Speech (5 min.): It-2 1159 par. 1. Title: Are there judges in the congregation? (th lec. 18).
Justice is one of the main attributes of Jehovah God. Deuteronomy 32: 4 says that "all his ways are just" ...
In imitation of divine justice, Jesus showed it in many ways ... The ransom shows that divine justice is interwoven with principled love. In reality, God's justice is a manifestation of his righteous principles, a reflection of his moral ways.
If we understand well the justice of Jehovah, we will trust "the Judge of all the earth", he always does what is right.
He showed that in ancient times with Israel, by putting judges to attend to the sins of the people in a just way, without partiality, following just principles, based on mercy ... Now, today.
Are there judges in the congregation?
The answer is yes and these judges are the brothers who carry out responsibilities and represent the congregation, the elders of the congregation and to reinforce this, let's read what the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5: 12,13
Well, why should I have to judge outsiders? Are you not the ones who judge the insiders 13 while God judges the outsiders? "Take out the evil person in your midst."
When the Elders attend judicial cases, they must always bear in mind that before Judges they are Pastors, that is, their interest must be to rescue those who have erred, trying to show mercy when possible.
In the case of sinners who show no repentance or regret for their sin during the hearing, and who are a threat to the spirituality of the congregation, in some cases it is necessary to apply expulsion.
However, even in such cases they must be careful not to expel the sinner out of revenge. They want the expulsion to bring you back to your senses, so they must be fair and reasonable.
By casting out sinners in a righteous way, they are shown that their sinful course cannot be tolerated in the congregation. Something very important is that if there is no confession, they should only accept the veracity of the accusation on the basis of two or three witnesses, weigh the evidence without prejudice and do nothing out of bias, based on the principle of 1Ti 5:19 ,twenty-one.
Finally we must understand that having judges in the congregation is very beneficial, the elders make use of the word of God to discipline, teach, censure, rectify.
And when Jehovah disciplines members of the congregation for wrongdoing, he does so to help them recover from their fall into sin and prevent that evil influence from contaminating the congregation, we certainly should be grateful for their efforts to keep the congregation clean and protected.
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