I have a brother who became a Christian at a young age and when he was a teenager he turned rebellious. He is still rebelling over a decade later. He does not profess to be a Christian, he does not attend any church body or even desire to be a part of the Christian faith. How do I treat him — as an unbeliever or as a believer in I Corinthians 5:9-11. Would you explain this passage too?<\/p>\n\t
Your brother knows what Christ teaches and chose to reject it. He is a former believer who fell away. Such a person is harder to bring back to the truth because there isn’t anything new that you can offer him that he doesn’t already know. “For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them<\/em>” (II Peter 2:20-21). Not that you shouldn’t try, but realize that there isn’t anything you can do to force him to change. He has to decide to return on his own.<\/p>\n The point Paul is making in “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner–not even to eat with such a person<\/em>” (I Corinthians 5:9-11) is that as Christians we cannot give approval to sin, even indirectly. The world is filled with sin, yet we must live in it without letting that sin impact our lives.<\/p>\n But a brother who is in sin is more dangerous because typically the barriers are down between brethren and sin can spread more easily. “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?<\/em>” (I Corinthians 5:9). In Corinth was a man who was involved in sexual sins that even Gentiles thought were horrible. Yet, the Corinthians only showed this sinning brother acceptance. They compromised their standards and thus compromised themselves.<\/p>\n Nor was their treatment of this fallen brother an encouragement for him to change. Why should he leave his sin when he has all the benefits of acceptance while remaining in sin?<\/p>\n You treat your brother politely. When opportunities come to encourage him to come back to the Lord, use them, but never in your actions, directly or indirectly, give the impression that you accept his foolish behavior. He left you and what you love, that doesn’t mean you must chase after him. He needs to see that he’s lost a lot of benefits and needs to return to the Lord.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: I have a brother who became a Christian at a young age and when he was a teenager he turned rebellious. He is still rebelling over a decade later. He does not profess to be a Christian, he does not attend any church body or even desire to be a part of the Christian…<\/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":[254],"class_list":["post-27433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-withdrawal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":26785,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/ive-sinned-living-with-a-non-believer-ive-repented-but-do-i-marry-this-man\/","url_meta":{"origin":27433,"position":0},"title":"I’ve sinned, living with a non-believer. I’ve repented, but do I marry this man?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 22, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am a Christian woman in my thirties. I have two children outside of wedlock for the same father who is a Muslim man. Now I know that having sex before marriage is wrong, making my children illegitimate. But I know the errors of my ways and I have\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":53644,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-a-christian-who-teaches-error-still-a-brother-in-christ\/","url_meta":{"origin":27433,"position":1},"title":"Is a Christian who teaches error still a brother in Christ?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: A big fire started after our morning services this morning! One of our members here adamantly disagreed with me when I mentioned that when a brother sins by teaching doctrinal error, he must repent, and if he refuses to repent he is \"a brother in error.\" Until he does\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":20369,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-wrong-for-a-christian-to-marry-a-non-believer\/","url_meta":{"origin":27433,"position":2},"title":"Is it wrong for a Christian to marry a non-believer?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In I Corinthians 7:12-14, it doesn't mean a Christian marrying an unbeliever. You need to see the background and the circumstances Paul wrote this letter. Actually the problem in Corinth is that after marriage a husband or wife accepted Christ. Because of the desire to serve Christ, the believing\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":25687,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-i-go-to-my-brothers-birthday-party-he-fell-away-from-christ-years-ago\/","url_meta":{"origin":27433,"position":3},"title":"Do I go to my brother’s birthday party? He fell away from Christ years ago","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My fiancee and I were having a discussion that got kind of heated. I let it go too far, and I realized I had issues in certain areas of my life with my oldest brother, who has turned away from God for the past 15 or so years. It\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":5289,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-ok-to-turn-another-christian-into-the-police-for-stealing-from-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":27433,"position":4},"title":"Is it OK to turn another Christian into the police for stealing from you?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Is it right for an elder to detain a sister in a police station because she collected the elder's ID card and two mobile phones? Answer: Christians are required by God to stop stealing (Ephesians 4:28) and not make a practice of it. Our interactions regarding Christians and what\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":54614,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-my-friend-leave-her-husband-so-she-can-worship-the-christ\/","url_meta":{"origin":27433,"position":5},"title":"Should my friend leave her husband so she can worship the Christ?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Dear Brother, Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ. This question is regarding my colleague. She was born in a Hindu family but accepted Jesus in her youth. Her parents did not allow her to marry a Christian, so she married a Hindu, concealing the fact that she was\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\/27433","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=27433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}