This Great Balancing Act
If you know any Christianese, you almost certainly are familiar with the phrase "being in this world, but not of this world".
Actually, let me first explain Christianese. I'm not the first one to use this term. Christianese is the language of the Church. It should really be called Churchese, but 1) that looks too much like I just misspelled "churches" and 2) Christianese just sounds better.
It's not an official language or anything, but everyone in the church uses it, from the exuberantly emergent to the trudging reactionary. It has many dialects and variations, and just like real languages, the longer you've been involved in its culture, the more you tend to know of it...and the more you tend to process parts of it without thinking. Unfortunately, also like real languages, the less you've been immersed in its culture, the more likely you are to be clueless about it. You may think it's completely normal to dance around with your hands in the air singing about the blood of Jesus, but you're speaking Christianese and a non-speaker is going to think you're crazy. And you actually may be crazy, regardless of what virtual language you're speaking.
But back on task...the first thing we need to clear up is that there's not really a specific passage that says "be in this world, but not of it". Paul never told Timothy or Epaphroditus or anybody, "You must be in this world, but not of it". Well, he may have told them that, but he never wrote such a thing under God's inspiration. Yeah, yeah - the idea is there and is solid-- take the beginning of Romans 12 for example, or John 17:15 or about a dozen other passages -- but there isn't a passage that says true followers of Christ must "be in this world, but not of this world".
And it makes a lot of sense that we cannot be mandated to be in this world-- simply because we're already in it. That's part of God's plan. This means you can, to use another Christianese phrase, be so heavenly-minded that you're of no earthly good, specifically if you've misinterpreted being heavenly-minded as being only an innocent dove and not a shrewd serpent. Jesus, for some reason, called us to be both.
And thus, we've reached the point I'm at, first recognized as I was trolling my Facebook account and came across some less than edifying photos posted by one of my "friends" (to use the Facebook meaning of the word). My first thought was to immediately de-friend the person, lest I be subjected to more garbage. And yet, at what point does my involvement with the world make me "of" it? When have I crossed this boundary? Does the protection of my own heart and mind warrant the removal of myself from any activities that place them at risk? These questions are easy when the question is whether or not to purchase the HBO package on DirecTV. But not so much so in the course of navigating relationships.
Now I recognize this isn't exactly a new topic. I'm sure I could look up what a bunch of other people have written about this (and then quote them as my Facebook status). But have I then really figured it out on my own? And if I haven't claimed as my own what I may have learned in my brain, can it really impact me to the degree that it needs to? I can listen to and read preachers and smart guys all day long, but if my only understanding of God and His Word is what they're telling me about Him and It, I'm really just a kind of highly-developed, featherless parrot.
This great balancing act of being involved with hard hearts and impure minds isn't about me be better than others, it's about all of us doing what God wants. And, as far as I've figured up to this point, that means that the risk of exposing myself to temptation while being involved in the lives of blind and broken people will never be greater than the power that Christ gave me over the sin that's being flaunted. This doesn't make me immune to giving in to temptation, of course, but it does make me powerful enough and discerning enough that I don't have to cut ties with people consumed and blinded by sin in order to protect myself. God's Word does prescribe some kinds of forced separation from sinful believers. But God's Spirit and wise counsel give me the discernment to know when this prescription should be boldly and confidently implemented.
And yet, while I just said this isn't about me being better than others, I would step out on a very thin limb and say I'm probably unique, at least to some degree. Paul wasn't joking when he quoted, "Bad company corrupts good morals", and a lot of people aren't at the point with Christ where they can see evil for what it is enough to have relationships with risky people.
Now if you know me -- really know me --you know one sharp thorn that God twists in my heart is a recognition of my own sin. I bring this up because if you don't know my heart, then there's a great likelihood you think I'm saying that I'm awesome and immune to sin and have everything all figured out. I'm not saying any of that. But I'm also not afraid to be confident that God has changed and continues to change my heart, and that this means I can see sin more and more for what it is. You can only eat a piece of poo in between two pieces of bread for so long until God gives you the insight to first check what's in between the slices of bread before you eat it. And the longer I walk with God the less this eating of poo is a matter of ignorance and the more it is an awful, ugly choice.
In other words, all this crap (to stick with the fecal theme) I've written isn't for you, it's about me (in true egocentric fashion, of course). I don't know where your relationship with Christ is. And there's a good chance that by stepping away from the filth of this world for awhile, it will foster an environment in which that relationship can start to really grow. But for me, I'm going to continue trying to reach people that, regardless of their fluency in Christianese, perfectly exemplify yet another popular Christianese term: stumbling block.