“Remove the wicked man from among yourselves”: who did it refer to?

Those who fear

1.If you’re reading this, perhaps inside you there is a thought you don’t dare say out loud. A thought you wouldn’t share with anyone in the congregation. It sounds something like this: “What if one day it happens to me? What if I lose everyone?”

2.That thought goes with you to the meetings. It follows you in the ministry. It wakes you up at night. You don’t say it because saying it would make it real. But it’s there. You wonder what would happen if someone discovered your doubts. If one day you could no longer remain silent. If life took you onto a road the organization does not anticipate. And then — the phone that stops ringing, friends who disappear, your mother who no longer answers.

3.This article is for you. But it is also for those who are already on the other side of that silence — for those who are shunned every day and wonder if God has truly abandoned them along with everyone else. For those who wait for a phone call that never comes.

4.And for those who are shunning someone and sense that something is off. For that mother who deletes her son’s number and then saves it again and then deletes it again. For that father who crosses the street when he sees his daughter. Not because he doesn’t love her — but because they told him this is love.

5. We are all on the same side. We are brothers who love Jehovah and who want to understand what His Word truly says. We are not here to attack anyone. We are here with the Bible in hand, with an open heart, and with one simple question: does Jehovah really ask this of us?

What happens in practice

Before we continue, we want to say one thing clearly: we love our brothers. We love our community. We love the elders who dedicate themselves to service with sacrifice. Precisely for this reason we ask, with respect and with the Bible in hand, whether some practices could be improved.

9.Let’s set aside the verses for a moment and look at what happens in reality. A brother or sister is judged by a committee of elders. The outcome is negative. At the next midweek meeting a brief announcement is made. Before 2024 it sounded like this: “Such-and-such is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.” From 2024: “Such-and-such has been removed from the congregation.” A few words. No explanation. Everyone understands what it means.

10. After that announcement, the silence kicks in. Friends — the ones with whom you shared years of life, of meetings, of assemblies, of lunches after the Hall — stop responding to messages. Non-cohabiting relatives — parents, adult children, brothers, sisters — limit any contact to what is “strictly necessary.” Social media contacts are removed or blocked. In a few days, a person loses the entire social network they have built over a lifetime. Sometimes in a single day.

11.But there is a suffering that no one talks about. That of the one who shuns. That mother who looks at her phone every evening and wonders if her son is okay. That father who dreams of his daughter and wakes up heartbroken. That friend who knows perfectly well where the person they’re shunning lives, and every time they walk down that street they quicken their pace. They do it because they were told to. They do it because they believe it’s the right thing. But inside, something is off. And that “something off” is their conscience speaking.

12.And those who want to come back? The path is long. They must attend all meetings regularly — seated in the back rows, without speaking to anyone. They must submit a written request. A committee of elders evaluates whether the repentance is “genuine.” There is no defined time, but in practice it can take months or years. The father of the prodigal son runs to meet his son while he is still far off (Luke 15:20). The path we follow today asks the person to sit at the back of the hall, in silence, for months, waiting to be reinstated. We ask with respect: does this path reflect the spirit of the Father who runs to meet his son?

13.The organization presents this practice of shunning — this “not speaking to disfellowshipped ones” — as a “loving arrangement.” The stated purpose is to push the person to come back and to protect the congregation. When a parent stops talking to their own child and both suffer, it is natural to ask: how does this suffering reconcile with the stated purpose of protection?

14. Note: the reasons why a person can be removed have changed over time and may change again. What remains constant is the consequence: isolation. And this consequence is what we will now examine in the light of the Scriptures.

“Do not receive him into your home” (2 Jn 10-11): but what does the Bible really say?

15.Before we open the specific verses, let’s reflect together starting from common sense — from that conscience that God has given us.

16.Does it benefit us to spend time with people who hate God and deny that Jesus came to die for us? Probably not. And that’s understandable. Being in the company of those who don’t believe in anything, who actively deny the existence of God, could make us see life in a distorted way. Lifeless. Without joy and hope. It could lead us to think that we have no purpose, that there is no one guiding us. Our conscience warns us — and rightly so.

17. This is what the apostle John speaks of in 2 John 10-11. The apostle is not speaking of a brother who has sinned.He is speaking — and verse 7 says it clearly — of people who “do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.” The antichrists.Those who deny Christ. Those who go from house to house teaching a false gospel. “Do not receive him into your home” in the first century meant: do not sponsor his mission, do not give him lodging and support to spread a teaching that denies the Christ. It did not mean “do not say hello at the supermarket to your brother who has doubts.”

18.Now let’s take another example. Would we want to be in the company of a person who causes pain to others? A man who boasts — yes, boasts — about sleeping with his father’s wife, who would represent his mother... who brings dishonor to the family, who goes against the law of the time that prohibited incest? Being in his company would be like keeping close those who steal, who abuse, who take advantage of others. Our conscience would stop us automatically, because we love others. Isn’t it so?

19.This is what Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 5. An extreme case. A man who lived with his stepmother — something so scandalous that even the pagans of Corinth found it unacceptable. Not a young man who smoked a cigarette. Not a sister who expressed a doubt. An extreme, unrepentant, ostentatious case.

Let’s pause for another moment on the context, because it changes everything. Paul is not writing a procedural manual valid for every congregation and every era. He is writing to a specific community, on a specific case. A man who lived publicly with his father’s wife (1 Corinthians 5:1, NWT) — something that, Paul writes,“is not even found among the nations.” And the problem was not just the man: it was the congregation, which instead of mourning was “puffed up with pride”. In the Greek Paul uses the word pephysiómenoi— literally “puffed up with air,” presumptuous. The Christians of Corinth, faced with a public scandal, were shrugging their shoulders.

It is important to keep this in mind. Paul is not answering the phone for an elder asking: “What do we do if a brother watched a video with nudity?” He is writing — impassioned, worried, grieved — for a case that is extreme, public and unrepentant. And every time we read that chapter as if it were a procedural manual to be applied to any sin and any era, we move away from what Paul was actually doing. Paul was putting out a specific fire, in a specific kitchen. He was not writing the national fire safety code.

20.In both cases — the antichrists of John and the incestuous man of Corinth — our conscience naturally guides us. We don’t need someone to tell us. And this is the point.

21.The conscience God has given us works. It protects us. It orients us. The conscience Jehovah has given us guides us in many situations without need for a formal procedure. God has given us an inner guide — and that guide, when it works, is sufficient.

22.But beware: one thing is to choose not to be intimately associated with those who attack our faith and fill us with negativity. Another — completely different — is to cut ties with those who simply have doubts, those who have lost faith, or those who have chosen not to be part of the organization.

23. A son who no longer attends meetings is not an antichrist.A brother who has lost faith is not an enemy of Christ. A sister who leaves the organization may love God more than before — she simply no longer believes that a group of men speaks for Him. An atheist friend is not a threat — he is a person with a different path. The Bible does not ask us to shun any of these people.

24.Think of Paul. When he arrived in Athens — a city full of idols, of pagan philosophers, of people who worshipped dozens of gods — what did he do? Avoid them? Shun them? Refuse to speak to them? No.

“Consequently, he began to reason in the synagogue with the Jews and the other people who worshipped God and every day in the marketplace with those who happened to be there.”

Paul spoke with EVERYONE.Including Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. Including those who worshipped the “Unknown God.” He didn’t cut them off — he sought them out.

25.The Bible does not warn us against speaking with those who think differently. It warns us against keeping company with those who drag us toward a life without purpose, without meaning, without hope. Those who attach negativity to us, those who push us to do things we know are wrong, those who pull us away from love. This is a matter of personal conscience — not of rules imposed by a committee.

26. The difference is enormous: the conscience God has given us naturally guides us to choose the company that helps us grow. Our conscience trained by the Bible is often sufficient to guide us in our personal choices of company.

27.What we ask ourselves is whether the current application has not gone further than what these verses actually say. Two specific cases — the antichrists and a case of incest — have become the basis for a practice that today touches dozens of very different situations. Including those who have simply decided to no longer be part of the organization. Including those who have voted in elections, those who have made a different choice regarding blood, those who have expressed disagreement on a doctrine. And the consequence is always the same: shunning. The cutting of every relationship. The “not speaking to disfellowshipped ones.” Including family.

28. Our conscience tells us to stay away from those who deny Christ and from those who practice evil without remorse. But our conscience also tells us that cutting all ties with a child because they have doubts is not love. And the Bible, as we will see now, confirms exactly this.

“Not even eating with such a man” — what Paul meant

29.Let’s open 1 Corinthians 5:11. It is the verse most cited by the organization to justify shunning — the “not speaking to the disfellowshipped,” total shunning:

“But now I am writing you to stop keeping company with anyone called a brother who is sexually immoral or a greedy person or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man.”

30.“Not even eating with such a man.” This phrase has become the basis of an entire system. But what did it mean in the first century? To understand it we have to take a step back and look at how the meetings of the early Christian congregations worked.

31.In the first century there were no Kingdom Halls. Christians gathered in the private homes of wealthier brothers — the only ones large enough to host the group. And the heart of the meeting was not a talk from a podium. It was a meal. A real communal meal — what the Scriptures call “the breaking of bread” (Acts 2:42), the “Lord’s Evening Meal” (1 Corinthians 11:20), the “love feast” (Jude 12). During this meal food was shared, bread was broken and the cup drunk in memory of Christ, teaching took place, prayers were offered, songs were sung. The meal was the meeting. The meeting was the meal. There was no distinction between the ritual and the meal together — they were one and the same thing.

32. Now the Greek verb Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 5:11 becomes clear. The verb is sunesthiein— which literally means “to eat together.” In a context where the communal meal was the meeting itself, “not even eat with him” meant: do not admit him to the congregation’s meal. Exclude him from the gathering. It did not mean: do not have a coffee with your brother, do not invite your daughter to lunch, do not answer the phone when your mother calls. It meant: that person, due to the extreme sin he is flaunting without remorse, must not participate in the communion of the congregation.

33. And Paul himself confirms this reading a few verses earlier. In 1 Corinthians 5:9-10 he writes:

“In my letter I wrote you to stop associating with sexually immoral people. I did not mean entirely with the sexually immoral people of this world or the greedy people or extortioners or idolaters. Otherwise, you would have to get out of the world.”

34.Read it carefully: “Otherwise, you would have to get out of the world!” Paul is saying: I am not asking you to avoid every contact with the sinners of the world — that would be impossible! His instruction concerns the context of the congregation. And in the same letter, a few chapters later (1 Corinthians 11:17-34), Paul addresses exactly the problems related to the communal meal — confirming that “eating together” was the central context of congregational life. It is not reasonable to separate 1 Corinthians 5:11 from this context. Paul says: do not share the communal meal with someone who unrepentantly practices a serious sin. He does not say: cut every human relationship with anyone who goes through a disciplinary procedure.

A detail that deserves a second reading

35.Now let’s open Matthew 18:17. It is the other key verse used by the organization to justify shunning — the “not speaking to disfellowshipped ones”:

“If he does not listen to them, speak to the congregation. If he does not listen even to the congregation, let him be to you just as a man of the nations and as a tax collector.”

36.“Let him be to you... as a tax collector.” The organization interprets this as: treat him as a stranger, do not speak to him, avoid him. But let’s pause for a moment. How did Jesus treat tax collectors?

37.Jesus went to dinner with them (Matthew 9:10-11). He called Matthew — a tax collector — as an apostle (Matthew 9:9). He invited himself to the home of Zacchaeus, chief of the tax collectors, and ate with him (Luke 19:1-10). The Pharisees criticized him for it. They called him “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 11:19). And Jesus, far from denying it, replied: “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but those who are ill do” (Mark 2:17).

38.Now do you see the irony? If “let him be to you as a tax collector” means treating that person the way Jesus treated tax collectors... then it means continuing to seek him out. Going to his house. Eating with him. Not abandoning him — but loving him more.If we take Jesus as our model — and who else should we take? — that verse seems to suggest a different direction from the application we make of it today. And immediately afterward, in the same chapter, Peter asks: “How many times must I forgive?” And Jesus answers: “Seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:22). Seventy-seven times. Without conditions and without time limits.

And there is another verse we know well that deserves more careful reflection. Paul writes to the Thessalonians:

“But if anyone is not obedient to our word in this letter, keep this one marked and stop associating with him, so that he may become ashamed. And yet do not consider him an enemy, but continue admonishing him as a brother.”

Do not consider him an enemy. Continue admonishing him as a brother. As family. Because he is family. Paul asks us never to stop considering that person a brother. We ask: is total silence compatible with this invitation?

We don’t have absolute truth, but “God is love” we do

39.At this point we have to be honest with you — as we have been in every reflection of this journey. The absolute truth about what Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 5:11, we don’t have. None of us was in Corinth in the first century. Scholars have different positions. The manuscripts do not speak by themselves. And none of us — ourselves included — can claim to have the definitive reading.

40.What we can do is look at the evidence — and the evidence converges. We have seen that the communal meal was the meeting. That the Greek verb points to the congregational context. That Paul himself distinguishes between “inside” and “outside” the congregation. That in the same letter he addresses the problems of the communal meal. Everything points in the same direction.

41.But there is something even more important. Whatever the correct interpretation of that single verse, the entire biblical narrative shows a God who forgives, who runs to meet, who looks for excuses to save — not to condemn. Let’s look together:

• Forgiveness is immediate.“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous so as to forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:9, NWT). No observation period. No committee.
• The Father runs to meet.In the parable, the father sees the son “while he was still a long way off” and runs to meet him (Luke 15:20). He doesn’t wait for a request letter. He doesn’t convene a committee. He runs.
• Forgiveness is immediate and unconditional. The thief on the stake asks only: “Remember me.” And Jesus answers: “You will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). No conditions. No formal path. Instant grace.
• Forgiveness has no ceiling.“I say to you, not up to seven times, but up to 77 times” (Matthew 18:22, NWT).
• God looks for excuses to save, not to condemn. Abraham asks if God will destroy Sodom for 50 righteous, then 40, then 30, then 20, then 10. And God agrees every time (Genesis 18:23-32). The Creator of the universe lets himself be “bargained with” by a man — and every time he chooses mercy.
• The purpose of discipline is to restore, not to destroy. “Brothers, even if a man takes a false step before he is aware of it, you who have spiritual qualifications try to readjust such a man in a spirit of mildness” (Galatians 6:1, NWT). The original Greek verb was used to indicate setting broken bones and mending fishing nets — making something whole again. Not to expel. Not to isolate. To restore. With mildness.

42.And there is a verse that changes everything. The same Paul — the same man who wrote 1 Corinthians 5 — writing to the same Corinthian congregation a few months later, says about the same person:

“This rebuke given by the majority is sufficient for such a man, so now you should instead kindly forgive and comfort him, so that he may not be overwhelmed by excessive sadness. Therefore, I urge you to confirm your love for him.”

43.Kindly forgive him. Comfort him. Confirm your love for him. So that he may not be overwhelmed by excessive sadness. Paul — the same man who had requested discipline — now asks them to welcome back. Not after years. After months. Because the discipline had reached its purpose: the person had repented. And at that point, Paul’s concern is not that the discipline lasts too short. It is that it lasts too long. “So that he may not be overwhelmed by excessive sadness.” This is the real biblical concern. Not the purity of the congregation — but the heart of the person.

Notice also a detail: Paul writes “the rebuke given by the majority of you.” Paul mentions that “the majority” took that decision — suggesting a community process. Today the path is different: the decision is made by a small committee and the congregation receives it without knowing the details. We ask whether the original model didn’t involve broader engagement.

44.Making 1 Corinthians 5:11 — a verse written for an extreme and specific case — the basis of an entire system that separates parents from children, that lasts years or decades, that applies to dozens of reasons not listed in the Bible, and that causes documented suffering — when the entire weight of the Scriptures shows grace, immediate forgiveness and reconciliation — is to add. It is to build a huge structure on a single phrase, ignoring the rest of the book. The same Paul who wrote that verse also wrote:

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous. It does not brag, does not get puffed up, does not behave indecently, does not look for its own interests, does not become provoked. It does not keep account of the injury.”

If “God is love”(1 John 4:8) — and this is a fact that no one disputes — then love is the lens through which to read every verse. Not the other way around. You don’t take a verse to nullify love.

The real effects

45.What the Bible does not require, science confirms causes harm. Studies published in academic journals — Pastoral Psychology (2022), Journal of Religion and Health(2021) — document that the practice of shunning, the “not speaking to disfellowshipped ones”, produces depression, chronic anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder in those who experience it. The research of Dr. Kipling D. Williams of Purdue University has shown that social exclusion activates the same brain area that registers physical pain. Participants in these studies describe the experience as a “social death” — losing everything and everyone in a single day. Suicidal ideation and suicide attempts are documented in multiple studies.

46.You don’t need a scientific study to understand it. Those who live it already know. When a practice produces such deep suffering — and studies document depression, chronic anxiety and, in the most tragic cases, suicidal thoughts — we can ask honestly: is this fruit compatible with Jehovah’s love?

47.If you are suffering because of this — on whichever side of the silence you find yourself — know that the pain you feel is real. It is not weakness. It is not lack of faith. It is the natural reaction of a human being to an unnatural separation.And it does not come from God.

Some say...

We know that many sincere brothers practice shunning with the conviction of doing Jehovah’s will. We do not judge them. We too, until recently, thought the same. These reflections come from the pain we feel FOR our community — not against it. We pray that Jehovah will guide all of us toward a deeper understanding of His love.

Questions for reflection

52.Before we close, three questions. Not for us — for you. For your conscience. Take the time you need.

What happens now

56.The recent changes show that there is room to grow in understanding. This gives us hope that on this topic too, with time and Jehovah’s guidance, there can be a positive evolution.

57.Shunning — the “not speaking to disfellowshipped ones” — works because inside us there is an even deeper conviction. The conviction that whoever is removed will lose eternal life. That the decision made in a judicial committee automatically reflects Jehovah’s will. That there is a clear line between those who will be saved and those who will be destroyed. And that line passes through belonging to the organization.

58.There is one doctrine that holds everything together: Armageddon. This conviction — the fear of losing Jehovah’s approval — is deeply rooted in many of us. And it is understandable. But if we examine it in the light of the Scriptures, we may discover that our heavenly Father is much more merciful than we think. And that love, not fear, should guide every family decision of ours.

We are not against anyone. We are in favor of the Bible. We pray that Jehovah will free all of us — all 9 million brothers who love Him — from every human rule that goes beyond what the Scriptures teach. Our desire is not to destroy, but to build. Not to divide, but to reunite families.

59.In the next reflection we will examine this doctrine in the light of the Scriptures. What does the Bible really say about Armageddon? Who really has the right to decide who lives and who dies? And what if we discovered that on this point too, “God is love” tells a different story from the one we have been taught? A story of a Father who does not look for excuses to condemn — but who looks for excuses to save.