It can be applicable; if you had Authority; CARM Forums is not the Church. In the Church, you can cast the person out through Church Discipline. Leaving a Poster alone HERE, then taking a step back; makes them THE lone teacher...
Follow your Conscience...
Your post here has provoked a considerable amount of thought. I appreciate it. I started a response earlier, but I deleted it. So let's jump in. Here are a few thoughts.
(1) The issue of authority: If you can point to any location in the book of Titus that might sustain your assumption here, I would like to see it. However, as of yet, I don't see how my lack of authority over others negates God's authority to tell me to do something in the situation described in the op. Further, I don't see how my lack of authority over others would negate my responsibility to obey what God has commanded here in His word. I'll be blunt and to the point. Your statement, "
It can be applicable; if you had Authority," is simply unsupported in this biblical context, and until it is supported in this biblical context I will have to obey scripture over an unsupported assumption.
(2) "
CARM Forums is not the Church." This is certainly true; for atheists, pagan religions, and heretical christianity are represented in the forums. My opinion is that true Christians are a rather small subset of the total number of people who write posts at CARM. However, I'm basing that on my limited exposure and experience in the forum; it is not some kind of tested and rigorously worked through opinion.
(3) The next statement brings up the church based authority of "
Church Discipline." This connects to both points 1 and 2. The problem here is that I just don't see the authority to practice church discipline as a prerequisite for obedience to God's commands to the church. For example, children ought to obey their parents (Eph 6:1). Yes, the letter to the Ephesians is written to the church, but I don't see Christian parents able to say. Well, we're in the middle of switching churches, so kids, you are obligated to obey us, because the church cannot practice church discipline upon you. Again, (Eph 5:22) wives are commanded to submit to their own husbands, as to the Lord. This isn't something that goes by the wayside if the married couple is, for example, in the middle of moving due to the husband's military activity. He is being stationed at a new location, and the family is having to move. So because they are out from being in a church at the new location, then the wife can say that she is no longer obligated to submit to her husband, and she takes the kids and moves back to a location closer to her parents and family.
No, what I see is that if you believe yourself to be a Christian, and you take your walk with the Lord seriously, then you will want to obey God's commands. There is no prerequisite of possessing church discipline authority that enables our obligation to follow the commands of Ephesians and Titus.
(4) Now, we encounter a good practical thought. "
Leaving a Poster alone HERE, then taking a step back; makes them THE lone teacher." This is definitely a consideration. It is very practical. What you are saying here is that if I follow through with the one or two warnings, and cease interaction, then I am empowering the other person to be the lone voice, and the poster's false teaching will rule the day. Again, I see the problem that you are seeing as well. It is a very clear problem from a practical standpoint. It seems like one is abandoning truth to be forever obfuscated by error.
However, I would suggest a flip side. My standard needs to be God, His word, and I need to be following His commands.
Sometimes, (not always)
God's commands seem counterintuitive from what appears to be practically warranted. The Abrahamic narrative is loaded with these examples, so I'll raise four. The practical move would be for Abraham to stay in a position of security and with family, but God calls him to leave his homeland and family and go toward an uncertain future.
Second, Abraham legitimately feared for his life (twice) because of the beauty of his wife, and so he employed conventional wisdom for self-preservation and said that Sarai was his sister. However, this directly contradicted God's goal of having Abram's offspring through Sarai to fulfill God promise, and so the Egyptians were twice enveloped in problems stemming from Abraham's lack of faith.
Third, the elephant in the room of the Abrahamic narrative is that Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah were catastrophically too old to have children, and so it seems practically wise to have a child by proxy. After all, why keep waiting and thus ensuring the deadness of both Abram and Sarai reproductively? It seems like a wise plan of action, practically speaking. However, the plan flopped for it did not truly consider who God was, and His fidelity to His own promise, as well as God's sovereignty over life itself.
Fourth, I do believe that Abraham finally got it, after repeated failures, disbelief, and arguments with God. He finally got the fact that God was truly committed to fulfilling His promise, and that this promised entailed God's sovereignty over life. By the time that we hit Genesis 22, Abraham had been through a lot, but then God tests Abraham. God Himself is now an obstacle to the fulfillment to His own promise, for God commanded that Abraham sacrifice his son. How on earth is Isaac, the son that God has already said was the one, how on earth is Isaac going to fulfill anything if he is dead? Again, that the question that conventional wisdom would say, but God had already made clear that He was going to fulfill His promise through repeated affirmations of the same promises. God has already made clear that it would definitely be through Isaac, and no one else. God had already worked a miracle upon the deadness of both Abraham and Sarah, and God had even changed their names in keeping with His promise. God even got the last laugh over both Abraham and Sarah, after they both laughed; for God named the child lsaac (laughter) as a statement that contradicted their parent's unbelief. And we know the rest of the story, Abraham obeyed what seemed counterintuitive, and God provided Himself a substitutionary ram (i.e. who took Isaac's place, 22:13).
The examples given above are a rather small sampling. Time after time after time we see situations and narratives that detail the same thing. Conventional wisdom is sometimes counterintuitive from what God commands. So my response is rather simple. I need to follow God's commands. I need to follow the wisdom of one of the spies, and see God's power over the people of the promised land as more than capable of getting His people to the land of promise, rather than being man-centered upon the people's lack of power to accomplish the takeover of the land.
So yes, it seems like stepping back would only empower false teachers to spread false doctrine, but what about the positives of what happens when I use God's time (redeeming the time, for the days are evil) doing other productive things? Have you considered the flip side of what good might happen by limiting one's time? After all, it isn't really about my power to accomplish anything is it? God will build His church, and He has chosen to utilize the means of Christian proclamation of the gospel and the building up of the body of Christ. Therefore, I'm content to obey His word and leave the results up to Him; my focus is obedience and faith in Him. God can certainly counteract what may seem counterintuitive (How counterintuitive do you think it is to walk around Jericho 7 times as a war strategy?).
(5) Lastly, I appreciate your call to follow my conscience. And as we both know, the conscience needs to be informed and determined by scripture. Guilt trips and false sensitivities take place when people's consciences are governed by unbiblical morals and standards. So, I can greatly appreciate your post in this regard. At the end of the day, I appreciate your post. You have given some good food for thought, and I hope that I've properly considered what you wrote. Thanks again.
