Crumbs from the Table

This is not a post about Brexit. But I am going to use the 2016 Brexit referendum in the UK as an analogy.  To refresh your memory, in 2016 a referendum was held in the UK on whether or not to stay in the European Union. This had been a longstanding issue for debate ever since the UK first joined in 1971. In the event, to the surprise of most pundits, the vote was 52% to leave the EU. This led to the immediate resignation of the Prime Minister, David Cameron, and later to the resignation of his successor, Theresa May, in 2019. For months and years, the British parliament, the House of Commons was "blocked" - unable either to implement the referendum or to vote to hold a second referendum (effectively, to reject the result of the first). Finally, under Boris Johnson, a deal was reached and the UK left the EU in 2020. This was followed by years of wrangling over issues such as goods crossing the land border between Northern Ireland (part of the UK) and the Republic of Ireland (...

What should you do if a Christian commits a grave sin and has confessed it? How should their local church respond?  Martin Bucer (1500s), in his classic work on pastoral care and church discipline, "On the True Care of Souls", addresses this and other situations with advice that is both Biblical and drawing on road-tested wisdom.  Based on a text in Ezekiel, Bucer assigns believers to one of five categories. The third category is " hurt and wounded sheep " which Bucer describes in the following details " those who remain in the church and the communion of Christ, but fall into open and notorious sins and abuses , such as abandoning their confession of Christ, denying the truth of Christ, and in other ways blaspheming against God, his holy word and all the things of God; disobedience and sin against superiors; any harm done to their neighbours' property, person or honour by word or by deed; all immorality and intemperance."  In other words, Christians w...