TOP #82: The community of believers is comparable to a building founded on Jesus Christ. [1CR 3:9-11&16-17]
TOP #83: On Judgment Day the quality of a person’s work will be revealed via testing with fire. [1CR 3:12-15 & 4:2-5] At that appointed time, the Lord will expose and judge men’s motives.
TOP #84: Do not go beyond what is written in Scripture. [1CR 4:6-7] Learning God’s Word requires teachability or humility to receive grace. Paul contrasted the wealthy believers with the poverty of himself, who was their spiritual father, as a warning against arrogance (v.8-19).
TOP #85: A community of believers should not associate with immoral people who claim to be Christians. [1CR 5:1-13, TIT 3:9-11] Sins cited include sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, slander, drunkenness and swindling (cf. TOP #13) in the first passage and arguing, quarreling and divisiveness in the second. Such excommunication is an appropriate or approved form of judging (cf. TOJ #10).
TOJ #102: Excommunicate fruitless “Christians”. [MT 18:17-18] Although saints are not perfect, someone who typically exhibits sinful fruit (GL 5:19-21) apparently is not a genuine Believer (TOJ #48 & #148). The reference to binding and loosing {also in MT 16:19 & 18:18-20} is problematic, because it can be applied incorrectly, as it was most notably by the Roman popes against Martin Luther and the Protestants.
Jesus does seem to say {also in JN 20:23} that, IF Believers represent God’s will on earth rightly, then their disfellowship reflects the ultimate status of the excommunicant. (See TOJ #65, #123 & #152.) However, this is a big “IF”, so the danger of committing the sin of judgmentalism should lead us to adopt the view that disfellowship does not mean Christians cease all interaction with a sinning or carnal person (1CR 3:1-3), but rather that they change the nature of the relationship from fellowshipping to witnessing and reproving.
