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Andy Davis:In your preaching, teaching, and counseling, display a deep reverence and love for the perfect Word of God.

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  • In your preaching, teaching, and counseling, display a deep reverence and love for the perfect Word of God (Isa 66:2) and show that the Word of God alone is able to make us continually wise, for "salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim 3:15). 

  • Give the people a sense that every time they hear you speak, it is as though you are speaking "the very words of God" (1 Pet 4:11 NIV). 

  • Always establish the glory of God as the prime motive for everything they do in their lives (1 Cor 10:31). 

  • Establish that the church has been bought with the blood of Christ shed on the cross (Acts 20:28) and that the resurrected Christ is moving with holy zeal tending the lampstands of each of His local churches (Rev 1:12–13). 

  • Give the people a deep, abiding love for the holiness of God and a correspondingly deep hatred for sin. 

  • Expose indwelling sin as the vicious, wicked, virulent tyrant that it is (Rom 7:13–25), and never fail to tell the truth about the devious nature of the natural human heart in light of the holiness of God (Jer 17:9). 

  • Preach the need for continual repentance from sin in order to make progress in salvation (2 Cor 7:10) and the deep desire we should have to be done with sin forever (Rom 7:24). 

  • Demonstrate the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit over indwelling sin and that this power is displayed in the believer's continual mortification of the deeds of the flesh (Rom 8:1–14).

  • Show how a part of God's love for us is His holy jealousy over us (Exod 34:14) and His desire that we should be free from all the lusts which wage war against our souls (1 Pet 2:11). 

  • Display also plainly Christ's desire that we genuinely love one another as He has loved us (John 13:34) and that this means loving brothers and sisters enough to help them address the sins that are dragging them down. 

  • Proclaim to them the kind of love for the brothers and sisters commanded in Heb 3:12–13, as mentioned above: "Watch out, brothers, so that there won't be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that departs from the living God. But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin's deception." 

  • Explain plainly that these verses command members of local churches to be one another's shepherds and guardians, protecting the brothers and sisters in Christ from sin's despicable treachery—its ability to drag us slowly away from Christ by a gradual hardening process.


Hammett, J. S., & Merkle, B. (2012). Those who must give an account: a study of church membership and church discipline. Nashville: B&H.

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