I am a member of the Lord’s church. Would, or could, the sin of viewing pornography be considered a public sin if the person who was guilty was another gospel preacher who had done so over the entire period he served at his congregation, and others in that congregation, as well as others in another congregation, and several outside the church knew about it?<\/p>\n
I also want to personally thank you for the excellent work being accomplished through your website! I have searched for several articles as of late on various topics that do not seem to be discussed within the brotherhood, but it always seems like I get several hits referring to your site on these same subjects.<\/p>\n
This is greatly appreciated! Many thanks!<\/p>\n\t
Any sin is public when multiple people are aware that the sin took place. When trying to get a person out of sin, the goal is to limit who knows about the sin to the minimum necessary to get the person to change. This is seen in Matthew 18:15-17. It is also what is meant by “covering sin.” It isn’t the hiding of a sinner in his sins, but a burying of past forgiven sins. “Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins<\/em>” (James 5:19-20).<\/p>\n Sometimes you will find people who claim that a public sin requires a public confession; however, this requirement is not found in the Scriptures. For details see:\u00a0Does sin require a public confession before a congregation?<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Doesn’t a publicly known sin need to be confessed?<\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: I am a member of the Lord’s church. Would, or could, the sin of viewing pornography be considered a public sin if the person who was guilty was another gospel preacher who had done so over the entire period he served at his congregation, and others in that congregation, as well as others in…<\/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":[51,226],"class_list":["post-41831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-confession","tag-pornography"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":42384,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-we-withdraw-from-members-who-are-attending-another-congregation-for-months\/","url_meta":{"origin":41831,"position":0},"title":"Do we withdraw from members who are attending another congregation for months?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I read brother Hamilton's article on\u00a0Cross Congregational Fellowship\u00a0with keen interest and have this question: Can fellowship be withdrawn from members who have absented themselves from their local congregation for months, but who have gone to another congregation to worship without first advising their local congregation that they will be\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":60099,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-fell-back-into-pornography\/","url_meta":{"origin":41831,"position":1},"title":"I fell back into pornography","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 27, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Greetings! I am a young Christian man who has endured nearly 13 years of porn addiction. I understand it's not proper for us Christians to feast on such trash. I had even alienated myself from my home church for nearly ten months and had to attend different churches. About\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":7259,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/arent-you-dancing-around-the-issue-of-racism\/","url_meta":{"origin":41831,"position":2},"title":"Aren’t you dancing around the issue of racism?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: You surely did a huge dance around the \"racism\" issue. [See \"The Broadening Definition of Racism.\"] Since you condemned all of the other sins in other articles, why didn't you condemn racism as a sin as well? Instead, you linked a religious body's (the United Church of Christ's) condoning\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":33693,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/sins-against-the-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":41831,"position":3},"title":"Sins Against the Church","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 25, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Joe Shane Sentry Magazine, March 2000 Are there sins against the church? If so, what are those sins? Simply put, the answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second is more complicated. Let us begin with a quote from a preacher who will remain nameless.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44403,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/im-afraid-my-son-is-gay\/","url_meta":{"origin":41831,"position":4},"title":"I’m afraid my son is gay","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 27, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I sense my son is gay because he has never had a girlfriend. And I have caught him watching gay porn. I raised him in the church, where it is taught that that is a sin. How do I talk to him about his struggles and that his lifestyle\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":20087,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-sin-require-a-public-confession-before-a-congregation\/","url_meta":{"origin":41831,"position":5},"title":"Does sin require a public confession before a congregation?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: It is with great difficulty that I find myself writing to you with this question. I have been married for about several months now.\u00a0 Shortly before the wedding, we made a grievous error and fell into sexual sins.\u00a0 A child was conceived from this sin.\u00a0 We are overjoyed over\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\/41831","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=41831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}