moses916 wrote:
"And if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican" (Matthew 18: 17).
Now I see where this is coming from.
This quote from Matthew is a little out of context, though in the original citation, he was probably thinking in the context of Matthew 18:15-22. The context says that if your brother is sinning (it\'s not talking specifically about fasting), you should first tell him yourself, privately. If that doesn\'t work, then you should get 2-3 witnesses. If that doesn\'t work, then the whole church should be told. This elder who was cited was a spiritual father, and commonly told people about their sins privately.
I wanted to mention this tangential point just because I\'ve seen examples recently where the opposite took place. The church was told about a person\'s sin, then the person was taken aside. He was humiliated and was told not to come back before he recanted what he did If the person had been taken aside privately first, then the person may have been more likely to repent (God only knows).
