You may find it hard to believe, but I’m not only old enough to remember the “Dick and Jane” readers in the public schools—with their mythic dog, Spot—I can actually remember away back to the days when Christians wrestled over whether to have a television or not! When the saints thought that the Lord’s Day should be wholly for the Lord. When fashions that attracted attention or were considered immodest were shunned by serious believers. There were excesses, I know. Some preachers found their “calling” in being fashion consultants, majoring on minors, never seeming to get past the externals, not “minister[ing] grace to the hearers” (Eph. 4:29).
But in spite of those aberrations, they seemed to be simpler times, and in many ways, better times. Today Dick and Jane are found only in antique shops. They are thought to be far too bland for children who blast there way through digitized death-defying traps and slaughter untold cyber-villains on their video screens. A stay-at-home mom and a working dad with well-adjusted children are too far from reality to be taken seriously. And few today would dare mention abstaining from worldly amusements for fear of being thought to be philistines. We should hardly expect worldlings to object to worldliness; like asking fish about water, it’s all they have ever known. But things have slipped so far that some unbelievers around us are actually crying out against the encroaching darkness. Yet the evangelical church through compromise has largely lost its voice against the incoming tide.
In Scripture, worldliness is not described so much in terms of what we have or do. In fact Paul warns against the “Touch not; taste not; handle not” approach to the problem (Col. 2:21). Instead it is in what we love: “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 Jn. 2:15). We have been sent on a mission into the world but we are not of it (Jn. 17:14-18). How can we “[love] the world” of people (Jn. 3:16), yet “love not the world” (1 Jn. 2:15) as a system—religious, economic, social, and political—a system that is opposed to everything pleasing to God?
First, there are specific moral directives in the Word (with no wiggle room!). For example, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Cor. 6:14). What is it about “not” we don’t understand? Or “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth” (Eph. 4:28). God turns thieves into philanthropists. There are many other such helpful commands.
There are also sweeping principles which must be applied to the particulars of life: “Do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph. 5:11). “Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king” (1 Pet. 2:17). In these cases, we are not told specifically how to do these things, but are expected to want to do them, and to look for practical ways to see them happen as we yield to the Spirit.
But it is in a third area that we find the greatest challenge. Some call them “gray areas” but there are no more gray areas in the world than there were on Spot’s coat. Paul teaches that some issues might be black to one believer and white to another, but every Christian should seriously ask the questions, seek the Lord’s help in finding His answer, “be fully persuaded in his own mind” (Rom. 14:5), and be gracious to those who may see it differently.
How can we escape from the vortex of worldly influence (2 Tim. 2:22)? By passionately throwing our energies in the opposite direction—”follow righteousness, faith, love, peace.” I have enough problems with my heart without feeding on “foolish and hurtful [desires], which drown men in destruction” (1 Tim. 6:9). If we would “keep [ourselves] unspotted from the world” (Jas. 1:27), it will only be with dogged persistence.
So run from the spots, run!