Page 110 - Ecclesiology Textbook Masters

Nehemiah 5: 3-5 Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get
grain during the famine.” 4Still others were saying, “We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax
on our fields and vineyards. 5Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our fellow Jews and though
our children are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our
daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards
belong to others.”

4. A FOURTH PROBLEM with debt involves relationships. Should you not be
able to repay the debt, the church will fracture the relationship with their
lender and blight the name of Christ, whom they represent. The fractured
relationships could result in eternal consequences!

5. DEBT CAN DENY GOD THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK IN LIVES OF YOUR
MEMBERSHIP AND TEACH US VALUABLE LESSONS God may wish to show his
love by providing something but for which they have no resources. If the church
goes into debt to get it anyway, we deny God that opportunity (see Luke 12:22–32). In the same way
that parents refrain from giving a child everything the child wants because parents know it isn’t in the
child’s best interest, incurring debt can rob God of the opportunity to teach us through denial.
Ecclesiastes 7:14 reminds us: “When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God
has made the one as well as the other.”

Important Lesson: It is ALWAYS better to SAVE for a purchase than to BORROW. Wait and get it when
God provides the funds, rather than getting it now and obligating God to pay for it in the future. Remain
FREE from slavery to others so that you can OBEY Christ in everything He asks you to do. Make Him your
sole master!

Exodus 36:6-7 "So Moses issued a command, and a proclamation was circulated throughout the camp,
saying, 'Let neither man nor woman any longer perform work for the contributions of the sanctuary.'
Thus, the people were restrained from bringing any more. For the material they had was sufficient and
more than enough for all the work, to perform it"

Church Discipline

It was not long after the birth of the church that a couple of members sought to lie to the church
leadership, and consequently lie to the Holy Spirit, about the selling price of a piece of property. In this
situation, God disciplined them severely by taking their lives (Acts 5:1-11). In I Corinthians 5:4-5, Paul
commands the church to discipline a person who is fornicating within the church. He commands the
church to put this person out of the church and deliver them to Satan for the destruction of their flesh,
that their spirit may be saved. Does this sound rather harsh?

Church discipline in the Scriptures takes two forms. It may be given in the form of formative discipline
or teaching discipline or be given as corrective discipline or referring to correcting sin in the life of the
offender. When we think of church discipline today, we think of corrective discipline which may be a
warning or a formal removing someone from membership of the church. Another term may be
“excommunication.” This is not to say that removing a person from the church removes them from the
possibility of salvation, as some denominations teach. A church is incapable to taking the salvation of an
individual away. It refers to removing someone from membership in the church and participation in the
Lord’s Supper and other worship opportunities.

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