Thu Oct 2

Today’s reading and notes are to prepare for our Saturday service.

Listen up, little ones

Especially for the littles in your household.

Listen for the words faith and Satan.

Reading

1 Timothy 1:18-20—Excommunication: Delivered to Satan

Optional Reading

Jonah 1:1-17

Keys for kids

Also for the littles. Young households might choose, after Keys for Kids, to go directly to praise and prayer.

We can never know for sure who is a Christian.
However, some depart the faith they profess.
Such ones have to be put out of the church.

Questions

(some read these before notes, then ask them after)

What had Hymenaeus and Alexander done?
Why might anyone be put out of the church?
What is the goal of church discipline?

Notes

(See Saturday for authors)

In the war that is the Christian life, some have lost the war. Here Paul points out two, Hymenaeus and Alexander. They have rejected their conscience and as a result have shipwrecked their lives by rejecting the true faith. As Paul shifts images here from army to navy, Hendriksen notes that a Christian must be both a good soldier and a good sailor. These two men were neither.

Therefore, they must be handed over to Satan. We call that excommunication—to put someone out of the church because they are no longer living consistent with the Christian life they had professed. God may bring to the excommunicated physical suffering and poor health as well as spiritual suffering. Notice, though, the goal is restoration. Paul’s hope for Hymenaeus and Alexander is that they would be taught—that is that they would learn—not to blaspheme. Although the practice varies widely in the Christian church, most Christians have understood, from passages like our text as well as Matthew 18:15-17 and 1 Corinthians 5, that the church may at times need to put outside of communion (ex-communicate) even those who profess to be Christians and have been received into church membership, and even to put them outside of church membership itself.

Christ uses church discipline to rescue the spiritually shipwrecked, so take up the good fight of faith by humbly embracing this gracious provision.

Swedish Method questions

See the Sunday notes for meaning of the symbols.

Praise

Psalm 32a, 134b

Prayer

Pray that any who receive church discipline would repent.
Pray for the preparation for preaching God’s word this Sunday.
Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.