CHRISTIANS DON'T KEEP COMPANY WITH SINNERS

     Ever heard that one?  Oh, my hand is up.  I heard that.  I heard it all my years growing up in a Christian home.  Christians aren't to hang out with non-Christians.  Why?  Because that's what the Bible says.  Duh!  1 Corinthians 15:33 says it plainly...“Bad company corrupts good character.”  There it is.  Christians are not to be hanging around with sinners...lost people...unbelievers...people who don't follow Jesus.  It will corrupt their good character.  So, just say no!
 
 If you're a Christian parent ...a good Christian parent, you'll get your kid in a Christian school, playing in a Christian T-Ball league, playing some good instrument (that is appropriate for use at church, of course), make sure their radio only tunes into KSBJ (God's Listening, right?), and most of all, DO NOT LET THEM HAVE FRIENDS THAT AREN'T CHRISTIANS...from good Christian families.  Real Christians.  If you don't watch their every step, I mean every step, they'll make friends with some infidels and it's all down the drain...and, it's all your fault.  You failed and their bound for Hell.  Feel better?
 

Say what?  Jesus called himself what?  Friend of sinners?  Must be a misprint.  You say what?  Jesus said we were to be in this world, but not of this world?  OK, I'm confused.  Are we "in"or "not of"?  Which is it?  He needs to pick one.  And the one needs to be "not of" AND "not in".

OK, everyone just stop for a minute and take a deep breath.  Don't hang with anything un-Christian is so much easier.  It's neat.  It's clear.  It's not convoluted.  Bad people with bad people.  Good people with good people.  Black and white.  Good and bad.  It's a dirty, creepy world out there and if we can just keep the lines of demarcation intact, I think maybe we could pull  this off.
   
What?  There's more?  Seriously?  I haven't filtered the first stuff yet.  OK, let me have it.  "And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and Samaria...Samaria?...no one likes those guys...and to the ends of the earth".  So, you're saying we gotta hang with those folks?  Like, actually hang?  We have to like them?  Be friends with them?  They're going to mess us up.  They're really going to mess up our kids.  We've got to ISOLATE ourselves from them or they'll start to influence us.
   
What's that?  You say Jesus never intended us to ISOLATE ourselves so they don't influence us.  Instead, we're supposed to INSULATE ourselves with the Word of God and the Holy Spirit who lives inside us and influence them?  But, can't we just do that from a distance?  That's not the way Jesus did it...and we're supposed to be the hands and feet of Jesus?  Yikes!  That's pretty challenging.

So, you're saying Jesus never locked eyes with a human being he didn't love?  And, as his disciples we won't either?  So, to be his disciples...his witnesses, we have got to be in the world.  To be fishers of men, we gotta get out on the water.

OK, I'm with you, but what about the "Bad company corrupts good character"?  Where does that come in?  It's gotta come in somewhere.  You say it's a warning?  "Don't be misled.  Bad company corrupts good character".  In other words, Paul is warning us that out in the ugly, sinful world, we can be influenced by it if we're not careful.  We have to be IN the world, in order to influence it like Jesus did.  But, while we're IN the world, we've got to be careful that we're not OF the world.  Jesus' distinction was that he was the friend of sinners.  That he ate with tax-collectors and publicans.  That he pardoned prostitutes and simply told them to sin no more.  That he showed mercy to adulterers and adulteresses.  That he was a glutton and a wine-bibber (anyone know what a bibber is?  Whatever it is, it sounds bad.)

IN THE WORLD...rubbing elbows with people far from God...but, NOT OF THE WORLD...loving them like Jesus did, but not becoming them.  INSULATED, but not ISOLATED. 

This is way harder...but way more powerful.  I'm gonna need some help.  Oh, that was the idea all along!