QUESTIONS - Is Shunning Biblical？
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the concept of "shunning" and how it relates to church discipline. Is this a biblical concept? Is this something that can be done corporately, or is it something that only happens in cults?
Transcript
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If so, what would be a biblical example of shunning?
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it is biblical, but it's not done by Christian churches
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that ultimately culminates, if there's no repentance,
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If not, bring one or two others along with you.
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so that the testimony may be established upon the evidence of two or three witnesses.
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And if he doesn't listen to them, you tell it to the church. If he doesn't listen even to the
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church, then treat him as a tax collector or a Gentile. A tax collector or a Gentile is not an
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untouchable. So it's not like in India with this class system and there's certain people that you
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just can't even speak to. A Christian, without doing anything immoral, a Christian is permitted
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by God to speak and even have some degree of relationship, even perhaps a certain degree
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of friendship with a tax collector and a Gentile. Of course. What do you do with a tax collector
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and a Gentile? You preach the gospel to them. You don't shun them entirely. It's not an all
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encompassing shunning. So there is a shunning in the sense that we are no longer extending to this
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individual Christian brotherhood. I'm no longer regarding you as a brother, but that doesn't
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mean that I cannot treat you in some measure as a friend. Okay. Now I'm aware there are other texts.
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That's Matthew 18. There are other texts. One is where the apostle Paul says, if anyone does not
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take note of what I've written in this letter, have nothing more to do with him that he might
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be ashamed. Now, that's a great shunning text. It's literally saying, have nothing to do with
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him. And precisely for the goal of shaming him. So the apostle is literally commanding the church
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to, in a joint effort, in a corporate effort, to ignore someone for the purpose of publicly
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shaming them. But even then, it's out of love. It's so that the individual will come back into
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the fold. And Paul actually goes further in that text and says, but do not regard him as an enemy,
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but as a brother. And so this, I believe, is actually, if we're looking at the Matthew 18
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process of go privately, then bring one or two others with you, then tell it to the church. And
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if he doesn't listen to the church, then hand him over, treat him as a tax collector or a Gentile.
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I think what Paul says about having nothing more to do with him, this would actually be
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It would be somewhere probably in between step two, the two or three going to the individual,
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and the final step of treating him as a tax collector and a Gentile, that somewhere throughout
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So not, this is how we now regard the individual after excommunication.
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No, because the apostle Paul says, but do not treat him as an enemy, but warn him as
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a brother. So you're still referring to the individual and regarding the individual as a
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brother, which if the person has been excommunicated, now treated as a tax collector
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and a Gentile, regarding him as a brother is precisely what you can't do. So I think the
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Apostle Paul, even, and this is my point, I think the Apostle Paul actually, he doesn't just say
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it's permissible, he actually commands and prescribes that Christians employ the art of
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shunning even before excommunication. That's significant. The church corporately, and I think
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it would probably most likely be, tell it to the church. And so it wouldn't even be after what I
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said earlier, the two or three step, two or three now coming to the individual. It would be in
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between telling it to the church and then him not listening even to the church and then treating
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him as a tax collector Gentile. It would be in between those two steps. So the whole church,
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right? We've been very slow, very patient. Others who are wise and discerning have been brought into
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this, the one or two others. We've addressed this multiple times. There's been no repentance.
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We are now bringing it to the church. And what we're not doing is we're not, the elders are not
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telling the decision to excommunicate this individual to the church. No, we're telling
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the situation, what's going on to the church, and there's now going to be an appointed time before
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we excommunicate the individual for him to listen to the church. And during that time where he
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should be listening to the church, one of the things that the church is going to do is have
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nothing to do with him. Now, not nothing in a literal sense. The one thing that we are going
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to have to do with him is calling him to repentance and praying for his repentance. But we're not
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going to have anything to do with him relationally as far as we're just buddy-buddy and acting like
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nothing's wrong. In that sense, we're shunning him. But not treating him as an enemy, he's still
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regarded as a brother. We haven't gotten to the final step of handing him over. So all that being
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said, to answer the question, yes, shunning is biblical. It's explicitly in the Bible.
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Have nothing more to do with him that he might be ashamed. I think that's shunning. But it's for
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loving purpose, not just love for the church and protecting its purity from the alleged sinner,
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but also a love for the sinner, that he might come to repentance, that the Lord may use this
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love as tough love to win the sinner over, to bring him back into the fold. So I think different
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purposes than cults that shun and different methods than cults that shun. But does the
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Christian church ever shun at all? Biblically, we would have to say yes. Wait, wait, wait, wait,
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