I am one who doesn't post often, but while doing my quiet time, I came
across these passages of scripture from 1 Corinthians (NIV) and Romans. I
thought that
they might be helpful to each person who is involved in this discusion.
They quotations are long and there is no commontary...just scripture,
read it, think about it, and pray about it. This is a question that can
bring about a lot of 'thoughts' on what scripture says, but we must
always look to what it does say. We often get caught up in exegesis of
one section of scripture and forget about other sections. No matter what
side of the issue one lies on recall, Jesus loves all and wants all to
come to know him. What we are debating is not whether they can be saved,
that is obvious (they can), but once they do how do we treat them. With
Love, yes, but if it is sin we must love them still by cinfronting them
with their sin (just as anyone should confront me with a sin of my own)
and if it is not, then we still love them. That is all
john Misasi
1 Corinthians 5 (English-NIV)
1It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and
of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father's wife.
2And you are proud! Shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief and
have put out of your fellowship the man who did this?
3Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I
have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were
present.
4When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you
in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present,
5hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature [1] may be
destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.
6Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works
through the whole batch of dough?
7Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast--as
you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
8Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of
malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of
sincerity and truth.
9I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral
people--
10not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the
greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave
this world.
11But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who
calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or
a slanderer, a
drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
12What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you
not to judge those inside?
13God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you."
[2]
1.5 Or that his body; or that the flesh
2.13 Deut. 17:7; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21,24; 24:7
Also:
1 Corinthians 6:12-20 (English-NIV)
12"Everything is permissible for me"--but not everything is beneficial.
"Everything is permissible for me"--but I will not be mastered by anything.
13"Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"--but God will destroy
them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord,
and the
Lord for the body.
14By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us
also.
15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I
then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!
16Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one
with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." [1]
17But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
18Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside
his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is
in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
1.16 Gen. 2:24
As well as:
Romans 6
1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?
4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order
that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the
Father, we too
may live a new life.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will
certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.
6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of
sin might be done away with, [1] that we should no longer be slaves to
sin--
7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die
again; death no longer has mastery over him.
10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives,
he lives to God.
11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in
Christ Jesus.
12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its
evil desires.
13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of
wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been
brought from death to
life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of
righteousness.
14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but
under grace.
15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?
By no means!
16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as
slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves
to sin,
which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you
wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.
18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to
righteousness.
19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves.
Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity
and to
ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to
righteousness leading to holiness.
20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of
righteousness.
21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now
ashamed of? Those things result in death!
22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to
God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal
life.
23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in
[2] Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 7:7-8:17
7What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would
not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have
known
what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet."
[4]
8But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced
in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.
9Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin
sprang to life and I died.
10I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life
actually brought death.
11For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived
me, and through the commandment put me to death.
12So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and
good.
13Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in
order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me
through what was
good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly
sinful.
14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a
slave to sin.
15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but
what I hate I do.
16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.
17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in
me.
18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. [5]
For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want
to do--this I keep on doing.
20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but
it is sin living in me that does it.
21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there
with me.
22For in my inner being I delight in God's law;
23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war
against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at
work within
my members.
24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
25Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in
my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the
law of sin.
Romans 8
1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus, [6]
2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free
from the law of sin and death.
3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the
sinful nature, [7] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of
sinful man to be a sin
offering. [8] And so he condemned sin in sinful man, [9]
4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met
in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to
the Spirit.
5Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on
what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the
Spirit have their minds
set on what the Spirit desires.
6The mind of sinful man [10] is death, but the mind controlled by the
Spirit is life and peace;
7the sinful mind [11] is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law,
nor can it do so.
8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
9You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit,
if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit
of Christ, he
does not belong to Christ.
10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your
spirit is alive because of righteousness.
11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in
you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your
mortal bodies through his
Spirit, who lives in you.
12Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it is not to the sinful
nature, to live according to it.
13For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by
the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,
14because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
15For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear,
but you received the Spirit of sonship. [12] And by him we cry, <"Abba,>
[13] Father."
16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's
children.
17Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs
with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may
also share in his
glory.
1.6 Or be rendered powerless
2.23 Or through
3.5 Or the flesh; also in verse 25
4.7 Exodus 20:17; Deut. 5:21
5.18 Or my flesh
6.1 Some later manuscripts Jesus, who do not live according to the
sinful nature but according to the Spirit,
7.3 Or the flesh; also in verses 4, 5, 8, 9, 12 and 13
8.3 Or man, for sin
9.3 Or in the flesh
10.6 Or mind set on the flesh
11.7 Or the mind set on the flesh
12.15 Or adoption
13.15 Aramaic for Father
14.[20,21] Or subjected it in hope. [21] For
15.28 Some manuscripts And we know that all things work together for
good to those who love God
16.28 Or works together with those who love him to bring about what is
good--with those who
17.36 Psalm 44:22
18.38 Or nor heavenly rulers
John Misasi
__________________________________________________________________
Email: jmisasi@engc.bu.edu
@bu.edu
@darwin.bu.edu
Center For Advanced Biotechnology at BU Home Page
http://eng.bu.edu/CAB
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