DAY TWENTY-EIGHT – Saturday, April 2, 2022
Matthew 18:15-22
Having given this passage some thought, including at 3:00 a.m., I have reached the conclusion that I don’t like it very much.
It tells us, step by step, the process of shunning someone in our church. Now I have never personally witnessed anyone in a church congregation officially shunning anyone. I said “officially not “unofficially.”
There are churches that do shun. It’s a cruel thing for them to do. In my experience shunning is more common in families and among friends. Basically, it means not having anything to do with someone. (“We’ll have nothing to do with Freddie.”)
In the passage, shunning not only means excommunication from a church, but from heaven too. t’s a church’s way of saying, officially, “Go to hell.” Verse 18 says: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” The passage does not raise the possibility (often the likelihood) that the people doing the shunning are wrong. It calls to mind someone going out on the limb of a tree to prune it off and sitting on the outside of the saw cut.
Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount contradicts the passage and also gives a dire consequence for shunning people. “Do not judge lest you be judged. For with the judgement you make you will be judged.” (Matthew 7: 1 and 2) I think it’s a good verse to close with.
David Shepherd
Matthew 18:15-22
Having given this passage some thought, including at 3:00 a.m., I have reached the conclusion that I don’t like it very much.
It tells us, step by step, the process of shunning someone in our church. Now I have never personally witnessed anyone in a church congregation officially shunning anyone. I said “officially not “unofficially.”
There are churches that do shun. It’s a cruel thing for them to do. In my experience shunning is more common in families and among friends. Basically, it means not having anything to do with someone. (“We’ll have nothing to do with Freddie.”)
In the passage, shunning not only means excommunication from a church, but from heaven too. t’s a church’s way of saying, officially, “Go to hell.” Verse 18 says: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” The passage does not raise the possibility (often the likelihood) that the people doing the shunning are wrong. It calls to mind someone going out on the limb of a tree to prune it off and sitting on the outside of the saw cut.
Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount contradicts the passage and also gives a dire consequence for shunning people. “Do not judge lest you be judged. For with the judgement you make you will be judged.” (Matthew 7: 1 and 2) I think it’s a good verse to close with.
David Shepherd
