Friday, December 15, 2006

12/15/06, G. Price's Reply to the UnExcommunicated Brethren

From: G.Price
Fri Dec 15 2006, 08:17 AM
[In reply to the unexcommunicated brethren]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Although I admitted in my letter to you that there were some concerns worth discussing, my letter to you, as dear brothers and sisters whom I love in the Lord, was intended to persuade you to separate yourselves from those who had been excommunicated by the lawful Church Court of the RPNA (GM) rather than joining hands with them in a public letter of common concerns.

I do understand that you began working on these common concerns with our excommunicated brethren before they were actually excommunicated. However, as I pointed out to you in my letter to you, once they were excommunicated, it was your duty to remove your names from any association with them and if you still desired to forward to the Session such concerns for discussion you may have done so (in accordance with the Session's invitation extended to you in the "Position Paper On Sessional Authority").


Dear ones, by your continued action to stand with the excommunicated brethren in this common cause, the concerns you have expressed have not been submitted to us in an orderly manner (in that they were submitted publicly rather than privately as we proposed in the "Position Paper On Sessional Authority" and were submitted in a common cause with those who had been lawfully excommunicated which is contrary to Scripture and to our Subordinate Standards). Thus, I cannot receive this installment or any others that are submitted in such a disorderly and sinful manner lest it set a sinful precedent for further acts of public defiance in joining hands with those who have been lawfully excommunicated.

You obviously disagree with me (in the letter I sent to you all) and with the Session's excommunication of our dissenting brethren, but I do yet plead with you to discontinue with any further steps that move you further from us. You may believe that the steps you have taken were taken to promote peace, but in all honesty before the Lord, I see them as steps that have promoted further division within the Church and further public defiance for the lawful Court of this Church.

My heart goes out to you all (my dear brethren whom I love in the Lord) as I plead for the Lord to grant you understanding and repentance.

With brotherly affection,
Greg L. Price

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