I recently got divorced and after going to counseling at our church to resolve our issues (which did not work) the counselor who is a pastor there said that based on Mathew 18:15 my now ex-wife would be excommunicated from the church because she knowingly committed a sin by divorcing me and not following the advice given in the bible. It’s true, she had no biblical grounds for divorce, but how does Mathew 18:15-17 apply?

In reading 2 Thessalonians 3 we see Paul exhorting his readers to work for a living and that if someone refuses to work then they shouldn’t eat. I recognize that Paul probably wasn’t advocating starving someone into submission, so the question for me becomes, where is that line? What is Paul advocating here?

Re: Must God Choose Us Please quit saying that Calvinists believe God created some to be saved and some to be lost. God created all of us to be in relationship with Him, but ALL of us CHOSE to turn away from Him resulting in “lostness”. In His mercy and mysterious plan, God chose some out for salvation and allowed others to have their own way. In order to accurately condemn a belief, you need to know what they actually believe.

In the Bible Study group I lead there’s an older gentleman who frequently makes a statement that I don’t agree with. I want to kindly correct him on this but don’t know how to go about it. He says he believes in Grace and OSAS. However, he says that no matter how much we pray to God, until God decides to reveal Himself to us, we cannot know Him. He goes on further to say that God has to choose us and that we cannot choose Him. It has upset some in the group as they are facing daily struggles and they are starting to believe that their struggles are because God hasn’t “chosen” them. Please help me address this situation. If I’m wrong and he is right, that’s fine, but I can’t find Biblical support for his position.

You have said that eternity is not just a whole bunch of time but the absence of time. Do you think that creation and mankind were initially created without time and that the introduction of time was a part of the curse? Because with the passage of time comes decay. During the recount of creation in Genesis, it speaks about morning and evening; day and night and we associate this with a passing of time, but is that necessarily so? Couldn’t there be days and nights within eternity? If so, do you think that God, who created and controls time, slowed down Abraham and Sarah’s biological clocks so that their bodies remained young enough to have Isaac in their old age?

Recently someone was quoting John 20:21-22 as proof that if we forgive someone, they are forgiven – and if we do not forgive them, they remain unforgiven. This was put forward as “proof” that we are able to forgive sins in others just as God does, or in spite of God, as the case may be. I know this is not the intention of this verse, but I am not sure how to refute it. Can you help?

I have often felt over the years that God has punished my sins by giving my son a disability. I have been encouraged to believe that this is not true. My question is, didn’t God punish 70,000 Israelites with death because of David’s sin in 1st Chronicles Chapter 21?

Realizing that there may be husbands or wives left behind that did not accept Christ before the Rapture, does that mean if one spouse accepts Christ and is raptured and the mate accepts Him in the Trib, that they will not be together in the Millennium because the mate cannot go to the New Jerusalem? If so, there are surely going to be big regrets in the Trib when they realize they missed it.

John 21:15-17 records Jesus asking Peter three times if he loves him, Was this Jesus’ way of letting Peter know he was forgiven for denying Him three times?

I’m having some difficulty understanding what’s being spoken of in 1 John 5:16,17. What is the sin leading to death? Why should we not pray about it? What is meant by there being sin not leading to death? Any help you could give me would be appreciated. God bless your ministry.