To Excommunicate or Not – Part II

Hey, this is Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology., and our show tonight is titled, To Excommunicate or Not – Part II

Let’s pray.

Guest Appearances in Early 2018

Well, it’s the new year – 2018 – and we encourage you to get online and take advantage of the content we diligently push ourselves to create for your informational needs. Hotm.tv will give you access to EVERYTHING. And while you are at it, go to our YouTube channel and subscribe! We have also finished the first volume of The Christian Anarchist Crookbook and hope you will take the time to obtain it by going to hotm.tv and downloading it (FOR FREE) to your computer. Remember too, this coming year we are trying to get some guests to appear who represent different views of Christianity.

Here is who we have scheduled thus far: For the month of January – next week, in fact – we will have the pleasure of having Pastor Michael Imperioli of our very own downtown Salt Lake City Presbyterian Church. I look forward to our casual open dialogue with Michael and his views on the faith. Then in February, we will have James White of Alpha and Omega ministries here to ostensibly straighten me out – that will be a three-hour special – and we anticipate hosting a live audience on that night – that’s Tuesday, February 13th, 7 PM, Dr. James White. Then in March, we will be having a pastor here in the valley named Nathaniel Tyler coming on the show. He is an educated five-point Calvinist who too wants to get on the air and explain to me what is what – but in a friendly manner. In April, we will host Pastor Jason Wallace from the Magna Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Jason wants to come on the show and defend what he emphatically calls the “biblical faith.”

Reformed Theology Guests

Now I want you to all take note of something – of the first four spots taken in our 2018 shows – all of them are by people who represent some form of Five Point Calvinism or what they call Reformed Theology. And we have a fairly wide spectrum – on what we might call the far, far, far, far, far right sits Jason Wallace, the James White, then a younger but highly educated Nathaniel Tyler, and then what we would see as a still conservative centrist position we have Michael Imperioli, who to men like Wallace is probably seen as a leftist liberal in the faith. This is so fascinating – all of them here to explain their faith, some of them more stridently than others, but all of them coming from the same bolt – reformed theology. It’s gonna be a fun first quarter of the year.

Oh, and also remember, we are going to announce on James White’s visit on February 13th a new and never-seen-before para-ministry that we are very excited to reveal – so stay tuned!

Discussions on Christian Excommunication

Alright, last week we introduced the topic of Christian excommunication and how the apostles – especially Paul – recommended it in a number of ways and on several occasions. We noted that the supports believers and pastors use to justify the implementation of Paul’s words into how they operate in the church is very limited but we said that the accepted view is: Jesus' Church needs to be carefully governed to this very day so He can come back and get His bride – and this is why church discipline is required. We admitted that if this is the case, then there is no justification for an open liberal treatment of sinners or for people with wild or varying theological stances – they must be put out of the congregation – just as the apostles said.

But then we started showing (on the board) that there is a great deal of information in the Bible itself that is ignored which takes the apostolic situation of excommunication and shows that during that time of warfare – internal and external warfare upon the Saints – that the commands to disfellowship and excommunicate was a necessary act of war, like rationing nylons and asking people to gently euthanize their pets. It was for the common contextual good of the war.

Finally, I noted that the most often used passage our modern Christian scribes use to impose passages upon others is 2 Timothy 3:16. I had EChristian send me a fascinating and arduously researched article on this particular passage and lo and behold it has been manipulated. So where we read (or better put, have…

Exploration of Scripture's Inspiration

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: The particle kai is missing from mss evidence and there is NO verb in this passage by itself (so it must be read in conjunction with the next passage) and there are actually THREE mistakes in this reading.

Even Adam Clarke wrote about this passage and said that it should read: “Every writing divinely inspired is profitable for doctrine, etc.” and says The particle kai (and) is omitted by almost all the versions and many of the fathers, and certainly does not agree well with the text. The apostle is here, beyond all controversy, speaking of the writings of the Old Testament, which, because they came by Divine inspiration, he terms the Holy Scriptures, 2Ti 3:15; and it is of them alone that this passage is to be understood; and although all the New Testament came by as direct an inspiration as the Old, yet, as it was not collected at that time, not indeed complete, the apostle could have no reference to it.

Understanding Sola Scriptura

So even the ONE passage that is constantly used upon us as the main internal evidence for quoting chapter and verse ad nauseum against others, is found greatly wanting in its support of the Protestant Reformers idea of Sola Scriptura.

Can you see the difference between the tweaked standard in place today which says: All scripture is given by inspiration of God . . And the correct reading which says “Every writing divinely inspired is profitable for doctrine?” If you can’t the later allows us to think for ourselves about the scripture and to allow the spirit to tell us what is applicable to our lives and what is not – which is how it should be instead of this dogmatic standard of EVERY word in the Bible is God breathed. Come on! We don’t need that in our lives. And we don’t have to be frightened. HE is in us! Greater is He that is in us then He that is in the world! Right? Then we began to list the internal biblical supports that prove that while such methods had their time and purpose that that time and purpose has passed – that we have been living in a new age.

Biblical Proof of a New Era

PROOF THAT EXCOMMUNICATION OF OTHER BELIEVERS IS NO LONGER NECESSARY

1. 1st Corinthians 10:11 where Paul says to the people of His day – that the end of the ageThe close of the old covenant era, fulfilled in 70 A.D.—not the end of the world. did come upon THEM. If this was so, then that age is OVER.
2. Then we talked about how God described what the end of the Age would look like – it would be an age where He would “write His laws upon the minds and hearts of those who are His and He would forgive their unrighteousness and sins.”
3. Then we read from 1st Corinthians 15 where Paul tells us plainly that once Jesus has returned “then comes the end.” We have more than proved that Jesus came back when He said He would and when His apostles all emphatically taught that He would. Since that is the case, we can see, in a biblical sense, that the end of all things – especially church excommunications has happened.
4. Then we explained how the writer of Hebrews tells us that God Himself gave us another clue of what the end would look like when He said that He would “one last time” shake both heaven and earth” so that the ONLY thing that would remain in both would be utterly and completely unshakeable.

And we left off saying that all of these things are a cumulative description of the reign of God from heaven, on earth, in the hearts and minds of men and women who love Him. We noted that all church playing, all church discipline, all trying to re-enact the New Testament Church are exercises in futility – they are totally anachronistic – and have no place in the reigning, unshakable.

Evaluating Biblical Interpretations

Are there other things to consider about our taking every word of the Bible reported or written to people of that age and to consider them eternally applicable? Yes.

First, I think it’s important to never forget that Jesus called twelve men to oversee the Church (his bride) and that their specific purpose was to oversee the church till He came back as promised. They did this with specific instructions and with authority and

The Role of Apostolic Leadership in the Church

Power to give them. This was HOW Jesus set up His Church/Bride because by and with these apostles His Church would NOT succumb to the Gates of Hell. He gave them THEN to lead His bride; why not now? Because we are NOT in the church age – that age is over. We are in the eternal age of the Kingdom of GodGod’s spiritual reign—fulfilled and present, not political or future. reigning there and here and NONE of the vestiges of the Church for His bride remain.

The importance of this is that if we don’t have this same governance over us today, this same firsthand leadership from trained firsthand witnesses of His resurrection, then obviously something has changed, right? It certainly has.

Look around! Religious bullshitake mushrooms run amok. For 2000 years.! In the NAME OF TRYING TO RESURRECT A MATERIAL CHURCH THAT ENDED – AS THE SCRIPTURE SAYS! We don’t even have an agreeable body of believers! No central authority. No agreed-upon doctrine or practice. This is because there was never supposed to be! Read the Scripture! It's more than clear.

The Transition from a Material Church

I mean, if this is “Jesus’ Church that He is coming back to take in the future, it’s one ugly picture compared to His apostolically led bride of His age. But it’s not an ugly Kingdom because the faith is subjectively lived today, and all people are responsible for the doctrines, practices, and Christian walks they embrace as His. There are no more excommunications in an age where God has shaken everything up, has written His laws upon the hearts and minds of believers, and then taking His bride from eminent destruction, reigns over His Kingdom forevermore.

Authority for Church Discipline

Another question I have regarding the broad subject of "church discipline" is, in all honesty, who gets to mete it out? I mean, let’s get real? Since God judges the contents of a person’s heart, who is the more egregious sinner – a man with a problem looking at porn or a pastor with a problem of pride? The response from those in favor of church discipline is that if church discipline was in the hands of believers in Jesus' day, then it can be in the hands of believers today. But I would again appeal to context:

1. There was a need – it was wartime on the church from Satan, Rome, and the Jews – and continuity among them was necessary.
2. They were a close and intimate group who knew each other really, really well socially.
3. They were under apostolic rule in an age of hyper-spiritual gifting for discernment of others due to that age.
4. And their stated actual purpose was to remain united until he came to take them.

None of these conditions exist today – none of them. So neither do all these things MEN have tried to heap upon us folks. But getting back to the point, who is in a position to pass judgment on another? If you say a Pastor, I wanna know where they get that authority? Who gave them that authority? A board of other men, created by other men, to support views other men have created? And who can say what is in the hearts of those judging others?

In my estimation, especially when looking at the internal evidence that fully supports the claim that God has written His laws upon the individual believers' hearts and minds, and that in that Apostolic age there was a real purpose for excommunication, there is absolutely no real justifiable cause for in-house excommunication today – instead, with longsuffering and forbearance we strive to bring all people along in love leaving those resistant to such in the gentle hands of God.

Let’s open the phone lines up:

James White Tuesday, February 13th 2018 7PM to 10PM!

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