"Binding and Loosing"
In many areas the church is trying to use biblical teaching about binding and loosing as an instrument to deal with something it was not designed to deal with.
Download or email this sermon Dealing with Persistent Sin in the Body
It is actually reported that there is im-morality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife. And you have become arrogant, and have not mourned instead, in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst. For I, on my part [ie, as an apostle], though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Co. 5:3-5).
What did Paul do? He used his authority to bind a wayward believer. What is the context of the reference to binding and loosing in Matthew 18? When the person would not repent of their sin, the church had the authority to bind him, with the view of seeing him restored.
Look at the context: they were pronouncing judgment on a soul for his restoration. We have looked at the two times Jesus used the term "bind" – the Greek word deo – and it does not have anything whatsoever to do with what so many preachers are telling you to do today. Apostolic authority exists to define doctrine and to deal with persistent immorality and perverse sin in the body.
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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.