377: Ken Sommerville - The Three Principles

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:03

   Welcome to Good Christophian Talks. Thank you for joining us this week on this podcast. We select one talk a week to help us get the Bible in our Daily News feed. Each week we post a talk that we previewed from suggestions sent in by listeners from around the world. Then we record a short intro beforehand as a personalized recommendation to you on why we are sharing the talk. And now let’s talk.

2. 0:27

   More about this week’s talk. This week’s talk is technically an exhortation given by brother Ken Somerville at the Simi Hills Ecclesia on September 30th, 2001. I chose not to list it as an exhortation in the title because I don’t think it’s actually super suitable for a memorial service. And we do have some ecclesias that use the the podcast as their exhortation, but I don’t think it takes away from it being a really excellent and interesting talk. The title is the three principles and he gets into the challenge.

3. 1:09

   We have kind of the contrasting principles of when to say something or do something, when you see a brother in error maybe sending or making mistakes and when not to. And he establishes that those are both biblical principles. And you’ll hear that the third principle is the is, you know, knowing the difference. Brother Ken was my grandfather and one of my very best friends. He passed away a year and a half ago, in July of 2024. I’ve been trying for years to find a talk of his that’s suitable enough to get on the show. He was a wise and wonderful loving brother and grandfather to me and loved by many at Simi Hills and here in Southern California.

4. 1:56

   He actually was Bob Lloyd’s partner in work for almost 50 years. They were greater than 50 years, almost 60 years. They they were good friends and work partners. And Ken, like I said, was loved by very many, especially his family. But not the greatest disorder, not the greatest speaker. You’ll hear in this talk a really focused presentation, which was the rarity. I think he would, he was not afraid of going on tangents or rants or things like that in his talks, in his, in his exhorts that this talk is really tighter than usual. And, and I think it’s because there must be something going on.

5. 2:44

   He he again, he addresses it in the beginning that the ABS asked him to talk about this topic specifically. And so there’s some greater story which I don’t know. I was 14 at the time that this talk was presented, but really enjoyed it. Obviously I am personally biased. I asked some of the other Co hosts to listen to the talk and we do all suggest it and I am excited to share it with you. So here is the Three Principles by Brother Ken Somerville. Three or four months ago, a problem was put forth at an arranging board meeting, and after much discussion, I was asked to organize the scriptural principles that guide our actions in those kinds of problems and present them on my next turn to exhort.

6. 3:36

   And so that’s the thrust and the the reason for this morning’s exitation and subject. The general question that we were discussing that evening was what should a brother or sister do when they become aware that a brother, another brother or sister is living in an unchrist like way? That’s the, the shall we say the general thrust of the question.

7. 4:05

   And it led to all kinds of specific questions that will serve as examples of things that no doubt you have faced and that we will face in the future. What if I can see that drugs and alcohol are ruining a brother’s life? At what point should I seek the help of the ecclesia?

8. 4:32

   When should the matter be brought up as possibly needing formal response? A quote you might hear from someone is that I can hardly sit through that brother’s exhortation when I know what’s going on in his private life.

9. 4:50

   What if I know this person is taking advantage 1 by 1 of various members in the ecclesia because no one has the the overall picture. I’m the only one that is aware of all the facts. What if the problem involves wife beating and other abusive behavior that can destroy people’s mental health and their very lives?

10. 5:14

    You can see by the nature of the subject, why I wouldn’t exhort on it unless it was something that we were asked to do that we agreed merited our attention. There are three scriptural areas, principles that give us God’s guidance in this area, and we’ll look at them and some of the verses from which they arise. Then we’ll consider some examples of how they might be implemented.

11. 5:43

    The three principles are #1 we definitely have mutual responsibilities for each other’s spiritual welfare. Even as we would readily agree that we have a common sense duty to warn someone to get off the railroad track because it’s dangerous, we have a common sense duty as well as a scripturally set forth duty to warn someone if their spiritual life is in danger. The second principle is we have a duty to mind our own business and we’ll look at some scriptures from whence that comes.

12. 6:28

    And the third principle is that there are right and wrong ways to go about discharging the duty. So we’ve got a duty to our brother to warn him. We’ve got a duty to mind our own business and we have a duty to carry out the duty correctly. Now, First off, our responsibility to our brother, that principle.

13. 6:59

    And we all think of Cain’s question when God said, where’s your brother? And, and, and how does he answer? Am I my brother’s keeper? And that comes down to us with a commonly understood meaning that the answer is yes, you are. If you stop and think about it, all of us that have ever heard Cain’s response would interpret it that way. That what what the unsaid answer is yes, we are our brother’s keeper.

14. 7:35

    The New Testament is full of instruction and exhortation for us to be up and doing in these areas. But implementing these principles often starts, if not always, at the very uncomfortable individual one-on-one level, and they end up making a little quiet demand on you as an individual to act upon something that you’re concerned about because you fear your brother or sister’s spiritual health is in serious danger.

15. 8:22

    In Galatians 2 and 11, we have an example of Paul discharging his duty to an individual. Now he’s referring back to that incident that’s recorded in Acts where Peter, who had been eating with Gentile converts to Christianity, stop doing so when some important Jewish Christians came from Jerusalem. And Paul said and he says in in Galatians 2 and 11:00.

16. 9:05

    But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed for before certain men came from James. He did eat with the Gentiles, but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them who were of the circumcision, and other Jews dissembled in like manner with him.

17. 9:25

    And so much the Barnabas also was carried away with their hypocrisy. It says a mouthful there because as we know, Paul’s going to spend a lot of time in his letters fighting against the Judaizers who were attempting to get the law back into to Christianity, into the gospel of Christ. And he knew that how fatal that would be to the whole idea of salvation by grace, that you’d end up with a ritualistic righteousness form of Christianity. So he saw Peter leading a movement that was doctrinally wrong and that was manifesting itself in wrong actions and was endangering others as well.

18. 10:11

    In this case, others dissembled with him, including Barnabas was led away into this hypocritical practice. But there’s a clear example of the principle of mutual responsibility, and without looking at it, we know in First Corinthians 5 that old chapter is giving given over to the fact that in Corinth they had a brother who had taken his father’s wife. And this was actually leading.

19. 10:42

    Not only was that a morally wrong thing to do, a sinful thing to do, but it was causing a split in the ecclesia. But somebody had to raise the issue. Somebody had to bell the cat, as they say. And we know that somebody or somebody’s wrote Paul, and that’s how come he wrote the Corinthians about the matter.

20. 11:12

    Somebody was very concerned about the spiritual salvation of the individual and the effect of his actions on the ecclesia as a whole. We’ll go back with me now to Leviticus 19. The rituals of the law don’t apply, but the principles do. Leviticus 19 verse 17 and it puts it in a very interesting dramatic way. 17th verse Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart.

21. 12:04

    Thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbor and not allow sin upon him. So when we keep our mouths shut, when we see our brother or hear our brother doing or saying something that’s endangering his salvation, we’re not being gracious, we’re not being sophisticated, we’re we’re not being urbane, we’re manifesting a hatred, is the way Leviticus puts it. Why?

22. 12:49

    But because obviously we don’t care very much about him. We think that we, well, we all know what’s really going on because we’re all guilty of this at some level or another. We’re more concerned about our face, our egos, our reputation, our being liked than we are about the issue. And we all make these compromises at all kinds of levels. But what we’re talking about here are serious, serious matters.

23. 13:24

    Don’t hate your brother in your heart, but rebuke him. Well, now let’s look at the matter of the very real principle that we’re supposed to mind our own business. Because if you’re ever the recipient of rebuke, the first thing you’re going to wish is that somebody minded their own business. And so you’re likely to be thinking about some of these nurses.

24. 13:52

    And they’re, they’re, they’re completely valid. 1st Thessalonians 4 and 11 Paul admonishing the Thessalonians there that you study to be quiet. 1st Thessalonians 411 to do your own business, to do your own business, to work with your hands as we commanded you. And in First Timothy 5 and 13. Similarly, in condemning the actions of, in that case, young widows, I believe First Timothy 5 and 13, he says, well, coming in at verse 11, the younger widows refuse.

25. 14:44

    For when they have begun to grow wanton against Christ, they’ll marry, having condemnation because they’ve cast off their first faith. And besides, they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, not only idle, but tattlers also in busy bodies speaking things which they ought not. So being a busy body, not minding one’s own business is condemned.

26. 15:09

    In fact, in First Peter 4 and 15. Don’t bother going to it it it says. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer or a busy body in other men’s matters. That’s quite a quite a a group to be in the company of, isn’t it? Murderers, thiefs and evildoers are joined now by nosy people. How do we get nosy?

27. 15:39

    Well, sometimes we ask questions that we have no sincere interest in and no real ability to do anything about. We may ask about someone’s health or why someone isn’t here. We don’t really intend to be helpful in the matter, and our interest may be sincere, but it may be casual and it may even be less so.

28. 16:09

    One of the absolute classics in my view was Jesus’s reaction in John 21 to Peter coming in at the 20th verse and referring to John in, in, in, in 21 and 20, and then Peter turning about. And this is just at the last few moments they had with Jesus. See if the disciple whom Jesus loved, that’s John following, who also leaned on his breasted supper and said, Lord, who is he that betrayeth thee? And Peter seeing him, sayeth to Jesus, Lord, what shall this man do?

29. 16:59

    Jesus said unto him, If I will, that he tarry till I come. What is that to thee? Follow thou me. You know it doesn’t make it sound like. Mind your own business, Peter. It’s none of your business. What’s going to happen to him? Why, if he stays here until the 2nd coming, I don’t see where it’s any of your business, Peter, You get down to the business of following me quite often. We we get all involved with what other brothers and sisters are doing or not doing and taking our standards and our cues from them.

30. 17:34

    And it’s none of our business in a lot of that stuff. We’re supposed to be at the business of bringing our own personal lives into harmony with the principles of Jesus.

31. 17:50

    So we’re not supposed to be nosy and busy body. So we’re not supposed to get involved in witch hunts. The Inquisition was the most terrible, far more terrible than any of the Salem witch hunts, one of the most unscriptural kinds of events that you could have imagined done in the name of God. I saw a bumper sticker a week ago and it said, oh, God, please protect me from your followers.

32. 18:24

    And you know, you think about it, you think of what’s being done now in the name of Allah, what was done years ago, what was done to Jesus in the name of God.

33. 18:39

    Yes, it’s bad business. But in any event, we now want to try to put these three principles together, that we have a mutual responsibility towards our brother. On the other hand, we do have to mind our own business. And in discharging that responsibility, we have to do it in the right way. Now the third one I I’ve got to do now is the principle of implementation.

34. 19:04

    Now we looked at the story in Joshua 22 when we did the reading. Now that’s quite an interesting story. They were going into the land. And as you recall, Reuben, Gad and half tribe of Manassas said this land on this side of Jordan looks very good to us. Will it be all right if we take this and the rest of you go ahead, We’ll help you conquer the rest of the land.

35. 19:28

    But this land looks like a good land. And it was agreed and it was OK, and it was OK with God. And so Reuben and Gad and half tribe of Manassa stayed over here. The rest of the tribes crossed Jordan, went into the land. A little time goes by and the tribes, the bulk of the tribes, they looked over the river, so to speak, and they saw an altar under construction and they came to a conclusion and an assumed conclusion, didn’t they?

36. 20:02

    You might say they jumped to a conclusion. What was the conclusion they jumped to? They’re taking up idol worship. They’re going to bring the wrath of God down upon themselves and the rest of us. Because you clearly see the the the the principle of having a mutual responsibility each for each other throughout the history of Israel and how God held the people accountable for each other. But what did they do?

37. 20:32

    They jumped to this conclusion. They got their armies together and they were just this side of going to war when fortunately they had some negotiation. Now would have been a lot simpler if they’d had the negotiation earlier, wouldn’t it? But they, fortunately they, they, they had a, a delegation and met with them and said, what are you doing? They placed the accusation before them. The response came back and said, no, you’ve misunderstood us. That’s not our intent.

38. 21:02

    We’re not setting up an idol for for an altar for idol worship. We’re not even setting up an alternate altar for to worship God. This is simply going to be a symbol. It’s going to be made the same way yours is, so that in the future, nobody’s going to be able to say that we’re not part of you.

39. 21:22

    We’re going to be able to say, look, see, we’ve got the same kind. We were part of the same plan right from the beginning and so everybody was happy with it. But what we see there was an almost fatal example of not doing something in the right way. They should have gone 1st and asked the question before they jumped to the conclusion. It’s the kind of thing we can do, isn’t it? We can see a brother coming out of a bar or or this or that, and we can jump to a conclusion and we can begin to ascribe motivation.

40. 22:00

    Or we can hear her brother come up with some strange idea doctrinally in the Bible class. And then sometimes we can take it to its obvious conclusions, obvious to us, maybe not to him, and see the danger of it, and attribute to him bad motives, wrong motives, when in reality he’s maybe just a little mixed up in his thinking. That’s why Jesus lays out in Matthew 18 what we all know and refer to as the doing something in the spirit of Matthew 18. And here is the single most important guiding principle for guiding our actions and discharging our mutual responsibilities to each other,

41. 22:57

    coming in at the Matthew 18 at the 15th verse. Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. But if he neglect to hear the church, and let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a tax collector, somebody that’s outside of the fellowship of the body. And so we, we always refer to that, but we, we’re not always good at doing that.

42. 23:51

    Obviously, if the rest of the tribes at Israel had done that, they would have sent the ambassador first and said, somebody, why are you doing this? They would have found out and there would not have been all of that uproar and that danger of a civil war.

43. 24:08

    And in our lives, that’s the way we, we, we need to approach these things. And that’s why we emphasized earlier that even that incident in First Corinthians 5 would have begun with somebody raising the issue, somebody. And hopefully he did it right, went to the brother who had taken his father’s wife, spoke to him about it, admonished him, hopefully did it right, got nowhere.

44. 24:38

    Hopefully went and got a couple of other members of the ecclesia, went there, and then finally took the matter public and involved even the apostle Paul himself. There’s a right way to do something in a wrong way you have to do. We have to not only do the right thing, but we have to do it in a right way.

45. 25:01

    And doing it quietly is often better. As it says, you will have gained your brother. So if we take these three principles and try to synthesize them, the mutual responsibility, minding our own business and then doing something in the spirit of Matthew 18, if we try to synthesize them all together, it might sound like this.

46. 25:26

    We have mutual responsibilities towards our brother’s spiritual well-being when information that we have not sought comes to our attention that he is in danger, and that responsibility must be discharged in love with great carefulness, privately if at all possible. So that takes the three principles and synthesizes them into one guiding rule. Now, what should we do in specific situations, however, whether or not we should involve another brother or take the matter to the ecclesia or even call the police, when it comes to taking these principles and actually implementing them in specific situations, now you have to use your judgement.

47. 26:19

    That’s what this is all about. This is what God’s about with us, isn’t it? I’ve given you principles. I’ve given you situations and he wants to see how we’re going to act and how we’re going to learn to implement his guiding principles in specific situations.

48. 26:41

    And so we have to start using judgement in differentiating between degrees of importance and urgency. There won’t ever be total agreement between people about how important this is versus that or how urgent this is versus that. But generally speaking, we know there are some things that are very important but aren’t all that urgent. Some issues are very urgent, like a, a squawking baby, but might not be all that important really. And so a kind of a guide rule.

49. 27:19

    And now and now we’re getting into the area of 1 brother’s opinion, just to share one brother’s opinion with you relative to these principles that you are going to have to implement in your life to differentiate between real and immediate danger to salvation versus something that’s not quite so real and not quite so immediate.

50. 27:46

    For instance, filling one’s mind with entertainment movies and books that that will erode one’s sense of right and wrong will ultimately prove fatal to 1’s salvation.

51. 28:03

    However, that’s a lot different than taking drugs and finding out that somebody’s got a major drug problem. You see as an there’s an example of something that’s very real and immediate. There’s a matter of questioning A belief, somebody that’s questioning A belief or a practice of the ecclesia versus someone who’s actually advocating a new doctrine, a wrong doctrine, a wrong practice, a wrong lifestyle. Another guiding principle about how fast or how soon or how strongly you might react would be is what’s happening endangering one’s self or is it endangering others? Now, for instance, we as an ecclesia, part of our first principles is we believe that Jesus has commanded us to meet here each week or as often as we can, to be more specific. And we believe that if you don’t meet here, if you don’t think that’s important, well, if someone wanted to be baptized and said, but we don’t think we have to break bread, we’d, we’d, we’d, we’d see, let’s talk about that some more, wouldn’t we? We, we wouldn’t really go ahead there, would we? By the same token, if someone’s continually absent from the meeting for no reason, eventually we’ll do something. But we’re not in a hurry.

52. 29:29

    Why? It’s endangering himself. It’s not endangering others. You can you take maybe a more relaxed approach to something like that versus someone who’s attending and doing everything and speaking, taking his turn speaking, but also living in sin that you say, wait a minute, got to we got to deal with that right away.

53. 29:59

    That’s making a hypocrisy of everything in front of everybody’s eyes. Holding beliefs or acting in ways that will endanger the individual’s salvation is one thing That’s private versus making statements and setting a public example in one’s life by acting in ways that the Bible says will result in being cast out of the Kingdom of God.

54. 30:22

    That’s public. And that’s different as a matter of becoming aware of illegal activities, activities that may endanger young people. And now here, a very practical, simple word of advice is when one becomes involved in somebody else’s problem, do not agree to secrecy.

55. 30:50

    I’ve got a problem. If I talk to you about it, it won’t go anywhere other than between us. Oh, no, you can come to me. Don’t do that. You’ve just forsworn yourself to secrecy.

56. 31:06

    And what if the secret you’re about to be told is I’ve got this urge to kill my wife? I mean, there’s laws in the land about that, that even psychologists and psychiatrists, they’re not allowed to keep those secrets. They can be sent to jail for keeping those secrets. The law, in many ways, is just and good and wise.

57. 31:38

    The easiest way to avoid getting yourself into that trap is not to go into it in the first case. Just respond in a mature way. I can keep reasonable secrets. I don’t know what you’re going to tell me, so I’m afraid if the price of your sharing this fact with me is my forswearing myself to secrecy, I’d just soon pass.

58. 32:01

    Go ahead and tell somebody else. There’s absolutely no need for you or I to allow ourselves to get compromised by someone else’s situation. They’re going to tell you anyway. Don’t worry too much about being left out. But just then you don’t have to live with it. And, and we’ve had brethren and sisters that have been really plagued with that.

59. 32:31

    They’ve tried to be helpful and then they become aware and then they become fearful that they’re even acting maybe as an enabler. Because that’s what happens, doesn’t it, In situations where they grow little by little, like alcohol and drugs. And the next thing you know, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re virtually allowing the person to continue down a path that you know is going to be fatal. So to summarize, we’ve discussed the three principles. Our advice would be that we work one-on-one doing all we can to help, bringing in outside an ecclesial help where it is mutually agreeable or absolutely necessary in the spirit of Matthew 18.

60. 33:30

    With the knowledge that if the problem is serious enough, there may come a point in the process where you will have to start encouraging the person to come forward to the ecclesia themselves if their beliefs and or lifestyle issues are not in harmony with our mutually held beliefs.

61. 33:52

    Well, now we will turn to the emblems partaking of the bread and wine, which will remind us, of course, of Jesus and specifically His example and His teachings in this area.

62. 34:09

    We looked at His teachings in Matthew 18 and we look at His example. He came and discharged His responsibility for Israel’s spiritual health by showing love in the form of rebuking their evil ways.

63. 34:30

    Our forefathers took care of him as they had taken care of all the prophets that had preceded him who were doing the same thing. None of us broke criticism gladly, especially if we see ourselves as doing all right and perhaps a little better than most.

64. 34:58

    We have rejected what the forefathers did. We’ve dedicated ourselves to living lives open to God’s words and its criticisms of our lives and to some degree, our success in not following in the footsteps of those who rejected Christ. We’ll be measured by our own ability to hear our brothers and sisters when they take the time, go out of their way and expose themselves to our response.

65. 35:41

    Our response that may be less than Christ like to show their love and concern for our spiritual welfare by hopefully gently rebuking us. We’re all very thankful that Jesus did not shirk His responsibility to lovingly rebuke our sinful tendencies. Thank you for listening to the good Chris Adelphian Talks podcast. We hope this talk helped you in your walk and brightened your day. If you would like to hear more, please subscribe for new episodes.

66. 36:26

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67. 37:09

    God bless and talk to you next week.