For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked. Hymenaeus and Alexander are two examples. I threw them out and handed them over to Satan so they might learn not to blaspheme God.
-I Timothy 1:19b-20, NLT
The Apostle Paul names, names here.
He does not shy away from calling out two individuals for ungodliness. For all time, they are in the Bible regarding deliberately destroying their faith in Christ.
Passages like these fly in the face of some Christian teachings on “forgiveness.”
Paul does not only say “positive things” about these individuals. He speaks some really dark things, in fact. The passage is hardly flattering to them. I would not consider it words of “blessing.”
Rather, Paul holds these two individuals to account. He raises their example as a warning to Timothy, his protege.
I believe this is a great example of how God teaches us to hold people professing to be in the Church accountable. They ought not to get a pass for sinful behavior or otherwise bad teachings by example.
