{"id":35331,"date":"2021-05-23T15:27:42","date_gmt":"2021-05-23T20:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=35331"},"modified":"2021-05-23T17:52:53","modified_gmt":"2021-05-23T22:52:53","slug":"how-do-i-deal-with-a-member-who-is-in-an-adulterous-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-i-deal-with-a-member-who-is-in-an-adulterous-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"How do I deal with a member who is in an adulterous marriage?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

Question:<\/h2>\n

I have a question that requires me to go outside of the current congregation where I am a member.<\/p>\n

If there is a member who is in an unscriptural marriage, which I do have personal knowledge of, and who is being allowed to preach and teach in worship service, should I remain a member there?<\/p>\n

I have approached this member in the past and he absolutely refuses to accept that his marriage is wrong. He was married to another person several years ago, and I knew them both. He committed adultery in that marriage and it ultimately ended in divorce.<\/p>\n

Then his current wife was baptized into Christ and they married afterward.<\/p>\n

The other members in this congregation have not known this individual long so they don’t know the history.<\/p>\n\t

Answer:<\/h2>\n

Please understand that handling such situations rarely go well. There will be hard feelings because many people would rather ignore problems than deal with them. It is the person who points out the problem who is usually blamed (e.g. Moses was blamed for Korah and his followers’ deaths during their rebellion (Numbers 16:41-42)).<\/p>\n

As it currently stands, it is your word against the brother. Thus, you need to gather evidence that his prior marriage ended because of his adultery. Usually, you won’t find that in modern-day divorce records. It might require getting a statement from his former wife.<\/p>\n

Once the evidence is gathered, ask two brothers to join you in speaking with him about his situation. The purpose is to document what is the problem, along with trying to convince the brother that he needs to repent of his sin (see Withdraw Yourselves<\/a>). If this meeting does not go well, then you and the brothers you had to join you need to bring the issue up with the entire congregation.<\/p>\n

Only if it is clear that the brother is in sin and the congregation chooses not to do anything that you would need to then look for another congregation to worship with.<\/p>\n\t

Response:<\/h2>\n

Jeffery,<\/p>\n

Thank you for this very sound guidance. Please pray for me in this difficult situation.<\/p>\n

God bless.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question: I have a question that requires me to go outside of the current congregation where I am a member. If there is a member who is in an unscriptural marriage, which I do have personal knowledge of, and who is being allowed to preach and teach in worship service, should I remain a member…<\/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":[167,544,254],"class_list":["post-35331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-divorce","tag-membership","tag-withdrawal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":31393,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/as-i-grow-in-the-lord-i-find-i-am-struggling-with-my-past-and-current-sins\/","url_meta":{"origin":35331,"position":0},"title":"As I grow in the Lord, I find I am struggling with my past and current sins","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, my brother in Christ, I have been a member of the church for a number of years. I have been a faithful brother since that time and have grown tremendously over the years.\u00a0 As I continue to grow in the Lord, I am struggling with some things 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":12283,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-a-couple-in-their-second-marriage-has-children-can-the-preacher-make-them-get-a-divorce\/","url_meta":{"origin":35331,"position":1},"title":"If a couple in their second marriage has children, can the preacher make them get a divorce?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: If a man has two children from a previous marriage and marries a woman who has children from a previous marriage and they have two children in their marriage and the man later becomes a member of the church and several months later his wife becomes a member, 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":32880,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/we-have-a-man-who-is-on-his-third-wife-attending-services-what-do-we-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":35331,"position":2},"title":"We have a man who is on his third wife attending services. What do we do?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I have a question regarding a member of our congregation and what to do. We currently are without elders and as the men of the congregation we have to jointly make decisions. The problem at hand is we have a man who has been coming and going for\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":34297,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-should-a-woman-do-who-suspects-her-husbands-prior-divorce-was-not-for-scriptural-reasons-like-he-originally-claimed\/","url_meta":{"origin":35331,"position":3},"title":"What should a woman do who suspects her husband’s prior divorce was not for scriptural reasons like he originally claimed?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have a very dear friend of mine who is afraid she may be in an unscriptural marriage. We are both members of the Lord's Church so we both understand what this means. She divorced her first husband due to adultery and remarried her current husband, who is a\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":3788,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-a-marriage-valid-if-it-was-only-done-to-gain-citizenship\/","url_meta":{"origin":35331,"position":4},"title":"Is a marriage valid if it was only done to gain citizenship?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 29, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: If a man was married for 3 years only because he wanted to come to the USA and then divorced can he remarry? The marriage in his eyes was only for US citizenship. Answer: What is missing is a respect for the marriage covenant (Malachi 2:13-16). A covenant is\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":2268,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-does-a-wife-do-when-she-finds-out-her-husband-lied-about-committing-adultery-against-his-former-wife\/","url_meta":{"origin":35331,"position":5},"title":"What does a wife do when she finds out her husband lied about committing adultery against his former wife?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 12, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: This question is in reference to a friend. She grew up in the church, and she was baptized. She entered into a marriage with someone, but her spouse committed adultery against her. My friend remarried sometime later and was under the assumption that she was entering into a scriptural\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\/35331","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=35331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}