The following is a response to this video.
First of all, spending time alone with women and not being in fellowship were not Lawson's real issues. Rather, it is quite evident the disgraced man's real problem was that he didn't care about people in the first place, only using certain people, i.e. young women for what he wanted.
Lawson's not being a glorified guest preacher at Trinity Bible Church doesn't seem like it would be the most difficult thing to prove: just find two or three congregants who can witness they were there the Sunday morning he was voted as their pastor.
This of course does not at all reflect well on Trinity Bible Church. If I were going there and the preacher just came in, delivered his sermon and high-tailed it out of there, I would be eagerly looking for an opportunity to speak to him about that.
Also, how did Trinity go so long without permanently filling the pulpit in the first place?
Did none of the elders or deacons, you know, the church government, find it odd the only people, apparently to the exclusion of everybody else, Lawson wanted to spend time with were the young adults. Kind of like the story of the alleged 9/11 terrorists who went to a flight school in Florida wanting to learn how to take off but not how to land.
The true way for Christians to make sure they don't go down Lawson's path a(and that's asuming the man was ever saved and started out with pure, godly motives to begin with) is to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Learn to see women as Christ sees them, as fellow human beings created in the image of God. This view would then be totally different from the view of the world and much of the church, since the church is just like the world, that sees women as objects. Whereas the world says touch them all you want, the wordly church says don't touch them.
Now to Good Fight's comments about fellowship. As if being in fellowship and finding "a good, solid church" are the same thing. There's precious little real fellowship in most so-called Bible-believing churches.
As for accountability, the state of the modern church shows one can be a member in good standing and get away with horrible sins. The first thing about accountability is that you have to be accountable to God. If I am not willing to take my sins before my Lord and Saviour in repentance then no amount of human intervention or interaction toward that end is going to do me any real good.
Secondly with regard to accountability, I have to be willing to confess my sins to my brothers and/or sisters as James instructs. Healthy churches aren't going to ask you alitany of questions on a regular basis about what you might bbe up to, nor are they going to come and search your house for stuff a Christian shouldn't have. The Christian needs to feel that he is in an environment where he can trust the brother or sister to whom he might confess a sin that they will practice confidentiality, love and compassion without compromise. You do not by and large find this in the institutional church.
You get precious little encouragement in most institutional churches, too. In fact, they're good places to go if you want to be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
"At least find fellowship with other believers the best you can."
I feel that I have that, even though I am more or less outside the institutional church. I have a number of fellow believers with whom I meet up on a somewhat regular basis, whether in person or on the phone. We encourage each other and there is a freedom between they and myself to be open about things.
God forbid I or any of these friends I also call brother and sister in Christ ever fall into the any of the sins mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5 but I would like to think that, if one of us did, the other one would go through the Biblical process with regard to them.
"Maybe you need to move somewhere, man."
Yes, because that's so easy for most people to do.
I would never advocate a true lone wolf approach for any Christian, but the institutional church has forsaken the assembling together. We are supposed to be one in Christ, but church organizations often have division from other church organizations for ridiculous reasons.
When I talk to my sister on the phone or meet with my brother for lunch, the fruit of that let's me know that two saints have just assembled.
Some of the comments about Blessed Hope at the end of this video do somewhat come off as self-serving.
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