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Holy Worldliness – Part Two

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Written By Tim Brister

Tim has a missionary heart for his hometown to love those close to him yet far from God. He is husband to Dusti and father to Nolan, Aiden, and Adelyn - fellow pilgrims to our celestial city.

After having talked about how Christ identified with the world as an impetus for cultural engagement, Stott continues to explain how and where this happens.

Most people touch the world at three points at least–at work, at home among neighbours, and in spare time activities involving membership of sporting teams, social clubs, political activities and community service.  We should welcome the contact with non-Christian people which all such opportunities bring.  To go ‘into the world’ does not necessarily mean to travel to a distant country or primitive tribe.  ‘This world’ is secular, godless society; it is all around us.  Christ sends us ‘into the world’ when He puts us into any group which does not know or honour Him.  It might be in our own street, or in an office or shop, school, hospital or factory, or even in our own family.  And here in the world we are called to love, to serve, and to offer genuine, sacrificial relationship.  Paradoxically stated, the only truly Christian context in which to witness is the world.

Sometimes a Christian’s connection with the world resembles that of a man-made satellite.  He is in contact with it, but in orbit outside its atmosphere.  And his entry into the world seems to him as difficult and dangerous as a satellite’s re-entry.  Indispensable as a genuine ‘entry’ is, it must not be misunderstood, however.

He continues with two extremes . . .

There are then two extremes to be avoided.  The first is identification without proclamation, sitting alongside people with nothing to say, and with no intention of seeking to win them for Christ.  We cannot surrender our God-given duty of proclamation. . . . Equally false is the opposite extreme of proclamation without identification, of offering pat solutions to problems we have never even attempted to understand. 

I think Stott is on to something here, don’t you?  Are we living our lives as spiritual satellites, sending God’s signal and transmitting the gospel without ever entering our world?  Are we afraid or not willing to take the risk of “re-entry”?   Could our failures in proclamation be predicated by an absence of identification?  Have we answered the call “to love, to serve, and to offer genuine, sacrificial relationship” with the non-Christians in our world?