Is it possible to avoid sinners?

Our daughter’s birthday is three days after mine so we usually celebrate together. I took her for lunch on Friday, and last night the family went to a small restaurant for a bigger birthday party. She picked the place because some friends of hers were the evening’s entertainment. We enjoyed good guitar music and Paul’s original songs, a combination of “acoustic folk, roots and blues” with “well-thought out lyrics, solid vocals, and occasional blues harp accompaniment.”

Other than a few people at our table, likely there were no Christians in the place, but I didn’t feel uncomfortable. I didn’t hear any blasphemy or see anything that blatantly dishonored God. Certainly last night’s experience gave me pause when I read the devotional for today. Its focus was from Revelation 2 where Jesus is speaking to the church at Ephesus:

“I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars. . . .” (Revelation 2:2)

The author of the devotional takes up the phrase “you cannot bear those who are evil” and writes that those who love Jesus “should be so consumed with God’s glory that we hurt when He is dishonored.” He also quotes Psalm 69:9, “Because zeal for Your house has eaten me up, And the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.”

When I read it, I thought about the word “evil” and realized that there are degrees of it. Normally I see things in black and white, and certainly God has two categories for people: those who know and love Him and those who do not. However, out of the sinners who know or do not know God, there is a wide range of capacity for good and for evil.

Even Christians can behave in evil ways, acting the same as those who do not know God. The Bible is filled with strong warnings, rebukes and exhortations to the people of God who act as if they are atheists. I thought of one incidence where Paul writes to a church about their need to avoid evil people. However, what he says is remarkable, even a surprise:

I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner — not even to eat with such a person. (1 Corinthians 5:9-11)

He could have told them to stay away from unsaved people who drink beer and sing songs about human events, but he didn’t do that. Instead he tells them to stay away from Christians who do sinful things (that seems far worse).

In other words, “fun” that does not dishonor God’s name, even though it isn’t honoring Him either, isn’t the concern that Paul had. He says it is not possible to avoid being around sinners. What he is more concerned with is that Christians tolerate sinful activities among themselves. We are supposed to honor Jesus Christ because He is our Lord and Savior, our Giver of eternal life, our source of all good things, not live like everyone else. Our lives are to be different from the ordinary.

My husband and I are never sure what others think of us when we are in public places. He always gives thanks for the food. Last night, anyone within earshot heard him honor God. We welcomed two people to the empty chairs at our table as the restaurant filled to capacity. (It turned out that we knew one of them, and both are Christians.) The singer gave our daughter and me pleasant but low-key birthday greetings. We left the place without feeling “contaminated” because there were no lewd jokes, loud swearing, or rude behaviors.

Jesus ate and drank with sinners and was criticized for it. Whoever found fault with Him didn’t know their Bible very well; it is impossible to eat and drink with anyone who is not a sinner! Jesus also refused to spend much time with the self-righteous or those who called themselves God’s people yet acted worse than the people they looked down at for being “publicans and sinners.”

All this tells me that God is far more concerned with the sin of His people than the sin of those who do not know Him. In Christ, I have the capacity to say no to sin, and whenever I don’t, I am dishonoring Him. Those who do not know Christ do not have that capacity, and most of them have no idea it is available. That is why Jesus spent time with sinners; His presence opened many eyes and made sinners desire what He could give them.

It is our hope and desire that Jesus may have given us just a small role in doing the same thing at this birthday party where we celebrated His goodness in the midst of a group of people who do not know Him.