{"id":1645,"date":"2010-04-06T22:55:32","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T06:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2010\/04\/06\/macarthur-and-separation\/"},"modified":"2010-04-06T22:55:32","modified_gmt":"2010-04-07T06:55:32","slug":"macarthur-and-separation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2010\/04\/06\/macarthur-and-separation\/","title":{"rendered":"macarthur and separation"},"content":{"rendered":"

I guess this is old news by now, but I just got around to listening to John MacArthur\u2019s opening message for the 2010 Shepherd\u2019s Conference: \u201cSeparating from Unbelievers<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d encourage you to listen to this message. Other than a few quibbles, I think that pastor MacArthur gives us good reasons for separating from unbelievers when it comes to any kind of joint spiritual enterprise.<\/p>\n

However, I do have one major question about this message: Was it Paul\u2019s original intent to limit the application of this passage ONLY to joint spiritual enterprises with unbelievers? Was this kind of thing really a problem in Corinth in AD 56 or so?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To listen to MacArthur\u2019s message, one might be led to think so. But I can\u2019t imagine that Paul was addressing a situation where the Corinthians were actually joining hands with the local idolaters in some kind of joint religious services, can you? Why would they, newly saved out of idolatry, need that kind of instruction?<\/p>\n

Pastor MacArthur makes a point of their recent conversions directly out of idolatry, and he is right. From there he goes on to make application to joint religious efforts with unbelievers. I believe that application is a correct one, but it seems that he wants to limit the passage to that application only.<\/p>\n

The Corinthians may have had some problems with cooperating with unbelievers, but these unbelievers would have been posing as Christians, the false apostles Paul was also contending with in 2 Corinthians. I am  not sure that it is these false apostles Paul has in view in 2 Cor 6, though he does deal with them later.<\/p>\n

The Corinthians definitely did have problems in their relations with idolaters, however. We can see this in 1 Cor 8-10, in the famous meat offered to idols passage. There are various interpretations of how this particular compromise took place. Gordon Fee suggests in his commentary on 1 Cor that the Corinthians were actually eating the meat offered to idols in the idol temples<\/em>! I tend to agree with Fee\u2019s interpretation here (somewhat reluctantly, because I disagree with Fee a lot).<\/p>\n

In any case, it does seem to me that the problems Paul is addressing in 2 Cor 6 include subtle compromises with idolatry such as those addressed in 1 Cor 8-10. It is these subtle compromises that are so easily made that trip us up spiritually, and Paul is dealing with them in very stark language in 2 Cor 6.<\/p>\n

So yes, I agree with MacArthur, we can have no cooperation with unbelievers in religious services. That\u2019s absolutely right.<\/p>\n

But the passage has a much broader application than that. Surely it would include bringing the music of idol worship into the church<\/a> as well, would it not?<\/p>\n

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I guess this is old news by now, but I just got around to listening to John MacArthur\u2019s opening message for the 2010 Shepherd\u2019s Conference: \u201cSeparating from Unbelievers\u201d I\u2019d encourage you to listen to this message. Other than a few quibbles, I think that pastor MacArthur gives us good reasons for separating from unbelievers when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[71,76,60,68,44],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-qx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}