What should an individual member do when faced with a leading member, teacher, and song leader is living together with a woman of the church. It seems that the entire church is trying to ignore it. I talked to the preacher and he gave a lengthy explanation, saying the member is impotent and that they are in separate bedrooms. This couple also travels overnight together. What about I Corinthians 5:11?<\/p>\n
Do I leave if I’m forced to sit before such a teacher every week? Finding another church is near impossible.<\/p>\n\t
You mention talking to the preacher and other members of the church, but the key person that needs to be approached is the two people who are in sin. After all, their eternal lives are in jeopardy. If you haven’t already done so, sit down and discuss the problem with them.<\/p>\n
While the claim is that they are just living at the same address and not having sex, their actions give the appearance that more is going on. How actions are perceived is an important consideration. “For we have regard for what is honorable, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men<\/em>” (II Corinthians 8:21). Their actions are communicating that sex outside of marriage is acceptable to them and the church. “But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints<\/em>” (Ephesians 5:3).<\/p>\n If the couple sees nothing wrong with their behavior and the church accepts their sin, then you know that you are not in a faithful church. Your choices are to find another church or start teaching the gospel in your community and form a church that wishes to follow the teachings of Christ.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: What should an individual member do when faced with a leading member, teacher, and song leader is living together with a woman of the church. It seems that the entire church is trying to ignore it. I talked to the preacher and he gave a lengthy explanation, saying the member is impotent and that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[448,1572],"class_list":["post-27176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-church","tag-fornication"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":39947,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-the-church-right-to-withdraw-from-a-couple-who-lived-together-without-being-married\/","url_meta":{"origin":27176,"position":0},"title":"Was the church right to withdraw from a couple who lived together without being married?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My husband and I are faithful members of the Lord's church. We are active in a congregation in which a situation has occurred which has caused division in the congregation. The situation is this: a man and a woman who have been baptized and are members of the Lord's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":86538,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-right-to-dismiss-a-preacher-because-he-married-a-non-christian\/","url_meta":{"origin":27176,"position":1},"title":"Is it right to dismiss a preacher because he married a non-Christian?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 10, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, First, thank you for all you do to answer these difficult questions. They have helped me a lot on my Christian journey. My question concerns something that happened very recently at my congregation; our youth group had two ministers helping and supporting all the activities (spiritual and recreational),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39434,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-preacher-oversees-several-congregations-what-do-i-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":27176,"position":2},"title":"My preacher oversees several congregations. What do I do?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 13, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: God bless you for your detailed explanation of congregational cooperation. However, I'm still confused. My preacher is an overseer of many local congregations in our community. He appoints the preachers of such congregations, takes their offerings, sets up their church buildings, and makes decisions and policies for them. Unfortunately,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37798,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-a-divisive-non-member-be-told-not-to-come-to-worship\/","url_meta":{"origin":27176,"position":3},"title":"Should a divisive non-member be told not to come to worship?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am a member of a church where there is a split of our church family. This revolves around a man (who is\u00a0not\u00a0a member) who has attended this church as a visitor for many years. He stirs up discord within the church habitually. There was a recent incident of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":92501,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-person-be-a-member-of-two-different-congregations\/","url_meta":{"origin":27176,"position":4},"title":"Can a person be a member of two different congregations?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 6, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: We have a brother who used to worship with us, but eventually he took the gospel to his village, with the help of the congregation where we both worship. Worship services started in his village, with most members being his immediate family. However, he lives in our area but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":68491,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-should-a-church-handle-a-significant-event\/","url_meta":{"origin":27176,"position":5},"title":"How should a church handle a significant event?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 23, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Greetings Brother Hamilton, I trust your worship service went well today. Please, I need your guidance on these matters: What can the church do when someone in the church dies? How should the church go about it? I need a procedure. In other words, how can the church take\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}