What Does It Mean to Be In the World but Not of the World?
Holy is one of those religious words that is too often misunderstood and misused. Culture sees a holy person as some who is so beyond the rest of us that we can’t relate to him. He is so spiritual, so saintly, so holy, we can’t imagine him eating Cap’n Crunch cereal or mowing the lawn in an old Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt.
I’ve met people who tried to fit that description, who tried to give off the aura of someone who is so spiritual they only watch the 700 Club and wouldn’t dream of eating devil’s food cake because … well, it is associated with that guy. This is the evangelical version of a monk, someone who thinks holiness is better attained by avoiding any involvement with the world. Some want to “Christianize” everything: only wears T-shirts with pithy churchy statements … doesn’t read Mother Goose rhymes to his child; he only reads from the Christian Mother Goose … won’t let his child have a Nerf gun but will give him the Armor of God plastic playset.
My mother had an apt phrase for this person.
“He’s so heavenly minded, he’s no earthly good.”
Before you dismiss my mother (!), she was aware of what God’s Word says:
“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Col. 3:2).
We should be Christ-centered and Christ-focused, but we still live in this world. To have no association with people and the culture in which we live would require, as Paul said, for us to leave this world (1 Cor. 5:10). Of course, some people go in quite the opposite direction. They don’t just live in the world; they live immersed in the world.
The balanced is found in the oft-quoted statement: “Be in the world, but not of the world.” This concept is pulled from Jesus’s prayer for His disciples:
“I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” (John 17:15-16).
As followers of Christ, we are no longer of this world, but God has not yet taken us from this world. In other words, we are in the world, but we are not to be of the world.
What exactly does that look like? Living for Christ is like a boat. A boat must be in the water if it is to fulfill its identity as a boat. However, if too much water gets in the boat, the boat sinks. It can’t function as the boat it was designed to be.
If you are a Christian—a follower of Christ—you are holy. You are set apart for Christ and His purposes. But to use the boat analogy, you are still floating in the culture. That is God’s intent. You can live in the world, engaging with the culture and its people, without embracing or endorsing the things of this world. That’s what Jesus did. He gladly hung out with worldly people without ever losing His focus on the things of God.
Be in the world, not of the world.
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Banner photo by Andrej Nihil on Unsplash.
NOTE: MY LAST BLOG WILL BE AUGUST 28.
