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I'm going to start a separate thread on this topic. I have been asked several times how I would feel if I were falsely accused. Just in case no one would figured it out, I would be mad, hurt, betrayed. Would I want to be convicted for a crime or put out of a church for false accusations against me? No.Have I ever been falsely accused? Not for anything that had an eventual big impact on my life, but small things, certainly. Yes, even the small false accusations can be exasperating and typically get played back in my mind as to the ways I should have gone about clearing myself. I hope that clears that up. In addition, someone I love dearly has been falsely accused, and it did impact a few relationships. It makes me sad, and I continually pray that the truth will come out, though this may be one of those thorns in the flesh that never is removed. So, I am sympathetic to victims of false accusation.With that said, when we speak of hypothetical scenarios in which a victim is abused by a 'reprehensible creep,' the premise that we are talking about an abuse victim necessarily precludes the possibility that the 'reprehensible creep' is being falsely accused. Now that is a totally separate scenario from the case where a person is accused of sexual assault, and we don't know if the accusation is true.Okay, now on to the topic at hand. What does before 2 or 3 witnesses mean in this verse? What are the practical applications? On the practical applications, I would like to propose a scenario. I am going to set parameters to my scenario. If you want to change parameters, make your own scenario, but do not try to change my scenario.I am going to say a 43-year-old male pastor forcibly raped a 12 year-old-girl. There were no witnesses. She tells no one. Three months later, when her mother chastises her for being rude to the pastor, she breaks down and tells her mother what happens. 1 Timothy 5:19

Isn't that referring to the number of witnesses to the accusation - not the attack?A one on one attack by its nature will only have two folks involved - and one probably doesn't want the truth to come out

Paul was in this passage giving the same basic protection from untrue accusation as was afforded everyone under the Law of Moses. We must not just accept an accusation as true without it being reasonably and fairly proven.In the hypothetical scenario described in this thread, it would seem that the only way forward would be to allow the police to conduct a thorough investigation, and let the legal system prove what is true, if at all possible. If evidence sufficient to convict of this crime were forthcoming, that should be enough for the church to rule on the matter as well.

NBF, that is indeed the way some interpret that since Matthew 18suggests that you take 2 or 3 witnesses with you to confront someone who would not listen to you by yourself.In other words, Timothy, in whatever authoritative position he was in, was not to make a binding judgment against a church elder without at least a couple of witnesses in council when the accusation was made.

The College Press NIV Commentary has the following on this verse:

I don't believe modern forensics replaces Biblical commands to use two or three witnesses. But I also believe two or three witnesses could testify to different things, like reprehensible creep using child porn, reprehensible creep raping the 12-year-old, reprehensible creep touching someone else inappropriately. This is my opinion, but if what you are trying to prove is that someone is unfit for a certain ministry role, I don't see why there would have to be two witnesses for a particular event. If, like in an OT scenario, they were trying to prove someone committed adultery to have them stoned, then no on was to be put to death except on the testimony of two or three witnesses. It makes sense to have witnesses to an individual crime in this case.If the secular authorities cart the creep off in handcuffs and imprison him, then he's not going to be around to bother the 12-year-olds in the church.As far as forensics goes, I remember seeing a movie about a young woman who becomes obsessed with her father's tenant. She sneaks in, gets some DNA loaded material out of a condom in his trash can, reports an assault, and gets him arrested. There was enough DNA evidence to get him arrested, but of course at the end of the movie, he tricked her into a confession when she didn't realize anyone else was around. There weren't two or three witnesses to the alleged crime in the movie either. I know, it's just a movie, but the reprehensible creep is a hypothetical scenario, too.In real life, most of us are never in a position to be the 'omniscient narrator.' We ask questions like, if there is a pastor who secretly goes around raping people in the bathroom but wears a mask and no one knows who he is, should his credentials be taken from him. We can say 'yes.' But in real life, if no one knows who he is, there has to be some method of arriving at the facts if he is accused. When I hear stories like this, I think of stories I heard about through missionaries in Indonesia. One of the missionaries was working with an unreached people group where most people were very much opposed to the Gospel. Some people opposed to his work accused him of some kind of nasty sexual impropriety and had him locked up in jail. That's one of the tactics used against evangelists and church planters over there. Accusing Christian leaders of having illegal firearms and fighting is another tactic. There was a Roman Catholic put to death for having firearms. I suspect his claim that he didn't have any and that the Is|amic types opposing him on that island had them was likely to be true.Right before I left Indonesia, there were reports of a 7 or 8-year-old Christian girl who'd started praying for people and they started getting healed. There was a tent city where people of different religious backgrounds would come to get prayed for. I went to a large Prayer Network meeting and one of the men there had seen a blind man healed while he was there. I had a chance to talk with the pastor who was mentoring the little girl in the greenroom. CBN had interviewed him for the piece they ran on the healing that was going on there, where the Mus|ims had been killing Christians. This pastor, a Charismatic and head of a Reformed denomination there, had been imprisoned for weapons charges. He said he didn't have any weapons. That sort of thing happens. I also asked a pastor about some rumors I'd heard that he'd left a mission field with some matters left unsettled. He said when he was in the Ukraine, he planted a church. They had a lot of people on staff and he let two young women go because they weren't doing their job well. Suddenly, he was ejected with no trial or meeting or anything. The girls had accused him of some kind of immorality, and he lost his visa and got kicked out of the country without facing any accusers or anything. He even overheard guards talking about him on the train as he was being expelled, talking about doing bodily harm to him, coming to their country, treating their women like that, though he hadn't done it. That was his side of the story

I don't mean to seem like the secular noob in this discussion, but there is a LEGAL requirement in almost every state for a counselor to report such an accusation immediately - it's called an AFFIRMATIVE DUTY TO PROTECT, and leaves the counselor/pastor open to criminal prosecution, possibly even for collusion -- send your jail ministry to hold his hand, but makes sure that hand is on the other side of some very sturdy bars

....I've found that Matthew 18lays the groundwork for the principles Paul was reflecting on - just cover the bases, be fair, and move methodically -- making a good faith effort at equity goes a long way. In strictly spiritual matters, the pattern of the gospel is a perfect templat

I'm glad you brought this up. It should go without saying, but unfortunately not everyone knows it.The background for this thread was that a woman who wrote a book about being abused by her husband who was a pastor. The following comments were made in that thread.

I am reading this as 'character' witnesses.It has always scared me with the Islamic requirement of 2-3 witnesses to the of the rape itself. Or the woman is stoned or raped in public to shame her. That is scary.My feelings is it must be 'witness to the accusation'. And of course what Ed said takes precedence, and it is a good law BUT DANGEROUS in the respect or possibility of revenge.. Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/