Towing The Line

One of the things that troubles me about modern evangelicalism is this constant game of seeing how close we can get to the world before we cross into sin or what good can I get out of a person or an entity or a thing that is already false.

How close can a church get in its partnerships, its associations, its music, before we've technically "sinned." That's the wrong question entirely.

The Bible never calls us to find the line. It calls us to be a different people altogether.

Romans 12:2 doesn't tell us to negotiate with the pattern of this world, it tells us not to be conformed to it, but transformed by the renewing of our minds.

1 John 2:15-17 is just as direct: do not love the world or the things in the world, because the world and its desires are passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.

We are not citizens of this world angling for the best possible standing with it.

Philippians 3:20 says our citizenship is in heaven.

James 4:4 goes further and calls friendship with the world what it actually is, enmity with God.

Scripture is full of commands to be distinct.

Romans 12:1 calls us to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.

1 Peter 2:9-11 calls us a chosen race, a holy nation, sojourners and exiles who abstain from the passions of the flesh.

Matthew 5:14-16 calls us the light of the world, not a dimmer version of it.

Titus 2:11-14 says grace trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives.

And this is why the question churches keep asking, "how close can we get," in the guise of “unity” or “compassion” is so dangerous.

1 Corinthians 15:33 warns us plainly, bad company corrupts good morals. The longer we entertain the world's music, its values, its associations, without discernment, the more we train our conscience to tolerate what God calls sin.

Slowly the conscience goes numb. What shocked us five years ago doesn't shock us anymore, not because it changed but because we did.

2 Corinthians 6:14-17 calls us not to be unequally yoked, to come out from among them and be separate.

Ephesians 5:11 tells us to take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead to expose them.

Brothers and sisters, the goal was never to see how much of the world we can keep while still calling ourselves faithful.

The goal is holiness.

Not because we earn anything by it, but because we've been bought with a price and we belong to Another.

Let's stop asking how close we can get to the world, and start asking how close we can get to Christ.

Thinking we are able to get the good or truths out of what is bad or false is playing with fire.