As a believer, your sin is your responsibility to confront and remove from your life as you follow God. As a believer, the sin of others in your community is also your responsibility.
One of the hallmarks of a true follower of Christ is that they actively attempt to rid themselves of their sinful practices as they are sanctified by their relationship with Jesus, the evidence of which is seen as sinful behaviors fade from a person’s character and are replaced with the Fruits of the Spirit.
And in concert fashion, the distinction between a true community of believers and a community of “church-goers” involves the removal of selfish and sinful behaviors, reactions, and outlooks in the local community and the addition of selflessness, outreach, and good will towards the local community.
But contrary to what many might believe, the responsibility to push away sinful behavior and bring in righteous behavior in the church does not belong to merely the pastoral staff or those whose sin is more easily visible, but to all members of the church.
The Sin of the Few is the Responsibility of All
Deuteronomy 13 tells the Israelites what to do if someone tries to entice them away from God and promote sinful behavior, starting with family members and expanding to entire cities.
Verses 6-11 say, “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’—which neither you nor your fathers have known, any of the gods of the peoples around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other—you must not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity, and do not spare him or shield him. Instead, you must kill him. Your hand is to be the first against him to put him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death for trying to turn you away from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. All Israel will hear and be afraid, and they will no longer do anything evil like this among you.”
This starts the idea that God wanted to provoke among the Israelites: when one person falls to sin, it is the responsibility of those closest to the idolater, then the entire community surrounding the idolater, to end the idolatry and purge the sin. In the OT times, before Jesus’s reconciliatory death, the only true purge was death—complete and total annihilation of the sinner to keep the community from being infected. This is especially true with the post-Exodus Israelites, whom you’ll notice are an incredibly fickle people, ready to jump back and forth between God and idols at the drop of a hat.
The Consequences for the Few have Far-Reaching Effects
And, in true biblical fashion, there are consequences if the community fails to do what it is supposed to do. Verses 12-15 say, “If you hear it said about one of your cities the Lord your God is giving you to live in, that wicked men have sprung up among you, led the inhabitants of their city astray, and said, ‘Let us go and worship other gods,’ which you have not known, you are to inquire, investigate, and interrogate thoroughly. If the report turns out to be true that this detestable thing has happened among you, you must strike down the inhabitants of that city with the sword. Completely destroy everyone in it as well as its livestock with the sword.”
If the idolator manages to spread his/her view enough that word of the heresy is heard elsewhere, it becomes the responsibility of the entire nation of Israel to wipe the idolatry out. The consequences of such action means that not only do the idolaters in the city die, but the innocent, too.
But were the innocent actually innocent? Not really. By virtue of verses 6-11, we know that if the idolatry has spread beyond one person, the people sinned by going against God’s orders to stop that idolatry. So, they must face the consequences of their own inaction.
Current Day Sin-Banishing Responsibility
It’s entirely likely that some people reading this are thinking “But this is about the Israelites, and obviously, we can’t go around stoning idolaters.” And, well, you’re right. Please don’t go around trying to kill people who are not believers.
But, despite the fact that this passage is directly intended for the Israelites and the Israelites alone, there is a modern-day equivalent given to us by the New Testament.
Matthew 18:15-17 says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
Let’s run the parallels: In the OT, family members were to take care of sin in their family on their own, only calling in the community to help after they had done their part. In the NT, one person is to confront the sin of another, only bringing in more members of the church if that fails. The Israelites were meant to treat cities that failed to stop idolatry as enemy nations, wiping every last bit of life in them out for good. We are to treat those who fail to confront their sin as if they are not believers, but outcasts to the Christian community.
Confronting Sin is not Judgment
This subject is something the church fails at so often. We’re afraid to confront sin in others because we don’t want to lose friends, we don’t want our own sin to be called out, or we feel like it’s not our place. But it is our place.
“Do not judge lest you be judged” doesn’t apply here. Confronting sin is not judging someone. Our cultural definition of the word “judge” has changed from its original meaning, which involved sentencing someone for their actions, to mean mentioning someone’s wrongful actions to them in any way. Confronting the sin of a brother or sister in Christ is not judging them or a statement of condemnation; instead, it is a show of concern for their spiritual welfare.
Don’t let people point out your log as a way to avoid confrontation of their sin, either. You don’t have to be perfect to point out sin when you see it. (I’ve written more in-depth on these verses here, if you want to have a read, as I don’t have time to explain it more thoroughly in this post.) We’re all sinful—each of us has a log worth pointing out, and it’s time we started drawing attention to them so we can remove them.
A Call for Christian Qualification
As a, hopefully, quick last word, I think it’s time we start living out Matthew 18:17 a little more. Folks calling themselves Christians, but who are actually idolaters, are hindering the Christian community in a huge way. When people who aren’t actually believers start calling themselves believers while perpetuating a false gospel, we need to say something against it. We need to step up and qualify Christians as separate from “Christians” or we risk the Church falling apart as idolatry and sin topple it from within and without.
It’s time for us to call out prosperity gospels and pew-sitters who throw dirt on the name of God and His people and make sure the world knows they are not part of us because they’re hampering the mission, the Great Commission. We have “churches” like Westboro Baptist tarnishing the name of Christ under the guise of Christianity because we have become too lax in our qualifications, letting nearly anyone call themselves a Christian, and that needs to stop. The quitting begins by confronting sin.