When to Break Fellowship

We live in a church age where the norm is to use ourselves as the standard. Whenever a brother or sister in Christ doesn’t line up with the preferences we have set in place for our own lives condescension and condemnation is what we express toward them. God, however, knew how biased we would tend to be so He set some very specific guidelines that we are to follow. Unity is one of God’s favorite New Testament concepts so we must be careful not to get too trigger happy when cutting off our brethren. What does the Bible say on the topic?

Well, first and foremost, all the way through the New Testament we find that if we love our neighbor as we love ourselves that the law would be fulfilled and the works of the flesh would cease (See Galatians). That means that all of this sitting around the late night dinner table discussing what you think the motive of some other brother’s heart is would stop. That means your infatuation with how wrong everybody else is would morph into an empathetic, compassionate heart that attempts to understand your brother. That means that you would humbly recognize how desperate for growth you are in your own life and not be so quick to judge. That means that we would all stop thinking ourselves to be something when we are nothing; “deceiving ourselves,” as the scripture calls it. It’s hard to move on, throw away and forget someone that you love as fervently as you love yourself. But, there comes a scriptural time that it must happen. First Corinthians 5:9-11 gives a list but there is a very important catch here. Paul states in verse twelve that we must judge those that are “within” so we are not breaking fellowship with backsliders here; we are breaking fellowship with active, Christians that are coming into our assemblies, leading our assemblies, participating in our assemblies and playing the part of the hypocrite. Galatians chapter six URGES us to handle backsliders with kid gloves and to bear in mind how easily we could wind up in the exact same fall. We are never to issue the cold shoulder to an injured, fallen brother. He may do things we cannot go along with but he should be able to find love in his assembly ANY time he wanted to come back. The backsliders ought to be weary of our brokenness for them! I repeat! Breaking fellowship is NOT scriptural practice for the fallen, injured and discouraged. We are judging those that are “within” when we are breaking fellowship and even then we are only doing it so God can judge them while they are “without.” The goal here is still restoration, driven by a broken and contrite spirit for people that we are burdened for. Here’s the list…

Fornicator- any person that is actively, currently participating in sexual activities outside of a God honoring marriage relationship.

Covetous- any person that has disorderly, sinful desires. A person who lives motivated in search of things that God has forbidden. Sex, power, control, and much more.

Idolater- a person who lives in devoted, adoration to anything other than God.

Railer- A person who is constantly scoffing at and degrading other people. He uses proud and haughty language in contempt of other people. This is a domineering, overbearing person that attempts to control others through fear and emotion.

Drunkard- a person that is given to consistent intoxication with strong drink

Extortioner- this is a tyrannical person who gets performance or goods out of people for his or her own gain. They use oppression and even violence to control people and benefit selfishly from them.

These are the types of people that are actively participating in our assemblies that we are commanded to put out from among us. There are no preferences listed here. There are a lot of Christian’s in my life that do things I may not particularly agree with but this is the list where God draws the line on fellowship and if unity is to be tampered with we better prefer His lines over ours. Even then, though, love is not thrown to the wind. When you try to live holy without a charitable spirit you negate the entire original cause. This is not a pistol God has given us that we can arrogantly spin on our trigger finger and spitefully fan the hammer on anyone who crosses us. This is the last ditch effort toward restoration. This is tough love. I don’t want to get to Heaven one day and realize I was a railing extortioner operating under the banner of separation. I pray my assembly would have the gumption to throw ME out so I would wake up and not waste my life like that. God help us to love and live with the right attitudes for the right reasons: His reasons.