How Should Christians Respond When Someone Leaves the Church?
How Should Christians Respond When Someone Leaves the Church?
Christians should go after them, want them back, and celebrate when they return. That's what James 5:19-20 calls us to, and it applies to people who drift from the truth, not to people God is leading to another church.
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When Someone Wanders
My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
James 5:19-20
This looks straightforward. But read casually, it seems to say that if you wander from the truth you lose your salvation, and if someone brings you back, you get it back.
That can't be right, because the rest of the New Testament says that's not how salvation works. So what does it mean?
How to Handle a Hard Verse
Hermeneutics is the study of how to interpret the Bible, and it's a whole field. This was a two semester class, but I'm going to simplify it to three questions.
What does it say? You can get so caught up in what someone told you about a verse that you miss that what it says is just what it says. Most of the time, what it says is what it means.
What does the stuff around it say? Back up and read the whole paragraph. Sometimes, Jesus tells a parable that makes no sense, unless you read the next paragraph where Jesus explains it. Sometimes, Paul's long and eloquent sentences make way more sense once you see the bigger concept he's building.
What does the whole Bible say? The Bible agrees with itself. If Peter or John say something clearly and simply, that helps you understand what Paul says in a more detailed and nuanced way.
For James 5:19-20, we need questions one and three, and a little of two. Let's start with question 3.
Salvation Is Not Something We Do
yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
Galatians 2:16
We are completely unable to save ourselves. If we could, there would be no reason for Jesus to die on the cross. So someone else has to do the saving for us, and that's the work of Jesus.
If it wasn't up to me to get salvation in the first place, it isn't up to me to lose it. And if I'm not the one who did the work, I can't do something to get it back either.
"Justified" is a legal term. It means counted right before God. That's not the same as innocent. I'm still guilty, but I'm counted justified because the penalty for my sin has been paid.
We can't outdo our sin. We can't outgood our bad. There are not two doors into heaven. There is one, and it's Jesus. Show up with a resume of good things you've done and you're still guilty.
So James 5:19-20 can't mean we lose our salvation by wandering. So, what does he mean? Let's take it one piece at a time.
Who Is James Talking To?
My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth
James 5:19
James says "my brothers," so he's talking to people who are saved and, by context, actively involved in a church. This isn't about your lost friend or your aunt's neighbor's best friend. It's about someone who has been part of the church, something has happened, and how we respond.
What Does It Mean to Wander From the Truth?
wanders from the truth
James 5:19
The Greek word for "wanders" is a piñata. Bust it open and a lot comes out.
It does mean wander, and the picture is the church on a hiking trip. Someone sees another trail, leaves the pack, and goes their own way.
But the word also means deceived. James brackets his whole book with it, telling us in chapter 1 not to be deceived and coming back to it at the end.
So, how can it mean "is deceived" but also "wanders"?
Think of Little Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods. She's on the right path to Granny's house, and the wolf talks her into a detour for flowers. She knows she's not supposed to leave the path, but she lets the people around her and her own desires convince her it's harmless. Did she wander or was she deceived? Both. She wandered because she was deceived, and she was even deceiving herself.
That matters for how we see the person who leaves. They didn't just leave. Something else was going on, and someone/something was pulling them away. Wandering is their fault. Being deceived is only partly their fault. That calls us to compassion.
So what is "the truth"? James is the first New Testament book written, so he could mean God's truth, but he specifically means what he's just taught: faith that leads to action, not living like an enemy of God, how we talk to and about people, and how we handle our money. If someone stops living like a follower of Jesus, they've wandered from the truth.
This isn't about someone who says, "I think Jesus is leading me to a different church," or someone who moves away. This isn't "no one is ever allowed to leave this church". I have no control over your life, and we won't hunt you down. But, there are circumstances when we should go after the person who wanders.
What Should We Do When Someone Wanders?
and someone brings him back
James 5:19
This is not the response of most churches. If you're in, you're in, but when you wander, we pretend we don't know you. If you come back, we might look at you sideways for a while. Christians can be pretty cliquish, and pretty judgy when someone leaves. Sometimes there's good reason, because some people set fires on the way out the door.
But James says our response should be to go get them, want them back, and celebrate when they return. If you leave this church, we may have some things to talk about, but you don't stop being my friend. I don't cut you off or pretend I don't know you. I continue the love I had for you while you were here, even if you're not here anymore.
Jesus told the story of the shepherd with 99 sheep safe in the pen. When he realizes one is missing, he doesn't say that one shouldn't have wandered off, and he doesn't say 99 is pretty good. He leaves the 99 and goes after the one. In the story of the prodigal son, the father doesn't greet his son with judgment or condemnation. He runs to him and celebrates that he's back.
They're not sheep, and we can't throw them over our shoulders and carry them home against their will. But we can put in the effort.
Who Brings Them Back?
let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering
James 5:20
That's us. We're the ones who go get the one who's missing.
"Sinner" doesn't tell us how bad the sin is or what kind it is. It just means the offender, the one who left, the wanderer.
What Does It Mean to Save His Soul From Death?
will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
James 5:20
"Save his soul from death" can also be translated "save his life from death," so it could mean keeping someone from dying. That's plausible. Paul says some were getting sick and dying over how they treated the Lord's Supper, and last week we saw that some people are sick because of unconfessed sin. That doesn't mean all sin is sickness. But it's hard to picture someone dying because they walked away from church. It more likely means going to hell.
"Cover" is an Old Testament word from the atonement process, where sin was covered with blood and blotted out. Here it means bringing the person to forgiveness for the wandering and everything that happened in it.
Is this one thing with two parts, or two separate things? If it's one thing, then either you lose your salvation by wandering, or anyone who wanders was never saved. I can't square either with the rest of the New Testament, or with people I know who served faithfully, showed real evidence of salvation, and then wandered.
So I go with two separate things for two groups of people.
Some who wander were never saved. They grew up in church, or came for their kids or their marriage, but never believed. When the church goes and gets them, they come back because they come to know Jesus for the first time, and their souls are saved from death.
Some who wander are saved. Their beliefs change, or they want to sin, or life gets too hard. When we bring them back, the time of wandering isn't counted against them. God forgives it, and we shouldn't hold it against them either.
What This Means for Us
When one of our people wanders, whether a member or someone who comes but isn't formally committed, we don't write them off. We leave the trail ourselves, not for the purpose of sin, but to bring them back to the group. When they come back, we celebrate, and we don't look at what they did while they were gone.
Jesus tells this story over and over, and James says there will be people in this church who wander. Our job is to go get them and bring them back.
Questions to Ask Yourself
Who has left this church because their beliefs changed? What was your response?
Who has wandered because they wanted to sin and we made it harder? Have you told them you miss them?
Who has wandered because life got hard? I'm especially compassionate toward women whose husbands don't go to church with them and who face that fight every week until one week they can't.
What about the shut-in who physically can't get here anymore?
Do you know people here well enough to know when a sheep is missing?
How would you want us to respond to you if you got sick or went through something difficult?
If Jesus came to get us, why wouldn't we go get them? Imagine if Jesus treated you the way you treat people who wander. Where would you be?
Where This Goes Next
Next week we'll talk about how to do this, with practical advice for different situations, and how we keep losing people in the first place. For this week, ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind someone you haven't treated the way you should have when they wandered. Ask God's forgiveness, and maybe theirs. And now that you've been found, be the one who goes looking for the one who's missing.
If you've wandered, we want you back. Plan your visit.
