May 23

2 Thessalonians 3:6 (NIV)

6 In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.

Twice in this chapter Paul talks about not associating with people who are not walking according to the teaching that he has given. He says to “not associate with them”, to “keep ones distance” from them. He puts it in the context of warning them as brothers and not making them your enemies, but the passage clearly talks about not “hanging out” with people.

This is a bit of a foreign concept to us because we think that Jesus is somehow standardless – He is not. These people that Paul is talking about are not having sex outside of marriage, nor getting drunk, they are (at least the first group) people who are not willing to work! You might be saying, isn’t that a little harsh? Can’t we work with people? Of course we are to work with people and judge nobody according to the flesh, however there is a principle of pollution, a principle of leaven here that we need to see. Before I state it clearly, may I say that we are not suppose to go around and judge everybody’s lives every week and kick people out of the church or out of our lives. Yet there is a time, when the Spirit of God will show us, to warn a person because they are in danger, and the church is in danger as well! Rest assured, I, and the leadership, will not be judging anybody in regards to their life, it is the Lord who judges and rescues from idleness or not adhering to any of the teachings of Christ.

The principle of leaven is this – a little leaven infects the whole batch. If there are a few, or even one person who is rebellious to the Lord and continues in that rebellion – meaning he or she makes it a habit or way of life, then they WILL infect others. (By the way, that is what kind of person this passage is talking about – one who is doing wrong and bent on continuing in it). It will grow and spread, so it must be dealt with.

Caution: Deal with your own leaven before you even look at anyone else’s.