Hello, Jeffrey,<\/p>\n
I hope you’re doing well.<\/p>\n
There is a lot going on in my congregation which is given me cause for concern.<\/p>\n
My elder brother is cohabiting with a lady who he intends to marry and the lady is not a Christian. My sister told the minister privately about this and he promised to do something about it but he just encouraged my brother to marry the lady. That’s all.<\/p>\n
A marriage committee was set up to handle certain relationships in the church including the relationship of my elder brother. The minister is part of that committee and, sadly, through their investigation, they could not find out if he was cohabiting. What a shame!<\/p>\n
In a meeting, their report was that the church should pray for them. Knowing the situation, I had to stand up to warn them of the dangers of keeping quiet. Then the chairman of the committee denied knowledge of the cohabiting.<\/p>\n
I talked to my brother in the past. He told me that almost all of the leaders in the church were guilty of sexual sins. He said even those who are married were sleeping around. Recently one got a lady who is not a Christian pregnant. Even the minister some time ago got a girl pregnant and that pregnancy ended in abortion. When the church found out he was having sex with a woman, he was told to get married as a requirement to be retained by the congregation. He picked a sister in the church with the church sponsoring the wedding to the last detail, so this has grossly affected the minister’s discharge of duty.<\/p>\n
I am relatively new here and it is causing me to lose interest, which is producing lukewarmness in me. Any advice?<\/p>\n
Thanks.<\/p>\n\t
When you have a congregation tolerating sin and its leaders caught up in sin, the best thing to do is leave and find a real church — one that truly follows the Lord. These people only pretend to be Christians. “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep<\/em>” (II Peter 2:1-3). Staying will only drag you into their sins and you will end up sharing their destruction. “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals’<\/em>” (I Corinthians 15:33).<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: Hello, Jeffrey, I hope you’re doing well. There is a lot going on in my congregation which is given me cause for concern. My elder brother is cohabiting with a lady who he intends to marry and the lady is not a Christian. My sister told the minister privately about this and he promised…<\/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,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1572],"class_list":["post-55637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-fornication"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":45089,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-i-marry-my-brothers-ex-girlfriend-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":55637,"position":0},"title":"Can I marry my brother’s ex-girlfriend? (2)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Dear Sir, I appreciate your website and how deep and rich your answers to pertinent questions have helped to shape people's lives. I have been dating a lady who was once dating my younger brother. They were both in the same church, and they dated as believers with the\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":49861,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-i-not-marry-the-woman-my-brother-had-sex-with-in-the-past\/","url_meta":{"origin":55637,"position":1},"title":"Can I not marry the woman my brother had sex with in the past?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 8, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Bless you sir, I must confess you are doing a great job here. I have a pressing need and I'm disturbed. Is marring a lady your brother once had sex with in the past incest? There is a lady I've been dating for sometime now. My brother broke the\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":31472,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-a-woman-be-on-the-committee-to-select-elders\/","url_meta":{"origin":55637,"position":2},"title":"Should a woman be on the committee to select elders?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, I attend the church of Christ in a small town. We are looking at appointing elders in our congregation.\u00a0 There is what I feel a potential problem, since we are so small, most of the men who have been elected as potential elders leave very little left to\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":648,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-wrong-to-refer-to-an-elder-as-brother\/","url_meta":{"origin":55637,"position":3},"title":"Is it wrong to refer to an elder as “brother”?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 11, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good day, We have a duty roster which I draw up monthly. One month I listed one of the elders as \"brother,\" which he was not happy with. Is it really such a violation to call you a brother and not an elder? Answer: Actually, the violation is on\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":49869,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-scriptural-for-a-church-to-use-committees-to-make-decisions-for-the-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":55637,"position":4},"title":"Is it scriptural for a church to use committees to make decisions for the church?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good day brother, I'm a member of the church of Christ. Is it scriptural for congregations of the Lord's church to have committees? I mean committees like evangelism committee, building committee, edification committee, visitation committee, benevolence committee, counseling, and disciplinary committee, etc. Thanks in anticipation. Answer: In the Bible,\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":48802,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-fiances-family-will-never-love-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":55637,"position":5},"title":"My fiance’s family will never love me","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 22, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Dear sir, Please, I need your advice. I was dating this young guy, who I thought we would spend much time together for the rest of our lives. Instead, little did I know that he was just playing with me, after some time the communication just started breaking down.\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\/55637","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=55637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}