Father, Help us to be part of you and not of the world.
Reading: II Corinthians 6
This almost seems the topic of the month (if not the past few years) up here in the North East, with quite a few people taking very dogmatic views of the chapter we're to look at this weekend; II Corinthians 6. The chapter is about being separate from the world in the way that we work and live our lives, and quite a few people have applied this to imply Christian marriages (or more particular, Christadelphian marriages) which have caused quarrels and upset in the ecclessia.
Now, it does make life a lot easier if the person you marry has the same faith and beliefs, but even inside the ecclessia we still find differences. But is the chapter talking solely about marriages?
I don't think so. The verse that the idea hinges around is “do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers”. This can apply to many things in our lives. The law of Moses states “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together” (Deut 22:10).
Basically it demonstrates the unfairness of having two things trying to do the same work. We get the general picture, but the first thing we need to define is just what is meant by work, as it's work that's the central theme here, not arguments and disagreements (let's be positive!)
Does it mean our day to day lives?
Possibly. So in this case we also need to include business partners as well as wives and husbands. Unfortunately these days tend to over look the idea that we shouldn't have non-Christian business partners. Good business sense means being very ruthless in our monetary dealings. Is this what God wants?
Or does it mean our spiritual work?
This is a much easier answer to accept, but in some ways a much harder one to achieve. We touched on this last week when mentioning the 'general, anything goes' sort of Christianity we have these days. But that's not new. If you've been reading the Old Testament readings from the daily reading planner then you've have seen plenty of references to “Jeroboam the son of Nebat and the sin that he committed”. What was his sin?
Basically he wanted to worship God in the way that he wanted, not he way that God wanted. People have always tried to do things 'their way', but that is one thing that we have to guard against. Some people went even further against God, Ahab and Solomon in particular, in that they worshipped other Gods, built idols, etc. Obviously this is wrong, but it was Jeroboam's sin that was much more insidious.
Just as the Jews criticised the Samaritans for mingling the worship of God with the worship of idols we have to be careful that we are not following our own desires as well.
One of the problems with the Bible today is that the original text was not written in the chapters that we have. Verse 1 of chapter 7 should have the been included as the summary of chapter 6, and this in some ways has the answer; it means both! “Let us cleanse oursleves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God”.
We have to try to please God in every way that we can, in the way that God wants, not just in the few that we choose. Obviously the keyword here is 'try', because more often than not we will fail, but we have Jesus Christ who is with God to wash away our faults if we are truly repentant.
So just what do we mean by separation? Paul says we have to be in the world, but not part of it. By not following what the world offers, and we know to be wrong, we can be a part of God's promise.
When Jesus comes he will separate the sheep from the goats. We have to make sure we're in the right flock.
How can we demonstrate our work and make sure we're all 'pulling together'?
Just how can we be separate from the world?
How can we show we're different?
What will happen to the sheep? And the goats?