Purpose
Some personalities lend themselves to eagerly avoid people. Other personalities lend themselves to never avoid people. My goal is to edify both types of people by listing the biblical criteria for avoiding people. The former will be encouraged to not avoid people when they ought not to, and the latter will be encouraged to avoid people when they ought to.
As I have no authority of my own, I must appeal to the commands of Paul and of our Lord Jesus Christ as they are recorded in Holy Writ.
The Commands
1.) Avoid lazy Christians.
Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. (2 Thessalonians 3:6-14)
First, the command to "keep away from any brother" is specific and limited to those who call themselves Christians. So don't use this command as an excuse to avoid non-Christians.
Second, the command to avoid them is purposeful-- that they "may be ashamed." Yes, their feelings will be hurt. So don't stop doing it because the shame imposed through group peer pressure hurts their feelings. That's the very purpose for avoiding them.
Why was Paul so harsh? You see, these brothers lived in the context of a church that exemplified godly living through working. Paul gave up his own right to be paid as a minister of the Gospel, so that he could earn money by working a second job, in order to be an example to the Thessalonians of how to live! I would be upset too if I went the extra mile to model godly behavior -- only to see other Christians defeat that model by modeling ungodly behavior. When that happens, those who model ungodly behavior must be avoided so that other Christians do not follow their bad behavior. That's why this command is limited to Christians.
2.) Greet other Christians, but not everyone who calls themselves a Christian is a Christian.
Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. (Romans 16:16-18)
Besides Paul, John echoes the same sentiments.
If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. (2 John 1:10-11)
The command is to avoid, to not even greet people, based on their doctrine and teaching. Let us be careful so that we apply this command properly. For those of us who are naturally snobby, we tend to use these verses as an excuse to shun people. For those of us who are naturally nurturing, we tend to quote other verses in an attempt to negate these verses from Scripture. Since God wrote the Bible, and its entirety is meant to equip us to live godly lives, God means for us to apply these verses (2 Timothy 3:16). So let us not ignore them, but let us be careful in applying these verses.
I do not interpret this command to mean that we ought not to engage with non-Christians, because if that were the case, Paul would have never reached out to the pagans in Athens (Acts 17). So engage with your Muslim neighbor who disagrees with you on the nature of Christ. Engage with Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, atheists, and agnostics.
What about those within the Church? I think there is a case where we ought to still greet and engage with those inside the Church who disagree with us. At one point, Peter and Barnabas practiced and promoted bad doctrine (Galatians 2:11). Paul engaged with them and rebuked them publicly.
So if we do not avoid non-Christians or Christians based on false doctrine, then what is the point of Paul's command? If it applies to no one, the command is useless! What a waste of good parchment and ink!
Paul means that we ought to avoid Christians who
are false teachers. They have bad motives and
persist in false teaching. When Peter was rebuked, he did not persist in his error because Peter was a true believer who happened to err in false doctrine. Peter was not a false teacher. He desired to build up the Church.
Jesus gives us a litmus test for determining who is false teacher (Matthew 7:15-16). Avoid them.
3.) Avoid Christians who are sexually immoral or greedy for money.
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people -- not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler -- not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you." (1 Corinthians 5:9-13)
Paul was distressed with those who practiced sexually immorality as much as with those who practiced greediness. The two sins usually express themselves together (Ezekiel 16:49; James 2:10) because all sins are symptoms of the same root issue -- we love other things more than God.
Note again, that Paul is very specific about who we should avoid -- Christians! We should not judge non-Christians with a Christian standard, that is God's job. But we ought to, very much so, judge Christians with a Christian standard.
This is very difficult for us to do, because we are so quick in our culture to quote Matthew 7:1, "Judge not, that you not be judged", that we forget to quote Matthew 7:15, "Beware of false prophets." Jesus intented for us to weed out self righteousness. He did not intend for us to abdicate our responsibility to weed out false teachers, an action, that very much requires us to judge and make up our minds about who is true and who is false.
We ought to make right judgements in order to properly disassociate ourselves from Christians who persist in sin (1 John 1:5-7).
4.) Avoid those who only appear godly.
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men. (2 Timothy 3:1-9)
We may go to church every Sunday, but if we do not have the true power of godliness, that is, the ability to overcome sin, then we are merely giving an appearence of godliness. Do we live lives that are characterized by the practice of sin? Do we wage powerful warfare on our sinful nature? Or do we succumb to its power and cover it up with a veneer of godliness? Are we so engrossed in sin that we even lead others to sin? Do we constantly rebel against godly counsel and resist submitting to godly authority? If so, then we are godless, and our folly will be obvious to everyone.
All of the human accolades associated with being a mature Christian: going to church, reading the Bible, praying, fasting, earning degrees from a seminary, are all worthless if we do not have the power of a godly life. We must practice and live as Christ lived. The power of true godliness means living godly lives just as the power of a water cleansing agent is the ability to produce clean water.
5.) Avoid argumentative people.
But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned. (Titus 3:9-11)
There is no point in arguing about how many legions of angels can fit on a pin. Christians, in history, have argued about this before. We don't know the answer because it is not revealed to us in Scripture. It is not revealed to us in Scripture because it is not important for living godly lives. If we find ourselves arguing about matters and points of theology that do not correlate with godly living, then we are fools.
But please, do not take this verse to mean that we should gloss over theological differences. We ought to argue the finer points about whether we need to be circumcised to be saved. Paul did (Galatians 1:9, 5:11-12)! Use strong language. Be passionate. Call people fools (Galatians 3:1) for believing in foolish ideas. Use hyperboles and ask them to cut off their whole penis (Galatians 5:12) if they think that they need to cut off a part of it to be saved.
Argue in ways that benefit those who hear (Ephesians 4:29). Do argue about the nature of Christ and the Trinity with a Mormon. But don't argue about the Trinity with a 3 year old. Do what makes sense in the situation to edify everyone you talk to.
If someone is argumentative over useless points not revealed in Scripture, or argumentative over points revealed in Scripture that are not applicable to their hearers, confront them. And if they persist, avoid them.
6.) God didn't just tell us to avoid people. He gave us a process to show us how to do it.
If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matthew 18:15)
The first confrontation should be done alone. The second confrontation should involve a partner. The third confrontation should involve the church community. Go through the process. Don't just willy nilly avoid people. Partner with other Christians, and finally, go through the local church.
Some may interpret the last part of verse 15 as Jesus implying that treating sinners as a Gentile or tax collector means that we ought to continue fellowshipping with our brothers who reject church discipline. After all, didn't Jesus hang out with Gentiles and tax collectors?
If Jesus meant that, then Paul was completely mistaken in his letters -- as can be seen in the verses referenced earlier. It is true, that the Jews did not hang out with Gentiles or tax collectors, and that is why the Pharisees were so mad at Jesus for doing it. Jesus' point, in Matthew 9:10-11, is that we go out of our comfort zone to engage with sinners who do not call themselves Christians. We should not let our natural comforts stop us from engaging with people different from us. But in Matthew 18:15, Jesus points to that natural discomfort, to teach us exactly how we ought to avoid Christians who persist in a lifestyle of sin.
Let me use "needles" as an example. Suppose you try to communicate to your child that smoking is bad. You may say something like, "Son, you should hate smoking the way you hate needles." Assuming your son has gotten shots before, and cried through them, he would know exactly what you mean. Hate smoking just like how you hate needles.
Suppose that you find out that your son is a diagnosed with diabetes. The doctor, for the sake of saving his life, prescribes medicine that requires him to use needles everyday. The fact that you now tell your son to use needles everyday, does not negate your earlier illustration that he should hate smoking the way he hates needles. You are not telling him to smoke everyday. In the same way, Matthew 9 does not negate the point of Matthew 18.
The Heart of the Matter
Our purpose in avoiding others, and so pouring shame on them, through the pressure of the local church community, must never be out of spite. We must not do it for the sake of hurting them, even though avoding them causes them hurt. Our aim must always be for their restoration. If the person we are avoiding repents of their sin, would we be happy? If the answer is no, then we are doing it out of spite. If we are happy and jump with joy at their repentance, then we are avoiding them out of love.
For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. (2 Corinthians 2:6-9)
We must never avoid other Christians, who are living in sin, without first recognizing our own sin. Self righteousness is the most deadly of all sins.
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. (Luke 18:9-14)
If we recognize our own sin (1 John 1:8; Matthew 7:3), and trust Jesus to be our righteousness so that we fight to live like him, then our love for Christ will necessitate that we care about sin in his Church (John 21:15-17). And the means of dealing with sin in the Church includes the act of avoiding Christians living in sin.
Let us aim to imitate Christ's holiness, because he has made us holy. And if a brother persists in sin, avoid him for the sake of God's holy name.
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." (1 Peter 1:14-16)
Morphine or Chemotherapy
Avoiding a friend because of sin can be likened to using chemotherapy to treat cancer. It hurts. But if you do it, there is a chance of survival. Embracing a friend even through willful sin, in the name of love, can be likened to using morphine to treat cancer. You spare them the pain, but ultimately, they die.
Sometimes, to shun, to avoid, is to love. Our generation has a correct understand that love is most important (1 Corinthians 13). But it has the improper view of what love looks like. Sometimes, love from a friend comes in the form of blows.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy. (Proverbs 27:6)
Be a good friend. Wound if you must.
