The worst thing.

The worst thing a child of God can do or say is......because you don't agree with my thoughts or veiw points I will be intolerant to yours.

I'm not addressing wolves or antichrists that's another topic. What Iam addressing are those that isolated their selves from the unsaved worldly people and consider by doing so they have achieved a holy walk with God.......not so. In fact they have set their self up for failure.
Jesus the friend of sinners had a public ministry not a private one. Not exclusive to those that only agree with him.
How are we ever to obey the teachings of the sermon on the mount or letting our light shine if we isolate ourselves from the world.
How are we to bless others ? Which is our purpose.
The scriptures tells us to come out from among them be separate and a holy people but that doesn't mean to isolate and only associate with fellow believers or discard family and friends that donot share your beliefs. By doing so you will not acheive the full potential the Lord has called you for.
In other words you will have a stunted growth.
The only thing Jesus did privately is pray. Then again he was seen doing that.
Jesus said if you love those that love you only what good is that. What if God was like that?. Where would we all be?
Are you living the gospel of grace of the gospel of judgement only you can know.
You have to ask your self in all truth are you ashamed of the gospel of truth what God ask you to do or say, how you should respond and behave???

I think this is a very important issue and needs to be addressed. Isolation is bondage in Christ there is freedom from that.


Your thoughts???

Then why did Jesus say for us not to even associate with sinners? Avoid the appearance of evil.

There is a big difference between associating with sinners, and partaking of their evil deeds, and ministering to those without Christ and without hope.

"Go ye into all world" means that the whole world is the mission field of all Christians. And the seed of the Gospel is what must be sown, since "the field is the world". The outcome of the sowing is up to God, but the work of sowing is assigned to the Church.

He says I send you out as lambs amongst wolves, so we are to be wise as serpents, innocent as doves. What this means is if we abide in Christ, and HE in us, we have His armour.
But he also gives us wisdom, that we dont go foolishly associating with wolves etc when we are weak or vulnerable. You tell a new believer to do that and they will get eaten alive if they arent prepared. Also we do not become like wolves.

Nobody has said anything about being isolated. You are never isolated when you abide in Jesus. Sheep also flock together. It is the wolves that divide and conquer and scatter the sheep.


However...If people arent holy or set apart for His pupose they cannot grow to their full potential either. See the parable of the sower and the seed. Dont let the weeds choke you. You do actually need to be transplanted into good soil if you are not growing, and weeds removed to bear fruit. This is basic gardening.
Other parable say let the weeds (tares) and wheat grow together, but thats because the enemy has sown the weeds in with the tares. The angels will separate them at the end of the age, at harvest time just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

There is no way in your walk with Christ that you wont ever encounter anyone unsaved anyway. Even the amish will have unsaved amongst them, why, because nobody is ever born a christian from birth, we all need to be born again.

WOW POWERFUL!I agree we must apply Jesus example in our lives! We cannot be afraid we will be tainted if we associate with the unclean sinners!

ABSOLUTELY AMEN!

Jesus went to their homes for meals,attended their weddings and funerals,went to church( temple),and He did all this in LOVE. He sets us apart,the Holy Spirit keeps us apart from the world

Not always... we can choose to go back into the world.

We have free will so WE CHOOSE its not thru any failure of God but us. We allow the lust and desires to take us away. HE KEEPS THOSE THE FATHER GIVES TO HIM!

Living in the Spirit and being led by Him we WILL be kept apart from the sin. We must love the sinner to be effectual fruit bearers for Christ!

Where did Jesus say that?

Be in the world but not of the world.

I do thank you for the post. I've actually felt a lot of condemnation about not going out and just sharing the gospel with whomever I can. Just an almost cloying pressure.

If you are a follower of Christ, surely you would be out knocking door to door right?

Yeah I don't think necessarily it has to follow that way. Paul didn't exactly do that. When the 12 were sent out it may have looked "something" like that but each of us is unique in the body.

I have heard it recently said to "do what you know" & "follow your heart" <---of course standing and accounting for sound doctrine and scriptural consistency.

Like if you have a heart for children, go volunteer for a summer camp. The Lord doesn't need to specifically tell you to do something like that.

If you want to go to Mozambique on a mission trip...do you need to necessarily wait to do that?



Sometimes you do and that's where it gets personally confusing for me. There are simple things like feeding the hungry, doing children's activities, teaching people to read, Sharing the word (to those that are open to it)...maybe helping out with Awanas or something that I believe are a good launching ground/and or resting place when you feel like you are waiting.



If anyone knows the greek/hebrew for "wait" on the Lord and what that means I'd be appreciative. Waiting like a waiter/servant or wait like "wait for my command and do not proceed until you have orders" kind of thing. Anyway peace.

I dont know your age. I have knocked on doors,went into places that should have caused fear to even be there. Worked to help build church buildings. There is a time for everything! I no longer can GO! I can PRAY however for those who can. Our work will be done when breath has ceased in our bodies!

1 Thess 5:22

&

Eph 5:11-12


Going OT you can see a lot of wisdom regarding this in Psalms and proverbs (you are known by the company you keep, bad company corrupts good morals, etc.) good bit there.

What this over-arcing concept means needs a bit of "unpacking" for sure though. I believe there is a difference between "being" in their company and "keeping company with" as well. "eating with" and "feasting with"

those who truly 'belong to Yeshua', will never again be 'tainted by the world',
we must go into the world but not be of the world'.
'Preach The Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.'

1 Thessalonians 5:22
22 Abstain from every form of evil.

The above does not say do not associate with sinners.
It says abstain from evil.

Ephesians 5:8-12

Walk in Light
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.

Once again, nothing that says do not associate with sinners.
It talks about light.
Did not Jesus tell us to let our light shine, don't hide it?

5:8–10 The believer’s position has changed from darkness (sin) to light (righteousness). Believers are to change their walk to correspond to their position in Christ (see Rom 12:2).
5:12 in secret: This verse effectively bans Christians from indulging in the modern preoccupation with examining the lurid details of evils such as the occult and other perverted practices. NKJV notes.

11: expose them: By the light shining from their lives (cp. John 3:20-21; Rom 13:12; 1 Pet 2:9), not by verbally accusing or condemning people (see 1 Cor 5:9-13). NLT notes.

I see what you are saying and if I'm honest I don't know where to draw the line in terms of being in their company.

But if I can be light in their company I will keep going pressing on.
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.

AMEN AND "FEAR NOT"!

Yeah it's just hard to figure out. There is some funky stuff that I've encountered by just feeling like I could be a light around people. Where I'd "hang out" and "chill with them" and bring up scripture consistently but it was like I was inexorably drawn toward darkness being around them and eventually I just had to get away and stay away.

I think if there is a deliberately unrepentant heart and someone that willfully opens themselves up to whatever force suits their fancy you might meet them in a public place for the purpose of shining a light but to go into their home and "break bread with them" may be at best unwise and at worst willful disobedience. I'm not sure to be honest with you. I know someone that wouldn't ever meet in a public place even though we had known each other over 10 years and had many conversations. They continued to retreat and didn't want to meet any place besides their house and I always felt incredibly uncomfortable going there. In the end, I just stayed away, although I am still a bit torn. Maybe I'm being naive...not sure.


1 Cor 5:11 may factor into this discussion though.

To me there is a difference in going into their private domain and going on a camping trip or meeting for coffee. I'm glad this got me to thinking about that particular experience because it's one I still don't understand.

I grew up and was taught at an early age to be agnostic. To make up my own mind but not to necessarily believe there was a God. However, I knew God was there. So the thing I was not sure of was which religion was TRUE.

I had a lot of different people tell me why their religion was the true one. I didn't respond very well to the people that tried to convince me that they had a lock on all the truth and everyone else was wrong. Like Roman Catholics and Jehovahs Witnesses.

I responded much better to people that would tell me a few things that they thought were true and encouraged me to find out for myself. If it were really true then I could verify it, I thought, I didn't need someone to convince me by arguing. I was really convinced that all religions had a little sliver of truth and it was up to me to study all of them and try to glean the truth and put it all together to find out the full truth.


I'm telling you all this to try and show that it isn't necessarily the guys that go from door to door that have the biggest impact for the gospel. The ones that had the biggest impact for me were the ones who showed an interest in what I was interested in and then when there was a break they would talk about what was important to them (the gospel). And I would ignorantly and pridefully tell them why I thought some of what they said was right and some was wrong.

Its funny looking back on it I realize how much these people were holding back and trying not to make me feel offended.

Ultimately, what had the biggest impact on me was scripture. I memorized Psalm 23 when I was 9 yrs old. Then, when I was older, I would check in the bible to make sure what the preacher was trying to say was in there. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't.

Remember, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink...