shunning evil

I think one of the struggles for Christians in America is that we co-exist with evil. In fact, we’re encouraged to in the name of tolerance.

If Job came to my home town, what would he think of God’s people here? What would he think of me? Job 1:1 says Job “was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.” Would he watch me go about life and think that I, too, shun evil?

If he watched Netflix with me, read my Twitter feed, looked over my library books, what would he think? Would he watch all those portrayals of extra-marital relationships, of violent solutions to problems, of shady business deals and corrupt political maneuverings and all the weird behaviors that happen in prison and think it’s all OK? Or would Job ask me why I choose to take in so many different depictions of evil in a day?

If Job watched me at work, if he listened to the language my co-workers sometimes use and the jokes we sometimes tell, if he heard our discussions of how to handle customers in the cheapest way possible, if he watch the backstabbing and infighting that can go on in an office, what would he say? Would he commend me for shunning evil? Would he ask me why I tolerate it?

Job wasn’t ignorant of evil. He had some hard-partying kids, the kind who needed purification and extra sin offerings after their banquets. He raised livestock in a region where raiders and thieves were common. Religions of the time often featured temple prostitutes. There were promiscuous, permissive, self-indulgent people all around him.

Yet Job somehow lived and prospered in this society. He was well thought of. And through it all, he shunned evil.

It’s a sobering challenge to me to be less of this world I’m called to be in. I’m not sure I know how to do that. I am sure I need to try.