Worldliness

2011-01-14

“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:17-18).

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2).

“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).

“But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation” (1 Peter 1:15).

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:16).

Verses and many like these teach us to be separate from the world. We cannot totally isolate ourselves in some monastic sense, as the Bible says, “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world” (1 Corinthians 5:9-10). However, we will not be wise if we emulate the world, being indoctrinated by the world, or being close friends with the people of the world. Here are some examples:

Television

Psalm 101:3: “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.” Now one can argue that there is some good with the television, but it is very safe to say that there is little good in television. Having watched a lot of television in my life, I know a lot of what is out there.

First, it glamorizes sin: Fornication, adultery, homosexuality, divorce and remarriage, violence, magic and witchcraft, drunkenness, alcohol and drug usage, and the love of money are all condoned by television programs. I am sure this is not an exhaustive list. Even if your shows and movies do not condone these things (I cannot imagine that any modern movie is pure from all of these things) the commercials that are shown in between do. Women are rarely dressed appropriately. Programs are saturated through and through with sensual images and music. Even cartoons have subliminal messages and innuendo in them. Hollywood and the news stations all have ungodly agendas; we need to be wary of these.

Second, the majority of actors of Hollywood also live ungodly lives and are not role models for our children. Even if you think your sports programs are okay, these athletes have very disturbing private lives.

Music

Colossians 3:16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

This verse has a very profound but subtle truth: music teaches. Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs teach us spiritual truths. But if we are not listening to spiritual songs, we are listening to worldly songs, and they also teach us things. They teach us that sexual love and dating is paramount to living a happy life (but they never praise marriage), with all of the sensual sounds, beats, and voices to reinforce the message. Many also glorify violence and drugs. If we keep hammering our minds with the same messages of the world, we will be conformed to the world, and will be led into the sins that the songs teach.

Other Media

Magazines, books, radio, video games and the Internet offer similar types of issues that the music and the television do. One thing that I have not previously mentioned is the issue of pornography, which is most available freely on the Internet. But the Bible teaches us to “Flee fornication” (1 Corinthians 6:18).

Take note how most of these things fall in the category of entertainment. Is filling our mind with sin entertainment? I think if we minimize these influences in our lives we will be godlier people.

Please take these things to heart: As a teenager (and even well into my twenties), before I belonged to Jesus Christ, I had made an entire religious system based off of one rock band’s music and a series of video games. These things can be that controlling. “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12).

Appearance

“The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment” (Luke 12:23).

“In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array” (1 Timothy 2:9).

I quote the one verse about women, but it can equally be applied to men. Do we have flashy clothing, jewelry, and things that draw attention to ourselves? Are women (and sometimes even the men) wearing revealing or tight clothing? We need to be separate from the world in this aspect.

Christian Pop Culture

Now “Christian” people have emulated much of the world in the above by creating their own brands of television, music, books, and the like. These things come in the form of “Christian” cable T.V., rock and roll bands and contemporary music, Bible commentaries and study references, contemporary Bible translations, seminaries and Bible colleges, counseling, fiction authors, publishers, parachurch organizations and so forth. Some of these things are not bad in themselves (though some of them are), and I do not want to make a blanket statement saying every single example of all of these things are wrong (though it would be hard to find examples in the Bible of these items). God does use all manner of things for his glory. But I am frankly a skeptic on most of these things. All of these things are found in the world, but not really Biblical in nature. We want to copy the world in everything that it does. We think that the world has the answers to our questions, and has methods that are superior to God’s methods.

To address each of these items is beyond the scope of this essay. But for everything single thing we do that falls into this pop culture category, we need to examine our motives for doing it. Does it offer a short cut that is not sanctioned by God? For example, do a Bible college and a stack of commentaries substitute our own personal Bible study? Does Christian counseling allow us to rationalize sin and substitute our need to obey God no matter the cost? Do we play Christian contemporary music that often dumbs down Christian theology just because it sounds better to us than our old hymnbooks?

Religion in America is big business. Be careful how you associate with this religious system, because the Bible says, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate.”

Conclusion

After writing these things, it seems a bit preachy, as if I have it all together in all of these areas. But I am far from perfect on these matters. But the fact remains that I want to be separate from the world. That is my heart. I do not want to provoke other Christians, especially my own family and friends, to sin with my lifestyle. I want to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. I do not want non-Christians to think that following Jesus Christ means I have a license to sin. This is my intent by writing this essay: to think through in my own life what it means to be a follower of Christ in a sinful world and provoke others to thinking about these same issues in their lives.