“The New Testament scripture says to not follow the old law, but forgive.”
Only if the sinner repents and asks for forgiveness. That’s in Luke. Go look it up for yourself.
L
“Only if the sinner repents and asks for forgiveness. That’s in Luke. Go look it up for yourself.”
Jesus and Stephen both said the same thing as they were being killed.. “Father, Forgive them as they know not what they do.”
If you understand why they said this and the impact that “Not Forgiving” has upon your soul, you will understand the teachings.
Luke 23:34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
While you are quoting:
Luke 17:3 So watch yourselves. “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.
You are taking it out of context as it really says:
Luke 17:2-4 New International Version (NIV) 2 It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 So watch yourselves.
“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. 4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”
It does not say that they must repent in order for you to forgive them. You really do not understand forgiveness.
When someone holds onto anger, they harm their own soul. I do a demonstration in front of groups where I will hold onto a memory in a person's soul where they were angry. These memories are often many feet from their physical bodies. If your mother was angry at your father when you were in her womb, you still carry that anger as a wound in your soul even though it was not yours. (I have found this attribute in most of the lesbians I have worked with)
I take hold of the memory with attached anger and pull it, causing the person to come forward. I then ask them if they want to forgive the person, often it is themselves and when they do it is as though a rubber band snapped as they release the anger and fall backward. (This works with their eyes shut and I am 15 feet away from them.)
Forgiveness is for you to remove the obstacle blocking the flow of Love in your soul. That is what Jesus was teaching us.
Lurker, your heart is hard. That is not a judgement, but a statement of observation.
Many people do not understand that “Rebuke is Not Judgement.” To rebuke is merely to point out the behavior and the consequences to help a person. It is NOT judgement.
Sorry to say, in society today, people use the work rebuke as being synonymous with judgement or criticism.
One reason rebuke is often underappreciated in our own lives, and in many of our local churches is because we have such small definitions for rebuke. If we are truly going to speak the hard truth in love — or appreciate when others say the hard thing to us — we need a bigger, fuller picture of what this kind of love looks like in relationships and in our souls.
As the apostle Paul closes his second letter to his son in the faith, Timothy, he says, “Reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2).
When you rebuke, rebuke the behavior and not the person, just as you would correct your child by pointing out that the behavior is not acceptable for a good person, not that they are a “bad child.”