Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord.

The traditional understanding of “come ye out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord”...as believers have been taught to believe and by practice still believes...is to not be friends or associate with non-believers, especially associating with them in their environment. Oh...it is OK to try and scare the hell out of them when they come to event-driven-meetings. But, is that concept the understanding we get from the life of Jesus?

Jesus is our best example of living a life of holiness. He is God in human flesh. His life serves as the best conclusion for what divine holiness looks like when living in the community humanity. And they rightly called him “a friend of...sinners” (Matt. 11:19).

So, if the traditional understanding is correct why did the God-Man who associated with the bad of the baddest of His day go against the established belief of the Pharisaical Law Keepers...have we missed the point of His living lesson? Jesus is the friend of sinners, not their enemy!

What Jesus is not doing when associating with unbelievers is worth understanding. He is not merely going with the flow or wanting to be accepted by the popular trending majority. He is not out for just a spiritual good time or be a part of the social scene to satisfy His ego or grow His reputation by standing for a cause or manipulate people to give money to His ministry.

Notice that Jesus does not condone the works of iniquity in in His befriending them. There is also NO condemning of the nonbelievers He associates with. He’s there for a specific purpose...actively showing people a better way. He associates with unbelievers as a means of expressing kingdom living principles, wooing them to repentance because of His love for them. The ironic thing is He finds the hardest hearts to understand this are among the self-righteous, “believing” law keeping religious people of His day who believe they have the way and it is their way or no way. That attitude is still prevalent today and and are the people addressed by The "come ye out from among them."

Jesus is showing us that befriending nonbelievers does not dirty His righteousness therefore, it does not dirty believers because He has imputed His righteousness to them. Neither does associating with nonbelievers pollute a believer's testimony, and notice that He is not condemning the "sinner's" bad works. Because He is among them, He is close enough that His presence confronts their unbelief with His grace and love, not with judgement and condemnation!

The truth of Christ Gospel being understood by nonbelievers isn’t automatic, and won’t come from a passivity nonchalance attitude toward them by not associating with them because they don’t attend event-driven meetings to hear the gospel...or...fear-mongering them with the threat of eternal damnation in hell fire. Rather it happens through a sustained intentional association with nonbelievers, befriending them in the atmosphere they live in and interacting with them in there daily living. God working through us will draw them toward a relationship with Jesus.

1 Cor. 5:9-11 reads. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people...not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler...not even to eat with such a one.

Don’t confuse the call to "come ye out from among them" as to separate from openly sinning sinners...rather...the call is to come out from groups of dogmatic, self-righteous, people condemning religious know-it-alls. It’s one thing to be a believer and embrace sin. It’s quite another thing to separate from nonbelievers who doesn’t yet confess Christ.

If we’re taking our living life instruction from God in human flesh...(Jesus), eating with and befriending nonbelievers is the very thing we’re called to.