What Fellowship has Light with Darkness?

So what is the latest fad among churches? It seems to be Small groups or ‘Life Groups’ that include Christians and non-Christians. Here is an example I found on the internet:

The primary focus of every Christian Life Group however, is to provide an opportunity for strong life-giving relationships to develop between Christians, and between Christians and non-Christians. Through these relationships non-Christians have an opportunity to come to know Christ in a very genuine and personal way, and Christians can grow toward maturity in Christ.

On the face of it, this seems a good and reasonable idea. We make our small groups friendly and inviting to the non-Christians around us with the idea that they will join us in relationship which leads them toward salvation. We provide an environment in which we can love them into the Kingdom. Now I have no idea if there is documented proof that this works (I would not have been interested as a non-Christian) and even if a church could document that they had increased attendance in this way they could not truly document what happened within the hearts of non-Christians who had joined. I doubt no one’s sincerity in believing that this is a legitimate method of Kingdom building, but scripture makes a strong case to the contrary.

The book of Acts tells us of the early church that “day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:46-47 ESV) This is a tight community, one who worships together and shares their homes with one another. They have favor with ‘the people’, which I assume to mean the non-Christians around them, and the number of the saved is growing daily. So does this mean that they were embracing non-Christians as part of the body, or that the favor they found with non-Christians was the primary method of Kingdom growth? If we look at Acts 5, we will see that “they were all together in Solomon's Portico. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.” (Acts 5: 13 ESV) Evidently the favor and esteem of the people toward the early church were not the primary cause of growth but, as Acts 2:47 states, the LORD added to their number day by day.

This is where the modern church gets side-tracked so easily. Salvation, rather than being a violently invasive Spiritual event which is completely of God, has become a slow sales pitch for us. We keep endlessly searching for methods of Kingdom building that involve friendship with this world while forgetting that this world is at enmity with the Lord of the Kingdom. Living in America certainly does not help, since being ‘Christian’ here could mean anything from simply believing that there is a God to attending church or voting conservatively. The people of Jerusalem who surrounded the early church understood what it meant to be Christian. From a Jewish standpoint it meant being put out of the synagogue and socially shunned; they would not have dared to attend a small group as non-Christians unless they were led of the Spirit to do so.

We also need to understand that the separation between ourselves and those in the world is a stark one. This is not ‘us against them’, and I would be the first to admit that I am a sinner – not unlike those in the world – in need of grace. But the admission of the need of grace makes all the difference. I can have fellowship with those who have made a similar admission, but there is no fellowship with those who haven’t. Paul states it plainly to the Corinthian church:

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? (2 Corinthians 6:14-16 ESV)

Man that is intense! Even I think that these words seem divisive - seem to be a mandate for ‘spiritual racism’ - until I realize that these are the words of a man who gave his whole life and heart in the attempt to win those in darkness and lawlessness to Christ by the preaching of the gospel. Paul loved these lost ones, but he realized that there was no possible way to keep fellowship with them. To do so was to be unequally yoked to those who remained dead to God.

Paul would have recognized the danger in the small group outreach model. First, there is danger that we will leave off preaching law and gospel in favor of ‘friendship evangelism’ (which we largely have). The law brings us the bad news that we cannot satisfy God by what we do, and the gospel, as good news, is the instrument that the Holy Spirit uses to bring about salvation in the life of an individual (Romans 1:16). I defy anyone to find any instance in the scriptures where someone was ‘loved’ to Christ without the preaching of the gospel. Secondly, there is great danger that the individual we are ‘loving’ into the fold will simply begin to model Christian behavior without true heart conversion. In essence, the small group outreach model is just a scaled-down version of ‘invite-somebody-to-church-Sunday’. If we invite somebody to church and they do not hear the gospel (whether it’s not preached or they just don’t have ears to hear) it accomplishes nothing. Sitting in a church does not equal salvation or sanctification. Neither does attending small group. But there is a danger that many will believe it does.

It all comes back to Acts 2:47; it is the Lord that adds to our number day by day. To accept the small group outreach model is an admission that we believe, in opposition to scripture, that non-Christians are basically good people who need a little direction in their lives rather than sinners who need to radical intervention of the Holy Spirit through the hearing of the gospel to save their endangered souls. Perhaps that is a bit harsh, but at the very least it shows that we are unwilling to offend them by the violent, life-invading truth of the gospel. Part of that truth is that there can be no true friendship between us and the world:

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4 ESV)

As harsh as that is, that is the gospel truth.

P.S. On the first Sunday of our new believer’s class, we had an unsaved gentleman come in and sit quietly as each of us shared our testimony. The conviction of the Holy Spirit came upon him and one of our class members presented the good news to him and he obeyed the gospel. If we were willing to use our small groups as such an opportunity to bring people in and share testimony and gospel, that would be a Biblical and useful practice. The scriptural objection would be to expecting that there would be continued ‘fellowship’ between Christians and non-Christians with the expectation that the non-Christians would eventually ‘catch on’. That is not a Biblical form of evangelism. Don't take my word for it, search the scriptures and see for yourself.