QUESTION RECEIVED:
Hi, I searched on your blog for an article regarding disfellowshipping but it didn't come up. Would you be able to direct me here?
I'm specifically seeking information on how the verses J.W.s use should actually be applied/enforced. The one where it's said we shouldn't stop and speak to or even share a meal with those people, how do you believe these scriptures should be applied?
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MY REPLY:
1Cor.5:11 reads;
"11 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."
JWs call all those baptized into their organization, brothers and sisters. That gives the intentional impression that all JWs are brothers and sisters. It allows for the scripture to be applied to all JWs, and for the shunning to be applied to any members who become dissonant with Watchtower doctrine, by their refusal to submit to it any longer.
But when 1Cor.5:11 was spoken and penned, there were no JWs. There was no Watchtower, or any application of how the Watchtower defines "brothers", or, an agreement with how the Watchtower interprets this verse.
Clearly in the verse, we are referring to those "called brothers", correct?
Who, in the first century, were called "brothers"?
I am going to cite the scriptures which shed the most direct light on the answer to that question.
Please examine them carefully...
(Rom.12:10; 1Cor.12:23,25-28; Rom.14:15; 1Cor.8:11; Eph.5:25-27; Rev.21:2,9-10)
(John 1:51; Rev.22:3NIV ,Rev.22:4; Col.4:7; 1Thess.4:9; 1Pet.5:8 > 1Pet.5:9 NET ; Luke 22:31)
(Luke12:45; 22:31; Matt.13:25,38; 25:40; 23:8; 28:8-10,16; 1John3:10,12; Heb.2:10-12; Rev.1:9)
The brothers of Christ naturally would have the same Father (Gal.3:26-29; Ps.82:6; Rom.8:14-18).
As such, they share the same inheritance of the kingdom with Jesus, from the Father
(Dan.7:13-14,18,21-22,27; Jude 1:1; 1Thess.3:13; 1Pet.1:15; Dan.7:27)
Do you understand now, who the "brothers" are who fall into gross sin...
(2Pet.2:1-3; Acts 20:29-30; Heb.10:26-27 <(1John2:20); Matt.7:15,22-23; 24:5,11,24; Gal.2:4; Luke 21:8; 2Thess.2:1-3;
Mark 13:22; Jude 1:3-4,8,10-13,17-19,11; Rev.2:14,16; Matt.15:13-14),
...who should be put away from the company of the faithful anointed saints?
(2Cor.6:17-18; 11:12-15,13; Rev.2:2; 1Cor.5:11-13)
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Matt.13:37-39,40-42,43
Now let's take an even closer look at 1Cor.5:11, specifically the last words, "not even to eat with such a person"**.
Is this literally referring to having a meal with a sinner? No. ...see Matt.9:10-13.
We understand those words better, if we read Rev.3:20 **.
1Cor.5:11 and Rev.3:20 are not referring to eating literal food at all (John6:27,35; Amos 8:11). They are referring to spiritual provisions that are sourced in either demonic spirits of deception (1Tim.4:1; Rev.16:13-14; 1Cor.10:21; Rev.2:20,24; Eph.6:12; 5:11; 2Cor.10:3-5; Rev.17:14)
or sourced in the holy spirit of truth (John14:17,26; 6:57,63; 20:21-22; 1John2:20,27; John15:4-5,16).
The false teachers and unfaithful anointed that were highlighted in previously cited scriptures above, are those providing such misleading doctrine. We are not to consume their rotten fruit, served on the table of demons (Luke 6:43-45; Matt.7:15-20)
..."not even eating with such a person" (1Cor.5:11).
Not only has 1Cor.5:11 been misapplied to those not anointed;
---It has also been misapplied to facilitate the holy ones being wrongly condemned to death
(Isa.57:1; John16:2; Matt.10:22) (Rev.13:11,15; 11:3,7)
Here is additional information on this very topic, written by an anointed associate:
