Strange Friends

Jim Was A Young Christadelphian brother. He had been baptized for a few years, and was getting along well — or so everyone thought. He always came to meeting, and he was an active member of CYC. He organized youth weekends. He visited older members. He gave classes and was thorough in his study.

A secret life

But Jim had a secret life. He was in university, and he lived on his own in a small apartment. During the course of the week he spent a lot of his time with strange company. He had an especial fondness for murderers. But not just murderers, he also enjoyed a good thief, the odd adulterer and sometimes a fornicator. In their company, he often found himself wishing for strange things.

For example, a long-married couple each confessed to him that they were very unhappy with each other. They both longed to be with someone else. Jim wanted them either to get divorced or have affairs.

Then there was the night when a son, who had been abused and beaten by his drunken father, finally had his moment of revenge. Jim found his own anger was only satisfied when the son pulled the trigger.

He enjoyed his strange friends so much that he began to invite CYC members over so that they could meet them as well. It began to be sort of an informal habit, that CYC members would gather at Jim’s house for a good time. Sometimes they would do the readings. Then they would enjoy a good intrigue with Jim’s secret friends.

Yes, Jim liked to watch movies.

Romans 1 is our world

Romans 1 describes our world so well. “Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents, they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

Do we approve? Would we approve if a friend told us unrepentantly that he was rebelling against his parents? Would we approve and take pleasure in watching someone rebel against his/her parents? We can’t have it both ways. We can’t condemn something and then willingly take pleasure in watching it happen.

I Corinthians 15:32-34 says, “Do not be misled, bad company corrupts good character.” So then it seems that God’s view of the matter is that we shouldn’t invite anyone from our TV into our lives that we wouldn’t actually want in our house, and in our ecclesia.