Love The Sinner...

[reyb]

If we refused to associate with sinners, no one would be at Mass on Sunday.

 

Here's the point:  homosexual activity is not the only sin.  Active homosexuals are not the only sinners.  Should we associate with gluttons?  People who violate the 5th commandment by chain smoking?  Gossips?  Guys with habitual road rage?

 

Why just focus on homosexuals?  Understand?

I am not focusing on homosexual as sinners. I am simply following the flow of discussion from where, they say that ‘gays’ are sexually immoral persons while quoting verses in 1 Corinthians 5:9ff .

 

Okay let me correct myself.   

 

Obviously, none of you are for expulsion of sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler' .  While Clearly, Apostle Paul did not teach ‘Love the sinner, Hate the Sin’ slogan because he said ‘do not associate with them’, and ‘expel them from among you’.

 

So, what will happen now to Apostle Paul’s instruction? Are you saying, 'Let us ignore it  because, something is 'not really right' with this instruction'?  (Since, according to you this instruction is not the best approach for homosexual (i.e sexually immoral) Christians).

 

I know it is not a good sign to ignore Apostle Paul's instruction but, can anyone explain it better?

--------------------

 

Edited January 5, 2014 by reyb

[reyb]

If we refused to associate with sinners, no one would be at Mass on Sunday.

 

Here's the point:  homosexual activity is not the only sin.  Active homosexuals are not the only sinners.  Should we associate with gluttons?  People who violate the 5th commandment by chain smoking?  Gossips?  Guys with habitual road rage?

 

Why just focus on homosexuals?  Understand?

 

So, what will happen now to Apostle Paul’s instruction? Are you saying, 'Let us ignore it  because, something is 'not really right' with this instruction'? (Since you said 'if we refused to associate with sinners, no one would be at Mass on Sunday).

Edited January 5, 2014 by reyb

[Clare Brigid]

So, what will happen now to Apostle Paul’s instruction? Are you saying, 'Let us ignore it  because, something is 'not really right' with this instruction'? (Since you said 'if we refused to associate with sinners, no one would be at Mass on Sunday).

 

We should do the same thing we do with respect to all the other sins and sinful habits, including the examples I gave.

[reyb]

We should do the same thing we do with respect to all the other sins and sinful habits, including the examples I gave.

 

Do I have now the liberty to say that the Roman Catholic Church is ignoring this ‘Apostolic instruction’?

[add]

Jesus Calls Levi and Eats With Sinners

¹³ Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. ¹⁴ As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

¹⁵ While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. ¹⁶ When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

¹⁷ On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

[Clare Brigid]

Do I have now the liberty to say that the Roman Catholic Church is ignoring this ‘Apostolic instruction’?

 

We Catholics read Holy Scripture within the Church, "the pillar and ground of truth."  1 Timothy 3:`5.  We do not take one verse and draw our own conclusions from it.  That is rather what Protestants do.  And we have over 30,000 Protestant denominations as the fruit of that particular labor.  Each can quote the verses that justify their separation.

 

Yes, liberty you have.  The truth you don't.

 

Allow me to quote Bob Dylan from his 1983 song, Jokerman:

 

 

 

Freedom,

Just around the corner for you.

But with truth so far off,

what good will it do?

Edited January 6, 2014 by Clare Brigid

[Clare Brigid]

One more thing.  A great benefit to being Catholic is not having to try to figure these things out for ourselves.   

 

Edited January 6, 2014 by Clare Brigid

[havok579257]

I am not focusing on homosexual as sinners. I am simply following the flow of discussion from where, they say that ‘gays’ are sexually immoral persons while quoting verses in 1 Corinthians 5:9ff .

 

Okay let me correct myself.   

 

Obviously, none of you are for expulsion of sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler' .  While Clearly, Apostle Paul did not teach ‘Love the sinner, Hate the Sin’ slogan because he said ‘do not associate with them’, and ‘expel them from among you’.

 

So, what will happen now to Apostle Paul’s instruction? Are you saying, 'Let us ignore it  because, something is 'not really right' with this instruction'?  (Since, according to you this instruction is not the best approach for homosexual (i.e sexually immoral) Christians).

 

I know it is not a good sign to ignore Apostle Paul's instruction but, can anyone explain it better?

--------------------

 

 

so why are you here associating with us since i am certain some of us if not a big majority have commited at least one of those sins.  if your convinced your not supposed to avoid these people, then you should not be here associating with us.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obviously, none of you are for expulsion of homosexual or immoral persons. While Clearly, Apostle Paul did not teach ‘Love the sinner, Hate the Sin’ slogan because he said ‘do not associate with them’, and ‘expel them from among you’.

 

So, what will happen now to Apostle Paul’s instruction? Are you saying, 'Let us ignore it  because, something is 'not really right' with this instruction'?  (Since, according to you this instruction is not the best approach for homosexual Christians).

 

I know it is not a good sign to ignore Apostle Paul's instruction but, can anyone explain it better?

 

 

 

The cold shoulder is a form of expulsion. And i think the church has ex communication for homosexual priests that don't repent. And i never said ignore it, don't put words into my mouth please.

 

 

Jesus iz LORD.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

If we refused to associate with sinners, no one would be at Mass on Sunday.

 

Here's the point:  homosexual activity is not the only sin.  Active homosexuals are not the only sinners.  Should we associate with gluttons?  People who violate the 5th commandment by chain smoking?  Gossips?  Guys with habitual road rage?

 

Why just focus on homosexuals?  Understand?

 

 

Do you receive the precious body and blood when your in a state of mortal sin? I think where talking about mortal sin particularly habitual mortal sin that is not appropriately confessed with true sorrow and the desire to not continue with this sin and to do penance and make amends, i think we are missing this christian spirit that saint paul would have had.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

The cold shoulder is a form of expulsion. And i think the church has ex communication for homosexual priests that don't repent. And i never said ignore it, don't put words into my mouth please.

 

 

Jesus iz LORD.

 

 

<edit> That don't put words in my mouth wasn't called for we are just having a discussion, sorry reyb, please forgive me. But the fact is i never said ignore either what saint paul said nore to ignore the sinfulness of sin and the destruction it causes personally and communally nore that at some point should we sacrifice our own salvation or the communities to tolerate anothers gravely disordered habitual mortal sin. The wages of sin are death, seperation from God and the community, the cold shoulder. I tend to think the death talked about by the prophets in leviticus  was a cold shoulder death, leave the person to there own devices and the Gods judgement, the angel of death, which than has me thinking about the vesre " figure out your own salvation with fear and trembling." I would quote that verse hopefully to a bretheren if my salvation and/or the communities was endangered by anothers habitual sin.

 

Onward christian souls

 

God is Good.

[Luigi]

Reyb - 

 

Look - Paul is important, but Jesus trumps Paul. Paul says not to associate with sinners, after Jesus DID associate with sinners. 

 

People who think in absolutist dichotomies get their shorts all up in a knot over this kind of thing. 'Jesus is in conflict with Paul! Paul is in conflict with Jesus!' Nonsense. 

 

Jesus, being God, and pretty secure in his own person, could associate with sinners any day of the week. He would not be led into their sin because he was already pretty well set in his holiness, if you see what I'm saying. 

 

Paul, on the other hand, was writing to an emerging Christian community set in a pagan society. The new Christians weren't as set in their holiness as Jesus was. So Paul tells them not to associate with sinners. The idea was to not allow the sinner to pollute the rest of the community.

 

In fact, a whole standardized process in the Church evolved out of this. Some years after Paul was martyred, it became standard practice that public sinners were banned from the church - they couldn't go to Mass with the rest of the Christians. They had to go through a year of penance (wearing sackcloth and ashes, kneeling on the church steps as people were coming in for Mass and asking them to pray for him), classes, alms-giving, etc. Then the sinner could be received back into full communion with the church at Easter. There are still two forms of this "banning" - anathema and excommunication. Those can be saved for another time.

 

If Paul hadn't been martyred, and if he had written an epistle to the community every year for fifteen or twenty years. maybe he would eventually have told them, "You all are pretty holy now, and I think you can stand up the sinners in your midst - go ahead and start associating with them again." As it happens, the Church came to pretty much the same conclusion, even without Paul writing it out for us. Because we're led by the Holy Spirit, so the message comes through to us via one saint or another. 

 

And notice that the banning was only for public sinners. What people did behind closed doors - or what they did in Vegas that stayed in Vegas - didn't make them subject to being banned. 

 

 

Lastly, if we're going to talk about "Love the sinner, hate the sin," we have to define what we mean by love. In the Catholic Church, love has never meant "all warm and fuzzy and welcoming and gee whiz." It has always meant "wanting what is best for the other person." So it's possible to want what is best for a homosexual (or a thief, or an embezzler, or a prostitute, or a gambler, or someone who abuses her spouse, or any other kind of a sinner) but still disapprove of what they do. And this is very natural for all human beings - we've all had the experience of loving our father but hating when he yells at us in a drunken rage, or of loving our mother but hating when she gambles her paycheck away, or loving our brother but hating when he robs banks - I'm sure you get my drift. 

 

So it's perfectly possible, and it's perfectly Christian, to look at our homosexual sisters and brothers and say, "I want what's best for them, but I don't think sex with each other IS what's best for them." 

 

It's not that complicated. 

[reyb]

so why are you here associating with us since i am certain some of us if not a big majority have commited at least one of those sins.  if your convinced your not supposed to avoid these people, then you should not be here associating with us.

 

 

Reyb - 

 

Look - Paul is important, but Jesus trumps Paul. Paul says not to associate with sinners, after Jesus DID associate with sinners. 

 

People who think in absolutist dichotomies get their shorts all up in a knot over this kind of thing. 'Jesus is in conflict with Paul! Paul is in conflict with Jesus!' Nonsense. 

 

Jesus, being God, and pretty secure in his own person, could associate with sinners any day of the week. He would not be led into their sin because he was already pretty well set in his holiness, if you see what I'm saying. 

 

Paul, on the other hand, was writing to an emerging Christian community set in a pagan society. The new Christians weren't as set in their holiness as Jesus was. So Paul tells them not to associate with sinners. The idea was to not allow the sinner to pollute the rest of the community.

 

In fact, a whole standardized process in the Church evolved out of this. Some years after Paul was martyred, it became standard practice that public sinners were banned from the church - they couldn't go to Mass with the rest of the Christians. They had to go through a year of penance (wearing sackcloth and ashes, kneeling on the church steps as people were coming in for Mass and asking them to pray for him), classes, alms-giving, etc. Then the sinner could be received back into full communion with the church at Easter. There are still two forms of this "banning" - anathema and excommunication. Those can be saved for another time.

 

If Paul hadn't been martyred, and if he had written an epistle to the community every year for fifteen or twenty years. maybe he would eventually have told them, "You all are pretty holy now, and I think you can stand up the sinners in your midst - go ahead and start associating with them again." As it happens, the Church came to pretty much the same conclusion, even without Paul writing it out for us. Because we're led by the Holy Spirit, so the message comes through to us via one saint or another. 

 

And notice that the banning was only for public sinners. What people did behind closed doors - or what they did in Vegas that stayed in Vegas - didn't make them subject to being banned. 

 

 

Lastly, if we're going to talk about "Love the sinner, hate the sin," we have to define what we mean by love. In the Catholic Church, love has never meant "all warm and fuzzy and welcoming and gee whiz." It has always meant "wanting what is best for the other person." So it's possible to want what is best for a homosexual (or a thief, or an embezzler, or a prostitute, or a gambler, or someone who abuses her spouse, or any other kind of a sinner) but still disapprove of what they do. And this is very natural for all human beings - we've all had the experience of loving our father but hating when he yells at us in a drunken rage, or of loving our mother but hating when she gambles her paycheck away, or loving our brother but hating when he robs banks - I'm sure you get my drift. 

 

So it's perfectly possible, and it's perfectly Christian, to look at our homosexual sisters and brothers and say, "I want what's best for them, but I don't think sex with each other IS what's best for them." 

 

It's not that complicated. 

Luigi,

 

Your statements are just ‘conjecture’ why Apostle Paul go for expulsion. 

 

Apostle Paul did approve the expulsion of this wicked man, ‘so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord (‘1 Cor 5:1-5). Therefore, this expulsion is for salvation. On the other hand, you do not want to expel homosexuals and adulterous persons from your Church because you want to guide them to become a ‘moral’ person and be saved in accordance with your belief. Therefore, your Church is really different from them because they have different ways in 'saving' a wicked brother.

 

 

Havok,

 

We are not yet in the same side of fence hence it is not for me to kick you out. Besides, I am still here on earth. Now, why I ‘associate’ myself to this forum because, I am still hoping that one day you will see Him and then you will truly understand how this sinful nature in a man was destroyed and saved his Spirit thru expulsion in that Church. 

Edited January 6, 2014 by reyb

[Lilllabettt]

If sexual temptations are particularly strong for a particular Christian, or they are weak in that area,  it is prudence and wisdom for that Christian not to associate with people who are not striving to practice good sexual ethics. But Christians who are strong in this area are called to go out and minister to them. In the Body of Christ, each has their function.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Clare Brigid]

A brother who had sinned was turned out of the church by the priest; Abba Bessarion got up and went with him, saying, 'I, too, am a sinner.'

 

Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Benedicta Ward, tr.), p. 42.

Edited January 6, 2014 by Clare Brigid

[reyb]

We Catholics read Holy Scripture within the Church, "the pillar and ground of truth."  1 Timothy 3:`5.  We do not take one verse and draw our own conclusions from it.  That is rather what Protestants do.  And we have over 30,000 Protestant denominations as the fruit of that particular labor.  Each can quote the verses that justify their separation.

 

Yes, liberty you have.  The truth you don't.

 

Allow me to quote Bob Dylan from his 1983 song, Jokerman:

If you really read my previous post, you will see that I have nothing against ‘gays’. Nonetheless, it is for yours to keep whatever impression you have towards me but you must proved it otherwise, you are giving false testimony. If you really think, I am wrong or the truth is not in me then, please prove it so that I may learn from you.

[reyb]

Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Benedicta Ward, tr.), p. 42.

 

Of course, that is how your Chuch treated them.

[Clare Brigid]

Reyb, what is your church?

[Ice_nine]

the church of the historical Jesus I think

[NotreDame]

There is hypocrisy in ‘Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin’ mentality. It is an scapegoat motto of preachers not to question them by straight people in accepting gays or sexually immoral people in the community. 

 

It is written in 1 Cor 5:9-13

 

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not 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. But 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.

 

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you."  

 

Can anyone explain this?

 

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 explained here for your sir.

 

It also helps to read the whole chapter to get context (which I'm sure you've read, Reyb, but for the sake of those who haven't.)