I'll frame this as a hypothetical. So....suppose ---
You are a business owner and you sell all kinds of widgets and stuff. Someone, a regular customer, who has a position of authority in his government job, and who also is a pastor, is caught stealing your widgets. Not once. Not twice. Lots and lots of widgets. In fact, you've tried to give him every benefit of the doubt, but you can't hold your silence any longer. You've got him on video stealing your widgets and just widget-thieving to beat the band. You could have stopped him earlier, but you wanted the very best of the best video of him stealing. He was so good at it that he figured out your camera angles and -- except for the few times at his boldest and brashest moments -- you see widgets disappear from the shelf and his hand go into his coat pocket, but he's clever enough to insert widget into pocket without a direct camera shot. But, he also leaves the widget aisle with nothing in his hand and no widgets lying on the floor where he stood. It is just a case where widgets seem to disappear into thin air after he grabs him 2 or three and puts his hand in his pocket. Except, he also makes some errors and you get some direct video of him and his widget-wizardry which amounts to plain old theft of property in the third degree.
You put together a video compilation of his greatest widget hits and you file a police report, show the videos to the police and the police say, "We warmly invite you to seek your warrant for his arrest."
Next day, Widget Bandit returns to your locale and has made his way through your establishment without, so far, pocketing widgets. In fact, he has one in his hand when you greet him and invite him to sit down for a confrontation. [YOU, in this next section, are the unbelieving, older brother in the business with you, who later explains to you that he has been so troubled with what to do about this that he cannot explain it, but feels sorry for the guy instead of "p****d off at him like I would normally be"; said brother does not know that he is being prayed for for that exact purpose
]. So, YOU have the confrontation with Widget Bandit, who comes clean, admits to stealing north of $500 worth of widgets (which, at the pace he's been blazing for a month, means he's been stealing widgets for about two or three months, which means you need more surveillance cameras in your widget bidness), and begs you not to tell his employer. Only, YOU know his employer and you've already talked to his employer because his employer happens to be your uncle's ex-wife. Such is life in your small town.
A tentative agreement is reached. Bandit is to pay widget business around $700 or so, because you figure rightfully that he has stolen more from you than he is even willing to admit now because that's how people are. You won't press charges. But, you tell him, "You have to resign your government job." Only, bandit is not really willing to go quite that far even though he knows you've got him. He also sorta doesn't know his goose is already cooked when he gets to work, but you ain't getting in the middle of that anymore because his employer feels you when you tell his employer you want to be merciful to this guy.
NOW --- here's the deal. [YOU, in this part, is .... well, just pretend it is me.] YOU want the guy to walk away from pastoring. YOU figure his congregation is unaware of his sin. YOU also figure two things. Number one, he is doing grave harm to your brothers and sisters but you are not part of their church or denomination. Two, you have read the proverb that getting involved in someone else's dispute is like picking a dog up by the ears. And, you figure a third thing --- although your wife is pleading with you to reach out to the bandit and talk with him about his need to repent and be in fear of God's judgment and your wife wants you to be proactive in doing so, you are also sensitive to the Spirit of God and you sense that HE is saying that is crossing a boundary and that the battle there is not yours to enter. Only, you can't really line that up with any real scriptural truth, and you decide, "Hey, I think I'll share this with some people whose opinions I value on the internet. Everybody knows you can trust the internet!"
Would you approach the widget bandit as someone who comes to him in a Matthew 18 kind of way? Or, would you just not go there? Or, something else?
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