I maintain there is a clear line of departure between the worldly and spiritual domains. I further maintain the Law Covenants (Noah and Moses) were distinct and separate from the Spiritual Covenants (Abraham and Christ), in terms of how they apply. Finally, I maintain that, without a spiritual awareness, you cannot possibly tell the difference.
Let’s take a look at this through the eyes of Apostle Paul. I’ll leave it to you to dig out the references if you don’t recognize them. Reading things in context is absolutely critical, so giving you an address to this or that verse is not a good practice. It requires a spiritual awareness — a living spirit raised by God’s divine power — to be in a position to process how that works out. We can move closer to that understanding when we examine specific examples.
Paul had problems with the Corinthian church. Of all the various communities, they had the greatest trouble grasping the sharp departure between worldly and spiritual concerns. The latter rules the former, but laws cannot accomplish the work of the Spirit directly, only make it possible. We must have some organizational structure, with organizational methods for keeping things intact. But that structure must serve the spiritual purpose, such that sometimes you’ll have to do something which makes no sense on the organizational level. Paul corrected major problems in the church by first using spiritual, then organizational leverage.
Paul made two long visits to Corinth, as far as we know. Between those visits, he wrote the two Corinthian letters we now have in the Bible. We read of his interactions with them. One problem in particular he noted so shocked him, there were no words. What did he do? He fell on his face in front of the whole congregation and cried out to God for mercy on that body. It was a spiritual act. No one was coerced or even verbally corrected. He simply prayed for them in their presence. The result was a miracle — God moving them to shame, then a determination to correct things.
He acted that way because the threat was spiritual in nature. For another threat which was almost purely a matter of the organization, he counseled the church leaders to employ ostracism. Notice, there was no coercion beyond the mere act of removing privileges. The sinner lost his status as a full member of the spiritual family. We learn later it worked all too well, as the man was probably suicidal, and Paul asked the church to welcome him back on terms of repentance.
Notice the man who was taken in sexual sin was committing a spiritual mistake, but the real threat was organizational. Sexual misconduct is no small matter, but the issue is covered by God’s Laws as a measure affecting social stability. It requires using the leverage of the organization, the elders. Had the church not yielded properly, it would simply mean a division and separation into two groups. You can see Paul had no trouble with that, when he broke from meetings in the synagogues and pulled the one group away which chose to follow Christ. This, even as he condemned dissension and division over lesser issues.
But the other matter, which was entirely spiritual, had no organizational solution. We might think, observing on purely rational grounds, Paul used emotional manipulation, but that would be wrong. Normal human reaction would be to harden and withdraw from Paul as a gadfly, or break up the group entirely, essentially killing the church. For the correction to work at all, it had to be a work of God upon the hearts of those whose spirits were alive. If it didn’t work, then it was God’s problem, and Paul would have started from scratch. But it did work, so there was hope God was not finished with them.
Churches are of necessity human organizations, operating by the Laws of God. If that’s all we have, then God isn’t really involved directly. Thus, the teaching and prayers should all be limited to what falls under the Law Covenants. But if there are living spirits involved, then we need to stay ready to suspend organizational rules entirely. And when we do so, it must absolutely not be a new set of rules, a temporary “martial law” thing, but a miracle of God. Those with a sensitive spirit must simply stop their involvement of all normal activities and wait on God to do things His way.
