responsibility

9 I wrote you in my earlier letter that you shouldn’t make yourselves at home among the sexually promiscuous.10 I didn’t mean that you should have nothing at all to do with outsiders of that sort. Or with crooks, whether blue- or white-collar. Or with spiritual phonies, for that matter. You’d have to leave the world entirely to do that!11 But I am saying that you shouldn’t act as if everything is just fine when a friend who claims to be a Christian is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can’t just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior.12 I’m not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don’t we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers?13 God decides on the outsiders, but we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and, if necessary, clean house.

1Corinthians 5:9-13

this is really harsh but really crucial! when we see something going wrong in our friends' lives, we should say something. although, i have to say that it is important that it has to be a Christian friend that we should rebuke and try to help. if they're not Christian, they wouldn't understand why they can't do something, but if they say they are Christian and have God in their hearts, they should know or be given the chance to know that their behavior is making God grieve. this is where the problem of idleness comes in. when we see what is going wrong but do nothing. when we see a fellow Christian brother or sister sinning and say nothing because we're afraid that we'll be embarrassed or they'll be angry with us. God will be pleased. and hopefully, they'll thank you in the end. we have to know how to not hold a bitterness or resentment in our hearts when we see our brothers and sisters sinning either. that is just not the right mindset and heart when we go into confronting someone. we confront them because we love them and love God. we have to also learn how to approach them in love and compassion, not just to judge and rebuke someone. gentle but firm. they have to know they're sinning against God and we need to show them that and show them how to improve, not just yell at them. this is really important, too. we're not responsible for what nonbelievers do. that's not our job to judge them. God does the judging. for rebuking, we worry about ourselves and our church as a whole, friends and family who are believers. if we see someone dishonoring God who claims to be a Christian, we say something. if we see someone dishonoring God who isn't a Christian, we show them why we honor him in a loving way. God will take care of the rest!