2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 And if any man obey not our word by this letter, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.… The Revised Version well brings out the meaning — "Note that man, that ye have no company with him." It is no mark that is to be set upon him — no stigma, though this as a matter of fact would follow. It is to be a mental marking, and the purpose of it no formal excommunication but an avoidance (ver. 6), which would in the nature of things carry with it a kind of ecclesiastical censure and suspension. Thus it appears that such a one sets a mark upon himself. The disorder of his life is the mark of spiritual disease — the beginning of what may end in death. Like the spots on the body, indicating the first stages of the plague, which the Armenians call the pilotti, the pilots or harbingers of death, so upon the character of such "unruly" ones there are spots, which are pilots of the ruin of the soul. It is therefore dangerous for those who are whole to have company with these; but it is especially needful for the good of the erring brother himself. He may be led in this way to a wholesome shame, which Carlyle has called "the soul of all virtues, of all good manners, and good morals." Yet he is still one of them, "a brother," notwithstanding the severity of the treatment to which he is to be subjected. He is to be won back in the right way by brotherly admonition. "Too harsh chiding," says Gregory Nazianzen, "is like an axe which flieth from the handle. It may kill thy brother, when it should only cut down the briars of sin." Parallel Verses KJV: And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. |
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