Remain anchored to God
“Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship is there between light and darkness? What agreement does Christ have with Beliar? Or what does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you.”
2 Corinthians. 6:14-17
There is a constant across all professions that seek to help others; you must never get so enmeshed in the problems of the other that you get trapped yourself. In order to help some one you must be on solid ground yourself, or anchored to something solidly. This in part what this verse is talking about.
In my younger days I though it simply was speaking to friends and marriage partners. But it can and should be extended to business relationships and other social interactions and connections. That is not to say we cannot relate to such people and be in relationship with them. But the idea to keep in focus is that who they are, what they are about, and what they believe should impinge or influence a Christian’s life.
There is (or at lease when I was growing up there was) the Anabaptist/Mennonite faith a sense of being in the world but not of the world. There was a distinction between those in the Mennonite Church (at the time pre-integration Old Mennonite) and the rest of the world. If not through dress and appearance then at least in customs and lifestyles. Distinct in my mind is when I ‘crossed over’ to more ‘worldly’ habits during the rebellion of my adolescence.
Hans Denck speaks to this separation in his “Protestation and Confession” of 1528. He speaks to the issue of separation, from the context of the persecution and martyrdom of his time. “Those hearts that exalt this blessed deed of God through Christ and follow in his footsteps make me rejoice, and I love them as well as I know them. However, I cannot have much fellowship with those who do not wish to hear me and yet will not keep silence in controversial matters, for I sense not the mind of Christ in them but rather a perverted one that would forcibly drive me from my faith and coerce me to theirs. . . Thus I separate myself from some, not because I consider myself better or more righteous than they, but (although in such a case much is lacking in [my relation to] them) in order that I may unhindered freely seek the precious pearl and, inasmuch as I have found it, that I might (as far as I am able) retain the same with everyone’s peace. Persecution and fear of that sort have separated me from others, but my heart is not turned from them, especially not from those who fear God. As God wills and insofar as I am cognizant, will I have no communion [2 Cor. 6:14] with error and unrighteousness, even though I am among sinners and those who go astray.”
I realized as I thought on this passage the one thing that is not spoken of is love; God’s love those who do not know and follow the Lord, and the love we are supposed to show the unbeliever. Loving the unbeliever does not mean joining him or her in their beliefs and practices. Remember the credo of those in the helping profession; do not become so enmeshed with the ones you are helping that you lose yourself. The same is true when dealing with the unbeliever. Your acts of love and compassion are not to condone the unChristian practices they do, but to show them that there is a better to live; one that gains peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come. We do not want to lose that, but nor do we want to negate that possibility for the other.
You may be welcomed by God, coming out from the unbelieving world; and may you bring others with you. Selah!
