Selected Sunday Scriptures- #152

Today I want to explore a connection between several selections from the New Testament. The first is from the First Letter of Saint John:

^13 I write this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. ^14 And this is the confidence which we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. ^15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him. ^16 If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. ^17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.

^18 We know that any one born of God does not sin, but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.

^19 We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one.

(1 John 5:13-19)

Then we have First Timothy:

^18 This charge I commit to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophetic utterances which pointed to you, that inspired by them you may wage the good warfare, ^19 holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith, ^20 among them Hymenaeâ²us and Alexander, whom I have delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

(1 Timothy 1:18-20)

Then we have this from First Corinthians:

^9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral men;  ^10 not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. ^11 But rather I wrote to you not to associate with any one who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of immorality^[g] or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robberânot even to eat with such a one. ^12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? ^13 God judges those outside. âDrive out the wicked person from among you.â

(1 Corinthians 5:9-13)

The common link I see here is that when a Believer gives themselves over entirely to sin and commits a grave/deadly sin, then our attitude and actions towards them should change. We no longer are obliged to pray for them as before, and they should be removed from the Church- for their own good. We live in the Age of Grace, and they should spend some time outside the protection of the Church so they can begin to understand what they have lost. This paves the way for them to repent in genuine sorrow and once again join the Body of Christ.

As always, any readers are free to chime in with their own thoughts.