categories are active for the commandment only where they are first chosen within the field of professing Christians. We do not have to wonder if he meant this or that at this point in consideration and review, since here that is merely intellectual exercise. There is no puzzle. Some may seek to argue and torment the passage, if trying to justify this or that rendering, but if we keep to what is written, then the rest can look after itself. In analogy: You isolate a tumour, and regard it; but this is a separate question from how it arose, why it arose, and what to do about it. It is there.

We isolate the word of God from our potentially inventive thoughts. It is clear, Let it speak for itself. Unlike Baal, it can do that. What some construe it to indicate is not at this level, to the point at all.

This Christian people were not to do what the Greek term meant, be mixed up together with certain categories of person. This was meant to be limited to professing Christians, as in those categories. It must not, however, be misapplied to all people. If it were, then one should go out of this world. The words are simple, needing neither doubt nor contortion nor distortion nor abortion. Importing puzzling thoughts to a context strikingly defined by the terms of logic is a contortion of the word of God, and by all means to be avoided. Let it speak. If someone misses something, then let it be corrected. If nothing is missed, nothing is the need.

Consider the case. Your effort to make "go out of this world" mean something other than "go out of this world", and in fact to mean have a monastic style separation is mere addition. It is for this reason not an option. Import to the territory of the word of God is indefensible.

He does not say that. If he had wanted to exhibit such a concept, means were readily at hand, to import so unnoted a dimension. The 'cosmos' is not something little, except by contextual compulsion. Being inventive without such constraint, is mere addition, having literally NOTHING to do with the command. It simply does not say this, or anything which relates to such restrictive particularity, which in any case is only a very partial separation.

Even if the Greek dictionaries were wrong, and you were right about some rigid requirement for the Greek word concerning being mixed up together, as if it should have some very select and supposedly necessary meaning which then is to command understanding, something lesser than the word's components and norms, something not based on any usage or definition, even so: Paul is STILL saying that if they had taken his former word as totally applicable, they would have had to go out of this world. You can change the protasis, or the apodosis, but you need to do both; and even then it is not enough!

Thus you can change the Greek, in terms of some cultural preference, and then change it again, in terms of a special meaning imposed on the word 'world', and invent all sorts of variables, but the Greek simply does not permit it, say it or allow it. You are adding restrictions on two terms, without warrant. It does not matter what else, you change and then interpret. Paul's conclusion again; and thirdly, still needs excision for the application to be vitiated, that of not even eating. That remains unqualified to categories specified.

It is quite some effort, revisionism at its height or depth. It is by all means to be avoided if one is to be faithful simply to what is written, leaving God as sole author of the thought and content. He means what He says, and says what He means, sufficient in context, logic, etymological. He knows what He is doing.

Thus, leaving this necessary defect, which would change the meaning of the one word, from what it is, to some invented concept, and considering its total and categorical association with II Corinthians 6 et al., as written, we come back to the point that even if only an intimate association were in mind, as excluded, it certainly would not require one to do what Paul specifies in the command, without further tuition in the misuse of terms, or special pleading for what is neither written nor constrained. Leaving the cosmos is a simple expression, unambiguous. Needing to do so is a simple, clear and logically coherent expression in all his words here. Something either would or would not require one to do this. Paul's former words would have required this. He says so.

Let us review it. Taking his words with that humility which you mention as desirable, a point shared, therefore one which does not add or re-write or unblushingly import cultural assumptions, with no contextual or other ground, we find that had Paul not restricted his former words: he would have had this result, out of the cosmos. It is a reductio ad absurdum. But there is not this result, as has been pointed out, on the tutored basis for the text, when the Greek verb is given a new meaning.

The monastic concept you mention for going out of the world, is not in view, stated or contextually required or implied by the Greek words chosen. It is not mentioned, not relevant, and above all, not written. The text is of exemplary nature, needs neither impositions nor reconstructions nor additions. Even if however it were twisted twice by additions not present, it still would not alter the result. You cannot EVEN EAT with such. Any endeavour to make going out of this world to mean something other, so that it is not a reductio ab adsurdum, but some other sort of context entirely, not here analysed by Paul is eisegesis.

As to that ? It is an interesting form of play; but unwise. It has in any case NOTHING to do with the word of God. Association is to be such that not even eating is in view. It does not say what form of association, except that if it were applicable in all categories of the terms, out of the cosmos one should go. Eating is an expression of the extent to which forms of association are to be restricted: EVEN TO THAT it must not go. Paul makes it very clear that whatever we or they or anyone may think, the affair in view excludes the activity of eating with people in the excluded categories concerned. That is definitive, correlative in essence, an extremity in form; but it is so written concerning category of person and activity in view.

Categories and consequence are what is relevant at this point, and that is the consequence. It is like an overall: it dictates not only the almost total exclusion in view, it renders it so extreme as to be amazing; yet it also brings in as an illustration, the extent of the separation.

First Paul in his reference to his former command, has this: Let us limit the initial rule to professing Christians. Now this, he also adds: Let us indeed limit it concerning those categories in this way: but having done that, let us do more - DO NOT EAT with them, do not even do that!

Any person can do it or not; follow the word of God or not. What anyone cannot do, logically and linguistically^*2, is obey, and YET NOT do these things as written and commanded, in coherent, progressive, fully self-explanatory context. It is indeed uniquely fully self-explanatory context as it stands.

Nothing else thrust onto God's words can match this, its consistent coherence, direct declaration and the clear definition of Greek terms. The passage is neither difficult not abstruse in any way. There is no question when you keep to what is written. Imagination can vault; fidelity is constrained. The words that are there are indefeasible; the logic is uniquely progressive; the result follows the verbal input precisely. Change the reductio, bring carpentry onto the word, add concepts, and then ignore results and then you can take off: but only into the air.

Each part in the parcel is wrapped carefully. There is nothing to be rapt about. It speaks. As shown in *2 below, it is in precise parallel with the death sentence in the Old Testament theocracy.

Any person can do it or not; follow the word of God or not. What anyone cannot do, logically and linguistically^*2, is obey and not do these things as written and commanded, in coherent, progressive, fully self-explanatory context. It is indeed uniquely fully self-explanatory context. There is no question when you keep to what is written. Imagination can vault; fidelity is constrained. The words that are there are indefeasible; the logic is uniquely progressive; the result follows the verbal input precisely. Change the reductio, bring carpentry onto the word, add concepts, and then ignore results and then you can take off: but only into the air.

When the writing as it stands is avoided, and thus the command voided as far as it may be, then the ground of the word of God by then has been carefully left. For that there is and can be no justification, and one can only exhort to avoid the peril of trying out the word of God for its power. It is alas all too possible to engage in a process without fully realising what one is doing, and doubtless this is one reason for the scriptural exhortation to Christians to exhort one another! (Hebrews 3:13). This too is a command to be obeyed.

Love finds it hard to sit by and watch calamity, and the word of God directs to what is! If one is to be so solicitous, then there is a reason; and if the case is demanding because of perilous thoughts, then the response need be strong. But let us proceed.

On either count, additive or limited in licence to what is there: the result is nevertheless somewhat similar to our present purpose; but this is only of the slightest interest, since it is but one thing that is written. However a person may interpret, against the lexicons or in accord with them, with restrictive input the word does not require, or not, contrary to its simple root meaning or in some choice of possibilities which restricts the word of God beyond what it is: it is still in the end, the same. If Paul says not to eat, and the categories are stated, and the negation is applicable to them as within stated categories, it is in any case an exclusion in the terms of reference. You cannot EVEN EAT WITH PEOPLE IN THESE CATEGORIES.

As written, it is almost inordinate in impact. It carries on from his earlier words, with this later specificity. If your reading of something else conflicts with this, so much the worse for that reading, but not for those words of His. They are consistently defined, extensively, with exemplification and analysis combined, on the right hand and on the left.

It is THIS that it says, as in cosmos and company, as in eating; and nothing can change it, but selective additions and restrictions. It is easy when you do that; but in the case of the presentation, which you have in mind, even that has such arcane aspects as to beggar imagination, additions in non-included concepts to words which have no such capacity, unless granted it by creativity. It is God, however, who is the creator of His own speech; He needs no help, and tolerates none. What would you expect!

So far from the context requiring something else, it does not in the Greek even tolerate it as an imposition, and attempts to FIND some way to get around verse 10 only lead to adding.

We may focus further the point that the word sunanamignumi is in root precisely like our English, not to be mixed up with something or someone. That is its direct translation.

You can attend to minutiae, with applications of the Greek in ordinary usage, and to the root with the same result. This is what it says, and whatever particular possibilities exist, where the word is to be found, we cannot vex the word to force it into equivalence with another and more specialised term^*2A.

It has a range of applications which are illustrative of the root, signifying compliance, comradeship, admixture, involvement, whether in joint battle or venture. Its generic is simply being mixed up with something. Relevantly, its negation means NOT having compliance, comradeship, admixture, involvement, whether in joint battle or venture or even aid!

In mathematics, to solve an equation by altering it, in the end, is not even interesting or relevant in any way at all. To pass time ? perhaps. To settle the issue ? let us be very serious about these grave things, and not change language to find desire or for any other reason. Additives alter.

You seem to want to specialise in this particular text, though the matter is consistently clear in this, as in many contexts; but let it be allowed for the moment, as one moves in almost every endeavour available. You can see a systematic treatment of it at Separation 1997. It is good to go over matters, if need be, from each angle, aspect, bringing each point to the conspectus and focus of Scripture, however often this is needed, in however many phases.

You are interested in the necessary implication of what the text above has actually stated. The interpretation, however, is not of one's own thoughts, but of what is there in the Bible, and unwillingness to face those words is tantamount to rebellion. It is not that one accuses anyone here of that, but this the final logical result of any such trend, if indulged and taken.

So the wicked person in one of the forbidden categories listed (I Corinthians 5:10,13), he is not to be there for informal social relationships (eat is quite a simple term), or for that matter formal ones (it is not specified). The party in question is excluded from participation in any form of eating at the voluntary level. Leaving the command without aid, to speak for itself, it says this. You can deal with it negatively or positively; but it states this.

I do not think so, in the normal setting; but if it did, it is not for me to comment negatively. Romans 16:17 for example makes it categorically clear that it is in terms of apostolic doctrine that the Church is to commune within itself, be built, be and live: that is an actual Church, one which believes in the Lord, and does not just say, Lord, Lord and not DO what He says (as in the case condemned by Christ, found in Luke 6:46).

If a body does not adhere to this, if it failing to be what it is meant to be systematically by such inclusiveness of contrary persons, then what is that body to do, biblically ? (cf. Titus 3:10, Romans 16:17). It first purges out those who refuse to adhere to apostolic doctrine. These go, so that the church is now obedient, and exhibits that AVOIDANCE which Paul commands expressly. It is then that the Church no longer adheres to the error. If these do not go, then the believers, if a minority, have very likely to find a new building.

This is what they have to do, have often done, and in America for example, are currently doing. It is nothing so strange, sacrifice for Christ, taking up one's cross, doing it the way He commands. The other way is to put up cultural inhibitions and indulge in breach of apostolic prohibitions. There are two responses: yes and no.

This need for a people to re-locate their meeting place frequently happens; but it is not severe as having to find a new body, the task for Christ after the crucifixion! Obedience may well lead to revival, stimulating consciences and preparing hearts; and example cannot be undervalued as to its force on others. If someone in politics does not seem to MEAN BUSINESS, he tends to be discounted. At least, in obedience, as with Noah, the world stands condemned, and this can impact piercingly on conscience and then on action! Omitting it is omitting this aid to revival, endorsing sloppy sleepiness, the snores of indifference or the groans of defeat.

Thus if the ecclesiastical body in question refuses to obey when the case comes up, it is in rebellion from the word of God (I Corinthians 14:37). It cannot have everything. It can at a cost, obey; and it can, at a far greater cost, disobey. To change the meaning of those two words, however, while often sought by many in effect, is neither profitable nor edifying. If it were possible, it would confuse the issue. However, let us use words with meanings intact, and bear the consequences of our actions. God is merciful; but He does not fool with disobedience as a principle or position

In fact, Paul is designating some very potent items in such contexts as these. In Acts 20, those involved are wolves and sheep. Similarly, in Jude, waves foaming our their own shame are depicted in the negative case, put to those who must fight for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Even the blind can hear the waves.

Accordingly, in Jude, believers exhorted not only to listen to sound doctrine of salvation, but to contend for the faith, while the waves rage, foam and set forth their great swelling song of vanity. Naturally, the contention includes carrying out that warfare in the essential ways both illustrated in Jude in the succeeding verses, and so often repeated in the Bible. 'Contend' is not the same as deliver speeches, though this is one format.

If you are told in an Army to contend, and there are standing orders from millenia back, in type, then there ought to be no confusion. If earthly armies often DO show such confusion, there is neither need nor permission for that voluntary army of the Lord to share in such negligence.

As for those seeking to mingle with the saints, yet manifestly not interested in keeping to the faith once for all committed to the saints, the designations and illustrations given for edification on this point, are of one kind. As to Jude, examples of the extinction or shame or eternal chains due for those who fail to keep to this faith, are loaded and as vigorous as well might be. Indeed, the tenor and tone, in essence, is just like that of Paul in II Corinthians 6.

Thus in Jude, we are told to snatch from the fire SOME of them, despising even the fleshly garments. That is hardly a fitting approach to anyone in your church, or even club for that matter. Jude and Paul are in precise concourse in their various messages: there is an ABHORRENCE so that it is almost impossible to deal at all with such persons, flaming and unclean, but if there is hope of salvation, then with extreme distaste, act speedily and clinically (Jude 22-23), as you would be well advised to do, if someone were on fire! That is part of the message of Jude.

Involvement spiritually ? It is excluded from the first, distempered to the last, the only possible contact being one of a saving nature, and that not in the concourse of the normal, but in the emergency speed of a crisis. Even then, it is to be despatched with distaste, felt with abhorrence, yet executed with deft deliverance if it may be wrought. SNATCH the flaming and near lost soul out of the flames.

It is like a Hospital, but a dirty hospital has no relief. It is mere words. Filthy garments, flames ?

You do not eat with that. It needs attention FIRST. Church being (Acts 4, Ephesians 4) the very living body of Christ with all its sinews and elements in intimate concourse as the apostle describes it, with Christ Himself the Head, and therefore being a body of the uttermost spiritual and social intimacy (cf. Acts 4), at a spiritual level, then the cleavage once more is apparent. Of course some body purportng to be a Church, which does not so act can scarcely claim to be one, in biblical terms, at all. Even where laxity and verbal squalor was the kind of failure, Paul was ready to engaged in open conflict and engagement in the power of God (II Corinthians 12-13), as he did in the Galatians 2 (Acts 15) case.

God is patient, as you see in Revelation 2:20-23, 2:15, but time limits are set. Reasonable response and repentance is required and the situation cannot breed (Revelation 3:3, 2:5). This last verse specialises on the emergent urgency of time! ACT and do not delay, for the case like a critical infection in hospital, MUST receive timely attention. It is not static, but an emergency is in view.

So no, Paul is not advocating cleavage of what are definable as Churches, heaven forbid; He is advocating removal of certain inhabitants of what otherwise quickly are liable for a title of a different kind, like the 'not my people' in Hosea. He wants table tennis players not to be seen on the cricket pitch, and cricket to be the discussion in concert.

You seem to think of 'impossible to achieve' as something relating to what is required in terms of the commandments; but this is not scriptural either. His commandments are not burdensome, and He does not ask us to perform what is not for abundant life, for which He came, but what is; and He does not ask us to think, but to DO. NOTHING shall be called impossible with God (Luke 1:37, Matthew 17:20). If HIS mind desires it, and so it is with God, then the impossible is unintrusive.

When Paul declares this, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13 cf. Ephesians 3:16), his is not posing as superman but exhibits an example (I Corinthians 11:1). He is telling us of what he has learned (Philippians 4:11-12). It is not as a gnostic oddity, but a Christian path that it is given. To God, never say CAN'T to a COMMANDMENT. Ask instead help and grace (Hebrews 4:16).

If a 'Church' structure seems to make it impossible to do what you are commanded within it, then you either stay because of presuppositions and cultural preference and the like, or you obey. You are not REQUIRED to stay, and so make your own impossibilities, outside of the Lord's required path. If you try to change a tyre with a screw-driver you may meet something like an impossibility. The means however are provided. The commands are clear. The power of God is present. On the required path we can tread with confidence, an adventure in faith, a joy in service to the Lord. Never have I found His power insufficient, though often my own!

He is reliable to the uttermost, and as to power, Acts 5:32 tells us that He gives His Holy Spirit to those who obey Him. It is part of the inheritance of the Christian, and nothing can stop that capacity so conferred from being adequate to faith.

Arguments to the effect that I CANNOT do not remove rebellion. when Paul declares this, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," he is neither removing the cost or encountering failure.

Sacrifice, then ? Oh yes. When I COULD not remove Principal Geering in his anti-resurrection heresy from the Church in New Zealand, where I was an ordained Minister of that Church, I went to the Assembly, backed by the Session of the Church where I was pastor, and told them that whatever princes or philosophers might think, the resurrection of the body was necessary, central, apostolic, and affirmed unconditionally in terms of NOT ROTTING, the simplest of terms. A failure to act, to denounce the heresy that did not affirm the resurrection of the body, which allowed this view in the Church teaching, would bring on them condemnation.

They did not so act, but rather made the bodily resurrection merely optional. Therefore I had no option: the condemnation on biblical grounds was brought on. In a little, I had to cast off the dust of my feet upon them. I could have no involvement in that, nor be mixed up in it in any way, be it this or that element of the outreach of that term.

Did I lose ? only some social savour, money, prestige, continuation in a delightful setting, place as pastor, losing the joys of that land, friends there made and so forth. What of it ? When it comes to the Lord, I count all things but loss that I might gain Him (Philippians 3:7-8); and having Him, I have no heart to deviate from Deity. We all have fights to meet, battles to confront (cf. I Peter 4:12ff., Ephesians 6); but surrender is no action in view. There are then results.

In the New Zealand case mentioned, if the wicked person, talking of the dust of Christ's body being in Palestine, were not removed from teaching, his doctrine condemned, if this were found to be the will of the Assembly (and it was!), then what ? If that Church body would not put him away, then I had another option within obedience to Christ. Rather than be a participant in contempt of Christ, I put him away in the way one always can. It had become my duty to condemn in Assembly the doctrine, presenting exhortation and challenge in the Church and in the Prebsytery, using newspapers in company with a medical specialist, one of the elders and visiting and warning the people.

All this had been done. But more was required if the command to separate were to be kept. AVOID does not mean be vocally negative about errors, not discreetly subdued in cases savouring of involvement directly. It requires turning one's path from that of those concerned; and joint membership in a Church, where rebellion is TAUGHT, is not such. It is to be voluntarily enmembered in something claiming to be the body of Christ, but which is disastrously dissident from its Head, which is left some way apart from the body concerned, as if by guillotine. I should rather be apart from such a body as that, than from the Head. I should rather bring things to a head and stay with my Head, than join a severed body, already attacking the Head it pretends to worship. I should not care to be enjoined in such as Christ characterised in Matthew 23.

The Seminary Principal concerned would not be removed from teaching ? Then I must go. At last, with changing numbers in our ruling body, I left after strong denunciation, presentation of grounds (in that case, around 17000 words, an official document supporting my call in Assembly to have my dissent recorded). Staggeringly, it appears that I alone out of hundreds actual had my dissent recorded. To what was it recorded ? Why it was to that dreadful assault on the bodily resurrection of Christ as simple fact and required doctrine, which came from the disgraced Assembly of 1966..

Whatever it takes, is done. If it cannot be done, and you find this, then either you lack faith or you are to be out. If you have faith, it will be done. But to disobey and to stay in a body which freely has Primate letting people come to God without Jesus, as but one example, is so unthinkable as to be more than comic. It is tragic.

In Jude, which you mention, the appropriate and specific response in the area of his definitively chosen specialty of concern, is clear. Since you present on this topic, we must answer. As with many of these points which you raise, they are not necessary for knowing what to do, since so many scriptures are simplicity itself on the point. However, since they concern your mind, they must receive attention in reply.

What then is Jude saying ? His purpose in this epistle is not what it had been, namely to build each other in any direct sense. Always relevant, that is not the pith of the crisis he now addresses.

NOT HERE, in this epistle of Jude, is the focus the common salvation but instead CONTENDING in the presence of wolves, shams, shameless intruders takes the stage. This then negates the other and more general one, as to primary intent (Jude 3).

Though building up in the faith is always a good thing to do, and certainly never excluded (as when a doctor gives you general health notes but also and crucially a specific antibiotic which is his current interest if you have a specific disease), since this improves your overall performance in any dimension: yet the point at issue here is by Jude defined. (Jude's approach is treated in detail in News 43.)

Whereas his approach had been "our common salvation", now it is something else which he has found necessary to declare, and he proceeds to note what it is and then to do it.

Let us then be clear. What is this something else, this constraining topic, this special field into which Jude is prompted to move, instead of extending earlier words ? It is this. Creeping men have as in times gone by, come to deliver dangerous pollution and it is thus requisite to contend earnestly for the changeless faith.

In this epistle, Jude elaborates on similar cases in the past, he illustrates in practice and in principle.

Examples are given of former infections within the people of God, and the devastations wrought on the perpetrators, the horrendous nature of such crimes, the inflammatory character of their ways and destiny, the everlasting chains for the expression of their fate, the results for the fearlessly dissident, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the woe which is the impending impact for such rebellions against the Lord, their compilation with wandering Cain, their perishing as with Korah.In that case, it was a very specific matter of separating, being somewhere not occupied by the rebels at all. Thus when those who would not obey the word of God met in their own separate place, it was so that they could perish quite literally.

The people had actually been required to separate BEFORE the destruction of those daring to challenge the work, authority and provisions of God by divine revelation. The matter proceeded in high and exemplary drama, of the most edifying kind. The result came in short order, and to this Jude refers in application of his command.

It was physical, social, personal; there were contrary groupings by orientation, executed by command, provided with warning and commands both deliberate and awesome. It was the Mosaic parallel to II Corinthians 6. Abomination from the Lord competed with abhorrence of the evil, and irresistible power conquered the diversification of authority. There is one God, one source of command and competition with Him, in addition, subtraction, confrontation, effrontery, however plausible, is divinely exposed and here removed. We have volition and can freely act, not in physical removal of persons, but if they do not go, of ourselves. The case is simplicity itself.

In indicating the swift destruction to come, or which did come, on the illustrative cases, Jude is not saying that God allows continuance, but issues His own discontinuance. Where there is history, He acts. Where there is destiny, He acts. In either case, it is complete and final, except for repentance. There is no mixing anywhere in any way, except at the end, and even then, when some on whom you have compassion, there is to be a quick act of deliverance, wrought with great care, as they whisked out of their burning state. And to what are they taken ? it is of course to the safety where you stand, not burning.

Will a fireman whisk the victim into a flaming truck, out of the flaming forest! So the Church must be clean, and rescue with diligence as case may permit (Jude 21-23).

A church burning is not a place from which to draw to safety an individual burning. This fits with the fact that Jude was GOING to write on general topics such as you envisage, but statedly changed his mind. INSTEAD he decided on a change of message entirely. Now it was not on general terms, but on a special peril that he spoke. As to the creepers who get in, WOE to them! There is no more thought of inclusion that of cancer.

Does the pastor then properly admonish them ? Woe to many of you here, false wolves! Or is the pastor one of them ? In a disobedient Church, that becomes a real question!

The Greek verb used for 'contend' here is used quite widely in sense, as when an army was to contend against Hannibal. Whatever it takes, in biblical conspectus, whatever are the spiritual weapons, for our warfare is with principalities and powers (Ephesians 6), we USE it. It involves discipline, exposure, exposé (II Cor.10:5), discipline (II Timothy 4:2), removal (I Cor. 5-6, II Cor. 6), cleaning (II Cor. 6:14, II Timothy 2:19ff., Isaiah 52:11).

The Bible specifies in its many illustrations of the CHANGED topic to which Jude comes to address himself, how many and what devastating destructions and undesirable destiny are apt for those unrepentant: it covers time present and to come in its cited dimensions. These people are ungodly, unspiritual, destined (if they do not repent) to the vigour of hell. Clean up your church then, snatch out what you may, be warned of impending destruction, do not dally, act with every power you have in spiritual zeal. This is the thrust.

At this point, you are not predominantly clarifying the Gospel which they wilfully distort. Specifically you are DEALING with devilish and devious devices seeking to overthrow, make of the church of God a means of rebellion, an effrontery to God and a myth for man.

Let us revert to the example of Korah - and ALL scripture is given for our instruction: as in Numbers 16:21ff., the illustration shows what was done, indicating priorities. Moses, under the direct orders of the Lord, tells the congregation to SEPARATE themselves from such wickedness. (In that case, it was a matter of varying from the commands of the Lord with private opinions, creating wanton schism when the task was hard enough and the fractious example was perilous to all. This brings us to another point which you raise.

Let us consider the present case of Korah in Numbers 16, then. When the separation of those rebelling and those not doing so was complete, at the appointed time, a fire from the Lord then consumed them. This is the answer for you, to the strange question, indeed, about the Lord not saying something you have in mind at a particular part of scripture. Emphasis and repetition is for God to decide on. Let us consider some of the normal teaching principles in this connection.

It is as if anyone should have some idea of how much repetition God should engage in, and by whom He should say this and that, when already the Bible bulges with just such things.

Each biblical writer under direct divine discretion and power, has his own task, precision, and each with all is made into a symphony, none out of place (cf. Luke 24:25-27). That query in this context is in fact a non-point, therefore. I am sorry to have to say that it is not even relevant to that humility you seem so to desire, not to intrude opinions. If God says a thing, once, twice, thrice, is He to become a parrot in planning ? I think not. One learns FROM Him, rather than instructs Him.

What is the principle of instruction to the point here ? As a teacher, a person may repeat, vary tone and tenor, aspect and element, include here, exclude there, weigh impact, work diligently and

	It would seem inept not to help others by the answers given. The matters in view - put at times tentatively, which is a mercy - included the questions of
	context and text,
	translation and application,
	command and capacity to obey,
	ecclesiastical sacro-sanctity and the word of God,
	together with some emphasis on special aspects of the epistles of Jude and of Paul to the Corinthians.

	a) many who have the same pathology
	b) many who are tending that way
	c) many who are actively tempted in that direction
	d) many who do not apply this type of thing at all to their congregations and so on.

	Neither YOKAGE in the other body, that of unbelievers,
	nor COMMUNION
	nor ACCORD
	nor AGREEMENT
	nor even PART.

	IF UNBELIEF, IF LAWLESSNESS,
	IF DARKNESS BIBLICALLY DEFINED IS IN VIEW,
	THEN DO NOT SHARE YOUR SPIRITUAL LIVES IN ANY WAY,
	HOWEVER REMOTE, WITH IT.

	Paul then is multiply exclusive in this matter.
	Further, here is an abhorrence, and not merely a separation.

	is not to act as on the same side as these people,
	cannot therefore have any ecclesiastical relationship, since this is PRECISELY being on the same side, if this is excluded.

	no sharing,
	no collegiate status.