What does it mean to be “in” the world and not “of” it? - Culture - TouchPoints

2 Kings 17:8They had followed the practices of the pagan nations the Lord had driven from the land ahead of them, as well as the practices the kings of Israel had introduced.

The people of Israel were given laws and rules to set them apart from the surrounding pagan cultures. They did not always obey. Instead of influencing the cultures around them for God, they were influenced by them to go against God. As a Christian, you should be aware of your culture and the practices that are not godly. Determine to stand upright and be a godly influence on your culture, rather than let it influence you.

Romans 14:14-23I know and am convinced on the authority of the Lord Jesus that no food, in and of itself, is wrong to eat. But if someone believes it is wrong, then for that person it is wrong. And if another believer is distressed by what you eat, you are not acting in love if you eat it. . . . For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too. . . . Remember, all foods are acceptable, but it is wrong to eat something if it makes another person stumble. . . . if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sinning if you go ahead and do it. For you are not following your convictions. If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.

The rejection of ritually impure meat was a well-known requirement of the Old Testament covenant that had shaped Jewish culture. As Jews and god-fearing Gentiles came to faith in the Messiah, many continued with strong convictions about maintaining this observance of the law. Paul and other believers were convinced that under the new covenant, all food could be accepted with thanks to God (1 Tim 4:3-5). Being in the world, in the culture but not of it, means navigating the significance of actions that are not inherently wrong in and of themselves. Do your actions violate your conscience? Do your actions encourage another believer to violate their convictions? You must use your freedom to act with loving concern for fellow believers—sometimes within the expectations of your culture, and sometimes outside of them. Being in the world but not of it means to claim certain things for Christ and use them, not as the world would, but in a way that serves others and brings glory to God.

Psalm 8:6-9You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority—the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents. O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

1 Corinthians 3:21-23So don’t boast about following a particular human leader. For everything belongs to you—whether Paul or Apollos or Peter, or the world, or life and death, or the present and the future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

People in the world who don’t believe in Christ often become chained to the things their culture says offer security. They are of the world because they know no purpose and see no future after this life, so the culture is all they have. They live only off the messages and values taught by the culture because that is the highest authority they know. Believers in Christ live in culture like everyone else, but they are not enslaved by it because they are able to see that culture offers a false promise of security. That is why believers in Christ are not of the culture, for they know that life on earth is just a tiny part of eternal living. They are not enslaved by their culture because their belief in Christ gives eternal value to their actions and not their possessions. They are free to use all that God has given them to influence the culture and to invest their lives for the future, not the present.

Matthew 5:14-16“You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”

John 17:15-16“I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do. Make them holy by your truth.”

There are two equal but opposite dangers concerning the believer’s attitude toward the world: full acceptance of the culture and its ways, or complete rejection of the culture. Jesus teaches several principles about the culture: (1) God loves the world and sent his Son to redeem those who believe (John 3:16); (2) the world hates Jesus and therefore hates Jesus’s followers (John 15:18); (3) the world is a place of trouble and tribulation, not only because of the normal trials of life, but because of the intentional persecution of Jesus’ followers (John 16:33). So Jesus’s followers have a complex relationship with the culture as a place of mission and a place of danger. Either absorption by the culture or isolation from the culture would violate Jesus’s intention for you. You are to learn to live in the world and enjoy the good things of God’s creation (1 Tim 4:4) without being controlled by your desires or compromised by the world’s pressures (1 John 2:15-17). You also learn to see the world continually as your mission field.