Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord.
The traditional understanding of “come ye out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord” believers have been taught to believe and by practice still believe, is to not be friends or associate with non-believers, especially associating with them in their environment. Oh...it is OK to try and scare the hell out of them when they come to event-driven-meetings. But, is that concept the understanding we get from the life of Jesus?
Jesus is our best example of living a life of holiness. He is God in human flesh. His life serves as the best conclusion for what divine holiness looks like when living in the community humanity. And they rightly called him “a friend of...sinners” (Matt. 11:19).
So, if the traditional understanding is correct why did the God-Man who associated with the bad of the baddest of His day go against the established belief of the law keepers...have we missed the point of His living lesson? Jesus is the friend of sinners, not their enemy!
What Jesus is not doing when associating with unbelievers is worth understanding. He is not merely going with the flow or wanting to be accepted by the popular trending majority. He is not out for just a spiritual good time or be a part of the social scene to satisfy His ego or grow His reputation by standing for a cause or manipulate people to give money to His ministry.
Notice that Jesus does not condone the works of iniquity in in His befriending them. There is also NO condemning of the nonbelievers He associates with. He’s there for a specific purpose...actively showing people a better way. He associates with unbelievers as a means of expressing kingdom living principles, wooing them to repentance because of His love for them. The ironic thing is He finds the hardest hearts to understand this are among the self-righteous, “believing” law keeping people of His day who believe they have the way and it is their way or no way.
Jesus is showing us that befriending nonbelievers does not dirty His righteousness therefore, it does not dirty ours because He has imputed His righteousness to us. Neither does associating with nonbelievers pollute our testimony, and notice that He is not condemning their bad works. Because He is among them, He is close enough that His presence confronts their unbelief with His grace and love, not with judgement and condemnation!
The truth of Christ Gospel being understood by nonbelievers isn’t automatic, and won’t come from a passivity nonchalance attitude toward them by not associating with them because they don’t attend event-driven meetings to hear the gospel. It happens through a sustained intentionality association with nonbelievers, befriending them in the atmosphere they live in and interacting with them in there daily living. God working through us will draw them toward a relationship with Jesus.
1 Cor. 5:9-11 reads. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people...not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler...not even to eat with such a one.
Don’t confuse the call to separate from an openly sinful believer or a group of dogmatic, self-righteous, people condemning know-it-alls, with the understanding not to fellowship with nonbelievers. It’s one thing to be a believer and embrace sin. It’s quite another thing to separate from nonbelievers who doesn’t yet confess Christ.
If we’re taking our living life instruction from God in human flesh...(Jesus), eating with and befriending nonbelievers is the very thing we’re called to.
Believers are not fear the dark side and avoid it. In fact we are meant to venture into the darkness, letting our light shine on sin without compromise, yet without judging and condemning people by loving them and lighting the path out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God by the grace and love gospel of Christ for them to travel out of their darkness.
True followers of Jesus are crucified to the world systems, but, they are also raised to newness of life and sent back in the darkness that they were in with the shinning light of the Grace Gospel to free others from darkness. The sinful desire in us not to befriend those who are considered nonbelievers must be eradicated, and as believers yield to the love impulse of the grace gospel to befriend them and we will win them.
Jesus is our best example of living a life of holiness. He is God in human flesh. His life serves as the best conclusion for what divine holiness looks like when living in the community humanity. And they rightly called him “a friend of...sinners” (Matt. 11:19).
So, if the traditional understanding is correct why did the God-Man who associated with the bad of the baddest of His day go against the established belief of the law keepers...have we missed the point of His living lesson? Jesus is the friend of sinners, not their enemy!
What Jesus is not doing when associating with unbelievers is worth understanding. He is not merely going with the flow or wanting to be accepted by the popular trending majority. He is not out for just a spiritual good time or be a part of the social scene to satisfy His ego or grow His reputation by standing for a cause or manipulate people to give money to His ministry.
Notice that Jesus does not condone the works of iniquity in in His befriending them. There is also NO condemning of the nonbelievers He associates with. He’s there for a specific purpose...actively showing people a better way. He associates with unbelievers as a means of expressing kingdom living principles, wooing them to repentance because of His love for them. The ironic thing is He finds the hardest hearts to understand this are among the self-righteous, “believing” law keeping people of His day who believe they have the way and it is their way or no way.
Jesus is showing us that befriending nonbelievers does not dirty His righteousness therefore, it does not dirty ours because He has imputed His righteousness to us. Neither does associating with nonbelievers pollute our testimony, and notice that He is not condemning their bad works. Because He is among them, He is close enough that His presence confronts their unbelief with His grace and love, not with judgement and condemnation!
The truth of Christ Gospel being understood by nonbelievers isn’t automatic, and won’t come from a passivity nonchalance attitude toward them by not associating with them because they don’t attend event-driven meetings to hear the gospel. It happens through a sustained intentionality association with nonbelievers, befriending them in the atmosphere they live in and interacting with them in there daily living. God working through us will draw them toward a relationship with Jesus.
1 Cor. 5:9-11 reads. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people...not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler...not even to eat with such a one.
Don’t confuse the call to separate from an openly sinful believer or a group of dogmatic, self-righteous, people condemning know-it-alls, with the understanding not to fellowship with nonbelievers. It’s one thing to be a believer and embrace sin. It’s quite another thing to separate from nonbelievers who doesn’t yet confess Christ.
If we’re taking our living life instruction from God in human flesh...(Jesus), eating with and befriending nonbelievers is the very thing we’re called to.
Believers are not fear the dark side and avoid it. In fact we are meant to venture into the darkness, letting our light shine on sin without compromise, yet without judging and condemning people by loving them and lighting the path out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God by the grace and love gospel of Christ for them to travel out of their darkness.
True followers of Jesus are crucified to the world systems, but, they are also raised to newness of life and sent back in the darkness that they were in with the shinning light of the Grace Gospel to free others from darkness. The sinful desire in us not to befriend those who are considered nonbelievers must be eradicated, and as believers yield to the love impulse of the grace gospel to befriend them and we will win them.
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